Larmon House Movers, Inc. Picture Gallery

Some interesting moving projects that we did in the past. (Continued.)

Moving a house in Fort Edward, NY on Thanksgiving day, 1930. Note the trolley tracks, which used to run to Troy, NY.

Shows detail of truss-loaded kingpost, main beams and rollers. The vertical post (kingpost) rests on a short beam which extends only a short way under the house. The cables running from the outside load beams over the kingpost form the truss. We use a three-point suspension, like a tricycle, which prevents the building from being "racked," as it would be were the load distributed on four points. The front set of rollers (shown) is under this short beam. The back two sets of rollers are under the outside load beams. Because there are only two bearing beams, on the outside, this truss arrangement allows the load carried by crucial front center set of rollers to be distributed to the two bearing beams.

This house was moved from the site of the Fort Edward High School. It is now located across the road, on top of the hill.

They use horses, don't they? 1937 picture shows Milton J. Larmon with a horse driven capstan, (horse not shown) which was what provided the power to pull the buildings we were moving. The capstan is a drum, which would have a cable wrapped around it with one end attached to the wooden beams that were put under the building being moved. The capstan was secured to something stationary, like a tree. A long post (or sweep), shown in the foreground, would go through a hole in the shaft that goes vertically through the drum, and the other end would be hitched to a horse (or horses). The horse would walk around the capstan, turning the drum. When the drum turned, the cable was wound around the capstan providing the power to move the building.

We did have gasoline powered trucks at the time, but a horse could step over the cable a whole lot better than a truck could. These trucks weren't powerful enough to provide the needed power. A few years later, we acquired gear-driven winches that were powered by the engine on a truck.

Moving a church in Corinth, NY in 1948. Note that we are now using a gear-driven winch mounted on the truck to pull the house. This is how a modern day tow truck works. (This truck was rented from Robert Shaw of Greenwich, NY, who helped us out when we had an exceptionally large project.)

Installing a knitting machine in Victory Mills, NY. 193?.

Vanderwerker, 1935.

Background image of equalizing hitch, used to couple between the capstan and the building being moved, courtesy of the House Movers Supply Company catalog, circa 1912.

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