In its earliest days, the tuberculosis sanatorium at Cresson worked to establish a self-sustaining community.  Buildings were constructed from timber cut and milled on the property and natural sandstone found on site.  A variety of fresh vegetables were harvested from the gardens planted and tended by patients who were on a graduated work-exercise program.  A dairy barn, poultry farm and piggery provided fresh milk, butter, eggs, and meat.  Fresh bread was baked daily in the large san kitchen.  

To further defray the cost of operating such a large facility, in its early years the san utilized animal by-products including pork fat for making soap used on the premises.  Additionally, throughout the years of its operation, plant and animal refuse from the kitchen was also collected and recycled.  

Pigs, being omnivores, provide an economical and efficient system for disposing of food waste and the sanatorium utilized this method from its earliest days of operation.  The benefits of a piggery were two-fold.  It provided meat for the patients and staff and was a way to get rid of the large amount of food scraps that accumulated daily at such a large facility.  Vegetable peels, apple skins and cores, orange rinds, banana peels, potato skins, egg shells, etc., were all collected.  Prepared food was never kept over from one day to the next so anything not consumed was discarded into large barrels containing the peelings and scraps which would be boiled down and fed to the pigs.  In addition, all bones from the butcher shop were ground and added to the pig scraps or used in mixing fertilizer for the san garden.

The san piggery was originally located on the hospital property  near the poultry barn.  Early in its operation, hog cholera broke out killing many of the young pigs.   The State Live Stock Sanitary Board helped set up an immunization program which was strictly adhered to stopping the spread of the virus.  By 1916, the annual report of the Pennsylvania State Commissioner of Health noted the success of the piggery.  Twenty thousand pounds of dressed pork was produced for that year. 

About this time, the pig farm was moved to a new location.  On the north side of the highway directly across from the san entrance, a road led to the san’s sewage disposal plant.  Along this road a large, open field was chosen as the site of the new pig farm.  A small dwelling on the property, which likely already existed when the state chose the location, became the swineherd and his family’s residence. 

Extensive runs were laid out and fenced-in and pig pens about six by twelve feet were placed within the runs.  The feeding area had a concrete feeding floor a hundred and twenty feet long with concrete troughs all under roof.  A concrete runway ran parallel to the troughs for feeding. 

The food and scraps collected from the san’s kitchen had to be cooked to kill any bacteria.  To accomplish this, a two-story steam boiler house with two large vats with a capacity of five hundred gallons each was constructed on the new site.  A slaughter house was also erected adjacent to the boiler house to supply the san with pork.

Clifford Gailey, 88, of Cresson, remembers many enjoyable visits to the pig farm when his grandparents, William and Rachael (Clossin) Gailey were its caretakers.   He has fond memories of a by-gone time spent with his kind, hard-working grandparents who no doubt helped shape his own work ethic.  His time with them also gave him an appreciation of life’s simple pleasures.

It was the time of the great depression.  Jobs were hard to come by and money was scarce.  Some men found work in the local coal mines.  Others chose to scratch out an existence tilling the soil and/or raising chickens, pigs, beef or dairy herds.  Working in the mines and farming were equally arduous and often dangerous occupations.  The hours were long for little pay but men had to provide for their families. 

One of the benefits for local farmers was the freedom to breath the clean, mountain air rather than the fine, black dust of the coal mines.  Some farmers were lucky enough to live and work on family-owned land  passed down from father to son.  Others were tenant farmers employed by others owning the property as was the case with William Gailey.  While tenant farmers resided on the property during their employment, they typically paid rent for the dwelling they occupied and had no claim to it or the property when the employment ended.

Clifford doesn’t know what year his grandfather began working for the state as the Cresson san’s swineherd.   It’s possible he held this position from its earliest period of operation.

William, the son of an immigrant from Ireland, was born in 1877.  In December, 1899 he married Rachael Clossin, born in 1882.  At the location known locally as “Foot of Six” on land adjoining the southeast boundary of industrialist, Andrew Carnegie’s land (later the san property),  William built a home for his new bride.  When William was hired by the state to run the piggery for the Cresson sanatorium, they left this house and relocated to the small dwelling  on the pig farm property.  

Rent on the little dwelling house was $5.00 a month.  It was little more than a single-story shack with a shed-roof and outhouse.  It had a kitchen, two bedrooms, a living room and a little enclosed porch where Rachael washed the laundry.  Clotheslines were strung outdoors for drying laundry in the summer but in cold or rainy weather, they would most likely have been dried from the heat of the stove in the small, family kitchen.

By today’s standards it wasn’t much but William and Rachael made the most of it.  They had a roof over their heads and a piece of ground where they raised guinea hens for eggs and meat and they had a good dairy cow that produced plenty of fresh milk.  William had a milk separator to collect the cream from the freshly milked cow and Clifford remembers his grandmother churning butter and putting it in a big, wooden butter bowl. 

