The Man Who Moved a Mountain - The Incredible True Story of
Florida's Coral Castle - Part 2 of 4
Ed had a wonderful sense of humor, which came through in a few
places of his creation. For instance, around the dining table,
there are four stone chairs. Three are very comfortable, but the
third is deliberately unbalanced and uncomfortable. Ed said that
the three comfortable chairs were reserved for Ed, "Sweet
Sixteen" and their child. The uncomfortable chair was placed
behind Ed's chair and was reserved for his mother-in-law when
she visited. Ed assumed that she would become very
uncomfortable, hopefully take a hint, and not stay very long.
I can already see all of the married men who are reading this
heading to their shops to make an uncomfortable chair before the
holidays :)
Another interesting thing is that the stone rocking chairs at
Coral Castle have angled bottoms, not rounded as you would
normally see. And yet they still rock as easily as their rounded
cousins. Ed said that he balanced them on their "center of
gravity".
Ed continued to work on his castle almost to completion, until
1936. Then for reasons known only to him, he began the tedious
job of moving the entire castle 10 miles to a new location at
Homestead, Florida where it stands to this day.
Some who knew Ed say that he had heard rumors of a subdivision
that was to be developed too close to the castle and this is why
he moved.
Others believe that the move was somehow the result of a brutal
attack that almost resulted in Ed's death. Some thugs caught Ed
in his castle one night and beat him within an inch of his life.
No one knows the motivation of the attack. There is speculation
that perhaps they were trying to pry Ed's secrets from him.
Others speculate that it was government related. Whatever the
reason, after this event, Ed moved his castle.
Ed hired a local guy who owned an old truck and a heavy-duty
trailer that would handle the huge stones. Ed always instructed
the gentleman to leave the trailer and come back later. By the
time the gentleman returned, Ed would have the trailer loaded
with the heavy stones he wanted to transport.
Ed never allowed anyone to watch him work and he had an eerie
sixth-sense when anyone tried. He would immediately stop working
until they left. However, Ed seemed not to care if children were
sometimes present. It is surmised that Ed felt no one would
believe them anyway. It has been reported that one night some
children witnessed Ed "floating stones like hydrogen balloons".
Sounds pretty silly, especially when it's coming from a bunch of
kids, right? Perhaps that makes Ed's point.
There are a couple of credible accounts of adults witnessing
strange occurrences as Ed worked. The man whom Ed hired to move
the stones with his truck stated that he had forgotten his lunch
box one morning and went back to the castle to get it. He had
only been gone for a half-hour and when he arrived Ed already
had several of the monolithic stones stacked on the rails of the
trailer like cordwood. He never saw how Ed loaded them, just
that Ed had absolutely no heavy machinery that should have been
necessary to manipulate such heavy stones; especially that fast.
Another story stated that Ed was seen singing to the stone with
his hands placed on it. Oddly enough, legend has it that the
"magician" Merlin moved the Stonehenge stones by singing to
them. Take what you will from this.
Coral stone weighs approximately 125 pounds per cubic foot. The
largest hoist Ed had at Coral Castle was a 10-ton hoist, which
was mounted on a set of three stationary telephone poles mounted
together in a teepee fashion. As stated before, several of the
stones at Coral Castle are much heavier than 10 tons. Even if Ed
somehow hoisted the stones from the quarry with this hoist, two
big questions still remain. How did he actually (and
single-handedly) move the stones laterally to the building site
and position them? And, how did he cut the stones from the
quarry... especially, underneath?
Some people suggest that Ed quarried around the stones to the
depth he wanted, and then exerted so much upward pressure with
his hoist that the individual stones "popped" away from the
parent quarry rock. However, this cannot be confirmed. Plus, the
pressure needed to "pop" the stone out would most likely have
been more than the hoist could have provided. Also, note that
there are no chisel marks on the stones at Coral Castle. They
are completely smooth.
When anyone asked Ed how he cut and moved the huge stones, Ed
would state that he knew the secrets of the master stone cutters
of Egypt, Peru, the Yucatan, etc. He also said that he
understood the laws of weight and leverage. Ed actually wrote
and published a small booklet on magnetism, which is believed to
have something to do with Ed's ability, but it is too difficult
for most to comprehend.
Another interesting tidbit of information is the timeframe in
which Ed completed this engineering marvel. The Taj Mahal was
constructed over a twenty year period with the labor of several
thousand slaves. Ed single-handedly built Coral Castle over a
period of twenty eight years (and this includes three years
moving it from Florida City to Homestead). There is no other
event known in the history of the world where one person
single-handedly built this large of a stone structure.
Edward Leedskalnin was indeed a unique individual.
More fascinating things about Ed will be revealed next time...