Back To Port Huron

 I went to visit an old friend yesterday. 

Kellie and I made a jaunt to Canandaigua, NY for an event I used to go to with my Dad, "The Steam Show". 

It was something he always liked. Lines and lines of antique tractors, stationary engines, steamers, you name it. He's poke at this one or that one and chat with guys in pinstripe coveralls for hours. 

It was much smaller (as was I) back then but I remember very well the smell of coal smoke, steam whistles wailing, hit and miss engines popping, sawmills buzzing on the end of a 50 foot belt, threshing machines flailing along, a parade of giant machines chuffing around the track and a whole building full of tiny model steam engines. I wasn't allowed near anything running because most machines of that era had never seen a belt cover or chain guard. Everything was right out in the open ready to remove a finger or more. A ton of flywheel and an open belt with a half twist was not to be trifled with. It was pretty amazing for the kid who spent hours watching the tractors go by in the field next door at home.

I didn't make it back for a lot of years after I got a few years of my own under my boots but it was always a "I gotta get back to that" thing on the list. I finally made it.

It's gotten pretty huge since I was there last. A lot of people use golf carts, quads and garden tractors just to get around it all there's so much acreage. 

But to my old friend...

In another long story that I'll have to track down among the fuzzy memories in my head, Dad wound up with a 1915 Port Huron steam traction engine.

It belonged to a friend of his named Argyle Ballard, an old farmer from Newark who still ran it to thresh oats. This is the engine in 1981 when it was only 66 years old.

Dad had it stored in a shed he built in the back yard and on occasion he'd fire it up and chuff around the yard. He was never able to get the water injectors to work right so it was a brief run at low pressure as he had to pull the fire when the water started getting low. It was pretty special though.

Over the years, runs got less frequent as he was pretty nervous about the state of the boiler which hadn't seen much maintenance or an inspection since probably the '20s. He ran it on compressed air a couple times I think but mostly it sat for longer and longer periods.

He asked me once upon a time if I wanted him to leave it to me when he passed away. It was sore tempting but reality reared it's ugly head and I knew I'd never be able to take care of it, much less restore it. I didn't have anyplace to keep it under cover and couldn't afford to build one. I don't think I could have scrounged up the money to even move it at the time.

So Dad wound up leaving it to the Pageant. It made a lowboy trip to Canandaigua and there it stays, not so far from Newark where it worked it's last. She's 111 years old now and hasn't seen a fire in a lot of years. They keep it under cover as Dad did but tow it out to display for the show each year. They started to paint it but the guy doing it is gone so it'll have to wait.

I found one of the guys from the New York Steam Engine Association while we were wandering around the grounds and had a long chat. I told him my Dad had donated the engine and he lit up about "The Port Huron". He said it was one of his favorites and grabbed another guy walking by with, "Hey, this is the son of the guy that donated 'The Port Huron'." 

"The Port Huron". It was "The Port Huron" every time.

He said it's on a long list of engines to get a new boiler someday but that it costs over $100,000 by the time it's all done and that doesn't restore all of the rest. But it's going to get done and someday, 'The Port Huron' will whistle and sizzle again.

We took a few pictures of her and history whispered in my ear again as it often does. I found Dad's little oilcan in the same tin holder in front of the engineer where it was handy. I wondered when he last filled it.

We wandered around the grounds a while but there were a lot of ghosts among the iron and a rain shower blew in to scurry us back to the car. 

I drove out feeling better knowing Dad's engine was sleeping in good care. They invited us to come back again and check up on her and I'm sure I will. 

Maybe, just maybe, I might even see the old workhorse smoke and steam again. Dad would like that.