Each year William and Rachael planted a large garden to harvest and the state allowed them one or two pigs for the family’s use.  A “cold cellar” had been dug out and Rachael filled it with her home-canned goods, butter, potatoes and other staples.  They had all that was needed to make an honest living and they were grateful for what they had in a time when many were destitute.  

Over the years William and Rachael had fifteen children, six of whom died in infancy, including a twin at birth and the remaining twin at the age of three.  Nine children lived to adulthood, though the eldest son, David, died at the age of 25 in a local mine accident.  His wife, Helen, was a nurse at the san.

A 1930 san employee record lists William as being 52 years old. 

At that time William and Rachael’s living children ranged in age from twenty-eight to four years of age.  Four of their children were by then married leaving four of William and Rachael’s children residing with them on the farm.

The work involved in operating the piggery was time-consuming and kept the Gailey’s busy.  Pigs are difficult to care for under the best of conditions due to their predisposition to a number of ailments.  A successful swineherd has to know his business and be vigilant.  The pens need frequent cleaning, bedding has to be replaced often.  Despite their reputation for being dirty, pigs prefer a clean environment.  Cliff remembers his uncle hosing down feed areas and troughs (as well as the pigs!).  As pigs don’t have the ability to sweat to cool themselves they enjoy a good wallow in wet/muddy areas.  This not only cools them but the dirt/mud serves as a natural sunscreen to protect their sensitive skin.  

In winter, the pigs have to be kept warm and dry.  On the summit of the Alleghenies, temperatures can drop below zero.  Howling winds lower temperatures even further.   While the glistening ice and snow covering the landscape is picturesque, its accumulation would have added to the swineherd’s work.  Water would freeze in the troughs, runs had to be kept cleared of snow and ice and adequate, dry bedding provided and replenished. 

Temperature can affect a pig’s overall health.  In hot weather, a pig will eat less, lowering body weight while in the cold, winter months, feed must be increased to maintain body weight as more energy is expended just keeping warm.  In cold weather, they also tend to drink less water which can cause digestive problems.

On top of environmental considerations, pigs need to be wormed and immunized and need ample room for exercise.  Special dietary requirements have to be met to prevent scours (diarrhea) and a host of other maladies. 

In order to meet the dietary needs of the herd, in addition to the scraps collected from the san’s kitchen, supplemental nutrients and minerals were added in the form of a dry feed purchased at the local feed mill.  This was delivered to the farm in 100 lb. bags from the mill which were unloaded and carried up the ladder to the loft of the boiler house where it was stored.

To prepare the feed, the food scraps from the san were loaded on a flat bed truck.  There were generally about six, 50 lb. metal cans with handles containing the refuse from the san kitchen.  These were taken to the pig farm where the truck would be backed-in along the boiler house.  William, wearing long, heavy work gloves unloaded the cans from the truck where a conveyor with rollers and handles was located and slid them into the boiler house where they were dumped into two large vats.  The following morning he would fire up the steam boiler, turn the valves to add water from the boiler, close the lids and heat the scraps to boiling.  The scraps were stirred occasionally and when heated long enough to kill bacteria, the “swill” was poured into metal cans placed on wheeled “trucks.”  Prior to feeding, the dry feed was added to round-out the diet.

At feeding time the cans were pushed down the concrete runway outside the pig enclosures running parallel to troughs.  The carts could pivot/tilt and the swill was poured into the troughs to its eager recipients.  Cliff recalls that when the door from the boiler house was opened “the pigs squealed so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think!” 

He also remembers his grandmother having quite a collection of the nice, heavy san dinnerware and silverware.  When the barrels from the san kitchen were dumped into the vats, they often contained plates, saucers, platters, and silverware.   His grandfather removed these items from the “slops” and his grandmother sterilized them thoroughly and they were put to good use at the Gailey dinner table. 

An unpleasant but necessary part of the operation of the piggery was the butchering of pigs.  Four or five were typically slaughtered at a time.  According to one report, about “forty thousand pounds of fresh pork were produced annually at the san piggery.  This constituted the major portion of the fresh pork used in a year to feed the san patients and staff.” 

After a pig was killed, it was hoisted using a block and tackle rigging and then lowered into hot water in the vats.  This made removing the hair easier.  The hide was then hand-scraped with a metal disc-shaped tool with attached wooden handle.  Finally,  the carcass was cut into halves before being taken to the san’s butcher for final processing. 

Life as the san’s swineherd wasn’t easy.  It had its share of hardships but life is often what you make of it and William and Rachael obviously made the most of their life during their years as caretakers of the farm.  Cliff fondly remembers that his grandmother,  who sewed her own dresses, “baked a lot and did a lot of canning.”  She made a delicious watermelon rind jelly which she put up in jars.  The grandkids liked to sneak into the “cold cellar” where they would open a jar and eat the whole thing! 

