Box 875, Swansboro, North Carolina 28584
Early in April, Bob and Kathy Jeffreys and little daughter,
Laura (2) of Linden, (near Fayetteville) North Carolina, spent the
weekend with steam buff Brooks Jones of Swansboro. Jones is a
retired school teacher in his seventies. Bob is in his thirties so
he said, ‘I came down for some steam schooling and steam
is getting to be quite a steam enthusiast too. Bob and Kathy are
both interested in steam, wind and solar power and are gradually
making use of these in their new home near Linden. They are now
building a tri-level house taking advantage of the best possible
orientation for solar heating and wind power.
During their visit they steamed up Brooks’ 1910 Tozer
stationary farm engine twice and sawed wood both for the house and
for the engine itself. Little Laura was the epitome of courage and
withstood the blasts of the safety valve and the scream of the
whistle without shedding a tear.
Over a period of more than sixty years of following his steam
hobby, Brooks has owned two Stanley steam cars, a Lidgerwood steam
hoist, a stern wheel river boat, a steam shovel engine, a 1901
Stanley engine, a small Stanley boiler, a model lake steamer, a
steam tricycle, a steam go-cart, dozens of Weeden and other model
engines and the Tozer mentioned in the beginning of this
article.
Bob is currently restoring a stationary horizontal Frick engine,
7 x 10 with serial #1636 purchased last fall from W. E. Davis of
Seven Springs, North Carolina. He has recently bought an old duplex
steam pump and needs help and technical advice on how to convert it
to a steam engine. Bob and Kathy are also looking for a small
boiler and engine to run a small generator to charge six volt golf
cart batteries. They are now generating all their electricity with
a gasoline engine powering a 28 volt surplus military generator and
they are putting up a Wincharger windmill plus a small amount of
photovoltaic to supply all their power.
Bob can be reached at the following address: Route 1, Box 48A,
Linden, North Carolina 28356.
