Edward Leedskalnin
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Edward Leedskalnin (August 10, 1887 - December 7, 1951) was an eccentric Latvian immigrant and amateur sculptor who built the monument known as Coral Castle near Homestead, Florida, USA. He is known for the Castle (originally known as "Rock Gate Park") as well as his unusual theories on magnetism.
[edit] Life
Ed Leedskalnin was born in Riga, Latvia; little of his childhood is known, aside from the fact that he was not wealthy and achieved only a fourth-grade education.[1] At the age of 26, he was engaged to marry Agnes Scuffs, a girl ten years younger.[2] However, the girl that Leedskalnin referred to as his "Sweet Sixteen" broke the engagement the night before their wedding, on account of his age. Several years later, Ed immigrated to the United States, where he found work in lumber camps in Canada and California, and Texas.
After contracting a case of tuberculosis, Leedskalnin moved to the warmer climate of Florida around 1919, where he purchased a small piece of land in Florida City. Over the next 20 years, Leedskalnin constructed and lived within a massive coral monument he called "Rock Gate Park," dedicated to the girl who had left him years before. Working alone at night, Leeskalnin, who weighed less than 100 lbs., eventually quarried and sculpted over 1,100 tons of coral into a monument that would later be known as the Coral Castle. Leedskalnin gave polite, but cryptic answers to visitors questions regarding his construction methods.
In spite of his private nature, he eventually opened his monument to the public, offering tours for 25 cents. He was a surprisingly accommodating host, even cooking hotdogs for visiting children in a pressure-cooker of his own invention.
In December of 1951, Ed Leedskalnin left a note on his front gate which read "Going to the Hospital," and rode a bus to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. He died three days later of stomach cancer, at the age of 64.
[edit] Writings
During his lifetime, Ed Leedskalnin published five pamphlets, advertising them in local newspapers:
- A Book in Every Home. Containing Three Subjects: Ed's Sweet Sixteen, Domestic and Political Views[3]
- Mineral, Vegetable and Animal Life[4]
- Magnetic Current (19 pages)[5]
- Magnetic Base
- Magnetic Current (4 pages)
The first is a treatise on moral education. Leedskalnin's longest booklet, it is printed on only the left-hand pages, and begins with the following preface:
Reader, if for any reason you do not like the things I say in the little book, I left just as much space as I used, so you can write your own opinion opposite it and see if you can do better.
The Author
In the first section, Leedskalnin vents his anger at his "Sweet Sixteen", arguing that girls should be kept pure, and that boys are primarily a soiling influence upon them. On page 4 of A book in every home, Leedskalnin writes:
Everything we do should be for some good purpose but as everybody knows there is nothing good that can come to a girl from a fresh boy. When a girl is sixteen or seventeen years old, she is as good as she ever will be, but when a boy is sixteen years old, he is then fresher than in all his stages of development. He is then not big enough to work but he is too big to be kept in a nursery and then to allow such a fresh thing to soil a girl---it could not work on my girl. Now I will tell you about soiling. Anything that is done, if it is done with the right party it is all right, but when it is done with the wrong party, it is soiling, and concerning those fresh boys with the girls, it is wrong every time.
The second section continues along the theme of moral education, with several aphorisms aimed at parents regarding the proper way to raise children. The last, "Political" section, reveals that the reclusive Leedskalnin had strong political views. He advocates voting for property-owners only (and in proportion to their holdings), and argues that "Anyone who is too weak to make his own living is not strong enough to vote."
Leedskalnin's other four pamphlets addressed his theories on magnetism, detailing his theories on the interaction of electricity, magnetism and the body; Leedskalnin also included a number of simple experiments to validate his theories. Leedskalnin describes electrons as "north and south pole magnets." An intriguing, but unexplained feature of three of these pamphlets is a diagram labeled "Perpetual Motion Holder." No further description is given.
[edit] References
- ^ Coral Castle (official site). Retrieved on 2006-10-30.
- ^ Coral Castle: English Tour Guide.
- ^ Leedskalnin, Edward (1936). A book in every home : containing three subjects : Ed's Sweet Sixteen, domestic and political views. Homestead, Fla: Leedskalnin.
- ^ Leedskalnin, Edward (1988, 1945). Magnetic current; Mineral, vegetable & animal life. Mokelumne Hill, CA: Mokelumne Press.
- ^ Leedskalnin, Edward (1945). Magnetic current. Homestead, Fla.: Rock Gate. ISBN 0-7873-0549-9.
