Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1881 — AWAY UP IN THE WORLD. [ARTICLE]

AWAY UP IN THE WORLD.

Talk With th* Maa Who Palate llwplw James Ferguson, of Albany, N. Y., says an exchange, is the man who climbs steeples to paint and repair them, and has frequently been watched by hundreds of people as he pursued his hazardous calling. Many persons, therefore, will read with interest the following stateinent which he made to a reporter : “ I’ve spent the greater part of my life up among those rolling clouds. For eighteen years I sailed the sea between the East Indies and China before the and afterward occupied every statioriTfitcepting that of captain. When I was sixteen years of age I climbed a steeple in Glasgow 300 feet high in half an hour. -The same feat it took the noted Scotchman, ‘Steeple Jack,’ three days to perform. I’ve been mounting steeples for seven years as a .business. The last one I went up previous to this was the Chapel-Street Presbyterian in Albany, which is 300 feet in height. I took down the weather vane in the shape of a fish, which weighs 327 pounds, being of copper and loaded with lead. It was the first time any one had been up the steeple in thirty years. [Mr. Ferguson has a photograph of himself while in the act of removing the fish, presented to him by the trustees of the church. ] “The highest steeple I ever climbed Went Up 370 feet; this was in Ayershire, Scotland. The general impression is that when on a steeple it is easier to look up than down. This is all a mistake. When looking up an almost irresistible feeling comes over you to jump from your seat. I had experience of this kind while on the steeple of Dr. Darling’s church in Albany. I gazed steadily up for a moment into space, when, without any feeling of dizziness or anything of that sort, 1 became almost beside myself, and a kind of delirium came over me. I had to quit right then and there, for a moment later I would have sprung from my seat. I can look steadily down and it does not affect me. I seldom climb steeples in cold weather. It’s too confounded dangerous, the sides being icy and slippery. I was up on a Hudson steeple last January, and then vowed I’d swear off climbing in winter, as I nearly fell. They tell me this here shakes when the wind blows. Do you know it’s all the better for that. It gives the iron rods on the inside play. Look out for those taut and apparently solid steeples. They go sometimes with a sudden crash. And besides I enjoy a ride on a swaying steeple. It reminds me of the day when I was at sea. The people appear like mites, while the sky bears the same aspect as from the street. I never remember of having felt dizzy when on a steeple. I feel as much to home up there where God’s handiwork can be viewed in all its beauty as on the ground. I’ve got to, in fact, for if I didn’t, you’d never catch me hundreds of feet from good walking. That arrow on the spire of the church I took down, gilded it and replaced it. It is ten -feet in length, and weighs all of 200. pounds. When putting it back I held it in position with one hand, and tightened the holts with the other—no easy task, I tell you. A man at this business can earn from $7 to $lB a day. As to the manner in which I ascend, that must remain a secret. I never allow any outsider to handle or examine my ropes. I attend strictly to business when up oh high, and if I saw even my wife on the sidewalk I would refuse to recognize her. I just glory in being as high ns ever I can get. It’s my homo up there, and I think if I go below when I die it will be a terrible piece of bad judgment on some-, body’s part, probably my own.”