The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-03-02
SAND BANKS AS RIVALS
OF RICH GOLD MINES
Long Islanders Believe in Them as
Good Money-Makers and
Invest Capital.
LARGE PROFITS ARE MADE

the dickens take Inc SOlu mlnts
Long Islanders who live along the sound
have been firm in the belief that sand
bank beats color as a money maker ever
since a shrewd Quaker restored the for
tunes of his family by digging up the dune
on the seafront of his farm. loading 1t on
barges and sending it to New York TO De
used for building purposes. That was the
inception OF systematic sea sand incusTy
that has brought riches TO hundrecs OF men,
and especially 10 the numerous descendants
of many of the first white owners OF the
land 1t was likewise the opening up OF
Americas biggest sand field and the begin
ming of the end of the effort TO supply New
York's demand for sand by dissing II up
along the beaches around Coney lSlano ana
in upper New Jersey.
The original settlers on Manhasset neck
where sea sand fortunes were nrst mace
and around Hampstead harbor, where nu-
merous sand banks are now being worked
with as much method as Is gOlu mlie'
and which have netted their owners APP
proximateiy s., eco within the last SIX
years, Were Quakers. The Quakers lnvarla-
bly, portion their property equally among
their children. Vast farming tracts had
thus become divided into small farms or
mere garden patches fifteen years ago, and
many an owner of a few acres of land was
having hard time making a living.
Among the number was the man VINO
started the sand industry. He had a large
family, two of the children We're all but
ready 10 go TO college, and he had not the
just enough TO keep him and his supplied
with the necessities
In the midst of his anxiety over his chill
drens future he thought of the sand hill at
the sea end of his property. Then it oc-
CURED to him that sand is used for building
purposes The very thing, he said: III III
get that sand to New York somehow ana
the money that it brings will educate my
children.
1t did more. 1t made the man wealthy;
he left will that gave to each of his on
| inheritance worth
sands of dollars.
The ssnd-bank region is full of similar
| cases. There is a story of the manufac-
turer who failed and had left only his an
cestors farm, the pride of his heart, and
that was heavily mortgaged, and in danger
of being taken from him. He pocketed his
pride, sought out the two men who had been
trying to buy the sea end of the farm for a
sand bank and sold them fifty acres for
$1,000 an acre and a small but profitable
| share in the business. For farming pur~
| poses the land was hardly worth $50 an acre.
Now the man has paid off all his old indebt-
| edness and is rapidly accommodating another
| fortune, although it has been only four
| years since he met financial disaster.
This mans rise and that of many others
! to wealth through sands are invariably told
| to the visitor in such towns as Roslyn and
| Port Washington in this fashion:
See that man over there? Four years
! ago he was as poor as Jobs turkey. Now
he owns that big place yonder and heaps
| besides. Sand did it.
Morning, Mr.. Hicks. He's another one
| or EN-. turned his farm INTO a Sa0u put,
and tells me that he and the men who are
| in with him are making 500 day clear
money. 'Tisn't so long ago since he was
wondering where his next dollar would come
NONE CAN ESCAPE.
| And so it goes, until the visitor wonders
how any one in the sand-bank country has
| escaped making his pile out of sand.
But not few who could have sedulously
| refrained from doing In the language
of the Swedish foreman of one of the sand
| banks, It's their funny ideas about an
| cestors that keep them poor" There 5
many an old Long island family that will
| not sell it's ancestral home for love or
! money, no matter how much it needs the
| latter. and that looks aSkance upon the
neighbor who will permit OF such desecra-
ton for material gain 1t was this attitude
on the part Of land owners that six years
| ago caused the sand industry to shift from
| Manhasset neck to Hampstead harbor.
This shift gave rise to systematic and
| scientific sand industry. The banks on
| Manhasset were worked in a primitive way,
The sand, with no attempt to separate il
from gravel and loan and other extra
neous substances, was worked by hand
loaded into carts and dumped on to barges
drawn up at the end of a rickety pier lead
ing from the pit Then it was towed &c
New York, where it found a ready market
and later on was screened by hand in front
of some building under construction, jus
before ii became a component part of the
plaster being mixed in q mortar bed.
The sand is still towed to the metropolis
1900 tons, or 100000 pounds of IL daily
but that is the only part OF the old method
that still generally obtains. A few spades
and carts no longer all that is neces
sary to get out the sand; their place ha:
been taken by a mechanical plant that rep
J resents an investment of all the way from
a few thousand to many thousands of dol
lars. This radical change was caused b!
one. sand bank owner believing that h
could get the better portion of the sant
trade by sending his sand to market al
reauy for use. And by this scheme he go
| it and kept IL until his rivals were able e
put machinery i'm operation that also mad,
1t possible for them to supply clean SANE
to customers.
A typical sand bank plant looks like moth
Ing so much as the exterior works Of al
| anthracite coal mine, only the structures
instead OF browning an elevation, are OF
the floor of the pit, the seml-circdlar wal
of which not infrequently towers 100 fee
| above. The washer IS largely responsible
for this similarity in appearance. 1t is bull
on the same general plan as coal breaker
has the latter's ample proportions and j
pyramidal and towers like it.
, In addition to the washer each pit ha
one more screens fed by an endies
chain of cups filled by hand and steam
shovels ard various means of Transporting
the products-fine and rough sand an
, | gravel-to the barges anchored by the pier
Sometimes this Is done by carts; again to-
locomotives and cars puff from screen L
washer and steam shovels for freight an
then pull out over the barSes and FIRE
| themselves o.
has gone a step further-it hauls its san
by trolley. and in this way loads betwee
; ten and twelve barges day
, HIGH ACREAGE PRICE.
r This is by far the largest sand bank o
Long island, and of the biggest i
America The bank itself consists of nearl
500 acres, bought at prices varying fro.
$1,000 to 81, 500 an acre. and the plant is s
large that the great pit, which begins a.
2 most at the waters edge, extends back
! | quarter of a mile, and is nearly a third of
mile at its widest part is not capable {
holding il all, three buildings having thei
{ foundations in the bottom of Eempstea
l harbor.
At this plant the sand is not only serene
and washed free of loan and other forsig
substances; it is dried. An endless belt cal
ries a steady stream OF sand high over IN
shore road into one OF the buildings OF
over the water and on n re6-hot metal SUI
face, which evaporates the moisture in III
very few seconds il takes the sand TO travi
4 over it and fall down a hopper into a can;
s boat Then, when the boat is filled, III
{ matches are battened down and five hour
: | later the sand is delivered perfectly dry
the wharf OF the New York consgnee.
I An innovation at another sand bank is
:, / centrifugal machine that blows up tons
e | sand a day into screens and the washe
h | and that does away with a great portion
: the hand labor that Is necessarily require
/ where even steam shoVelS and steam raj
> roads and trolley systems are employed 4
$ the average Hempstead harbor sand ban
Y forty men find work, and at least one ban
. / has a pay roll that contains over co name
Scarcely any OF the employees of the sar