Statue of Liberty and Thomas Mahoney

A 3-5             Statue of Liberty and Thomas Mahoney

The Statue of Liberty was a gift from the people of France, but the pedestal which it sits upon was funded by public donations. The foundations are 15 feet deep and construction began in 1883.  The pedestal cornerstone was set in 1884 and construction completed in April, 1886.  The pedestal is constructed of “Stony Creek” granite from the Beattie Quarry in Branford, CT.  It was transported by barge and tug to the Liberty Island site. Thomas Mahoney captained one of those tugs. Thomas was 43 in 1883 as the foundation work began.  The erection of the statue was completed and dedicated on 28 Oct 1886.  All of the work upon the island would have been required tugboat support.

Tugboats at this time were steam powered, using wood or coal as a fuel.  Being a boiler tender aboard a tugboat operated by their father would have been a likely job for the sons.  By the 1886 completion Thomas’s two oldest sons, James and Daniel were 19 and 15 years old. 

In order to encourage public donations to a project that had little popularity, “New York World” newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer offered to publish the names of every donor, no matter how small the donation.  The search will continue for images of those published names expecting to find the Mahoney name listed therein.

The pedestal shape is a truncated pyramid, 64 feet square at the base and 39 feet square at the top and 89 feet tall.  Lack of funds changed the design from 114 feet high and changed the core material to cast-in-place concrete.  The eleven pointed star is the existing bastions of Fort Wood built 1806-1811.

New York Tugboats is a large Wikipedia topic.  In 1929, 700 tugboats operated in NYC harbors.  The photo below is typical of a steam tug.