Rachael really must have been a special woman.  As was the case with many women during the depression, she did not live a pampered life.  She showed admirable strength of character by accepting life as it was and doing her best for her family.   While she is warmly remembered for her nurturing ways, she also had spunk when it was called for.  The laundry was washed in the little enclosed porch that led into the kitchen.  There was a hole in the porch wall where at times, a rat or some other undesirable critter would enter.  Cliff recalls his grandmother stuffing the hole with a bar of soap to prevent intrusion.  However, if this failed she was known to take a broom after an unwelcome intruder.

But she also had a way with animals.  She could talk to them and they would respond as if they understood what she said.  She had a way about her as all grandmas do and perhaps a little something extra too, especially to the Gailey grandchildren.   Fondly Cliff remembers, “she was something else.”

He also remembers that his Grandpap worked hard, put in long hours and along with visits from the grandchildren, from time-to-time enjoyed an Iron City beer.  On occasion he would walk to the Seabolt Tavern on the summit where the old Allegheny Portage Railroad once crossed the highway to begin its decent toward Johnstown and on to westward markets.  At Seabolt’s,  William always asked for an Iron City.  Once being told the Iron City had only recently been delivered and wasn’t cold,  William asked, “it ain’t boilin’ is it?”  The barkeeper, no doubt amused, produced a bottle of room temperature Iron City for William’s refreshment.   

Over the years, William and Rachael always welcomed their children and grandchildren at the farm.  The grandkids visited often… sometimes three times a week.  They spent many hours playing in the yard and helping out.  There are many fond memories of the family playing baseball, picking dandelions, times of gaiety and music.  Cliff’s father, Jim, played the accordion and Cliff’s uncle “Jigs” (Francis) played guitar.  “Jigs” would sit on a bench against the boiler house strumming his guitar and singing old favorites as well as humorous, impromptu songs such as one Cliff recalls dedicated to the roaches in the boiler house.  It wasn’t unusual to see roaches and other unwelcome insects or critters in the boiler house and around the farm.  But that was farm life and one learns early that life is easier when one can find humor in its less desirable aspects.  That sense of humor is still obvious in William and Rachael’s descendents today. 

In testament to the efficient management of the pig farm, in the early 1950’s, William and Rachael were still operating the farm for the sanatorium.  After years of living in the little dwelling that had long been called home, Dr. Russell Teague, State Secretary of Health, submitted a proposal to the state for a new dwelling house for the caretakers of the farm.  Pennsylvania Governor Fine approved funds for the construction of a dwelling of five rooms and a bath.  Lumber and materials were to be supplied from a demolition project then underway on the san property.  William’s rent would be raised to $32 per month when the dwelling house was complete.  At the time, William would have been in his 70’s.

For whatever reason, the new dwelling house proposed for the Gaileys never materialized.   In the 1940’s streptomycin, the first antibiotic effective against TB was discovered which began to finally bring the disease under control.   Possibly by the 1950’s, a decline in patient admissions and the ongoing development of more effective drugs for treating the disease led the state to

feel optimistic that the end was in sight for state-run TB institutions.  By 1953 the pig farm ceased operation as it was no longer a profitable venture and William’s long employment came to an end.

Rachael, whether out of nostalgia or the uncertainties that come with relocating, voiced her wish to remain in the dwelling she and William had called home for so many years.  The state, however, did not grant her wish.  A dozer was brought in and everything was razed including the little dwelling house where the Gailey children had been raised and a life-time of memories had been made.  William and Rachael had no choice but to leave.

They didn’t go far.  Traveling east down the highway from the summit, back to the “Foot of Six” of the old Allegheny Portage Railroad to the house William had built for his bride those many years ago, they retired. 

A little to the northwest, and across the highway stood the old stone tavern house of the Lemon family who once provided food and lodging to passengers crossing the formidable Alleghenies by way of 10 inclined planes.  The “Foot of Six” location and stone house on the north side of the highway would later become part of the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic site.  The Lemon House property also has ties to the san’s early operation.  The dairy barn on the property had once supplied milk to the Cresson san.  William and Rachael’s son, James (Jim)  helped with that operation from the time he was 12 years of age.

William and Rachael did not enjoy many years in the house he built for them all those years ago.  William, at the age of eighty, died in 1957 only four years after relocating there from the san pig farm.  Rachel died the following year at the age of seventy-two. 

While some of the original buildings of the old Cresson TB Sanatorium remain standing on the south side of the highway, there is nothing left of the old san pig farm except the warm memories of William and Rachael’s surviving grandchildren, some scattered remnants of the old san dinnerware that found their way into the boiler house vats,  and a few old photographs.