That winter and spring, MacKechnie’s gang swamped and cleared roads. They built a breakwater with a loading wharf at the end of it, on the northern side of the island, where the next island to the north somewhat sheltered a landing place. They built MacKechnie’s causeway across the swamp, his railway running from the hill to the shore, where the loaded flatcars were to be let downhill by an ingenious system of cables and winches.

For over half a century MacKechnie and Gilman’s quarry operated on the island and shipped cut stone half a world away. Five hundred people lived there in its heyday, a cross section of nationalities, for MacKechnie imported his stonecutters, the best in the world, he said, from Italy and Scotland; and as soon as the breakwater thrust out its curve far enough to make a safe harbor for boats, the Yankee farmer-fishermen came. Schooners hauling granite down the coast had crews who might be Yankee, or Greek, or Black, or Portuguese. Some stayed, brought families, or married on the island. The children had strange combinations of names: Eliseo MacGimsey, Nikolaides Pumlow—not strange at all when it was shortened, as it soon was, to Nick.

In time, the island was no longer cut off from the world. The vessels, hauling granite, sailed back and forth from the cities; twice a week a little coastwise steamer called at the wharf, bringing passengers and freight. A minister and a priest came over from the mainland periodically to hold services for those of their faiths. Summer visitors came, a few at first; or temperance speakers and debaters to talk to the Iron Clads, which was a forum; once or twice a year a stock company stopped over from the mainland and offered plays in the new town hall.

“We put up our own town buildings and took pride in them,” said MacKechnie.

In spare time, the island men laid stone foundations, hewed timbers, and drove nails; they built a church, a schoolhouse, and a town hall, in the order of importance. Their stone foundations were a wonder to see, the big, bland, pink-gray granite blocks tailored to fit, morticed and overlapped as if they had been no more trouble to cut than so many pieces of soap.

“The men who worked for me did not need to look twice at a piece of stone to see how the grain would run. And then, too, there was considerable competition. A public building is something for a man to be remembered by. In time to come, a grandson might lay his hand on the stone and say, ‘From here to here, my grandfather, Sherebiah MacGimsey, laid this stone; from there to the corner, Joseph Lessaro. You see there is a difference.”

Yes, his grandson thought, that’s true; and MacKechnie went on. “There was a difference in the work, but not in quality, only in style. It was all built to last.”