You may recall previous posts here and here about these machines called “alligators” or warping tugs, flat bellied vessels used in timbering a century ago that could pull themselves across short stretches of land between bodies of water.    These photos were sent to me by Steven Smith who owns a camp near where the photos of wreckage in the second link above were taken.  The images that follow likely show that same tug in its prime.  Steve writes that in the early 1920s, the tug was “shipped on a flatbed railroad car to the RR station at Bemis, Maine, next to Mooselucmeguntic lake – it steamed over to Upper Dam, over the carry to Richardson Lake then to Middle Dam and then down the Carry road to its home on Pond in the River all under its own power .”  Notice the name Roebling on the spool of cable.  Alligator worked on the lakes from 1923 until about 1953.

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In this close-up, notice the levers and U-joints employed to raise the props and shafts during land transits.

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The next two photos below show while the Alligator was in transit from the Bemis RR station to Pond in the River:  two lakes and two transits on dry land to get to Pond in the River

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Thanks much to Steve Smith for sending along these photos.  Credit for the top four photos goes to Brown Company Collection, Michael Spinelli, Jr. Center for University Archives and Special Collections, Herber H. Lamson library and Learning Commons, Plymouth State University, and that’s in Plymouth, NH.

And the timing . . . check out this story about the annual celebration of alligators  below NYC . .  maybe connecting the various parts of the sixth boro.