Restoring History, One Lift at a Time

By George L. Nitti

For most towing companies, a 2,000- to 3,000-pound load is nothing unusual. But for  Jeswald’s Towinga recent job in North Jackson, Ohio, carried something far heavier than stone — it carried history.

Chris Jeswald and his father recently assisted with the restoration of a historic 19th-century cemetery entrance near a reservoir outside North Jackson. The project involved carefully lifting and positioning two massive stone pillars that would serve as the gateway to the cemetery, where graves reportedly date back to the mid-1800s.

The restoration effort was spearheaded by local volunteers connected to the North Jackson Historical Society, along with a fabrication company that works closely with Jeswald’s. Chris explained that the stone pillars had been sourced from an Amish stone craftsman and needed to be transported and delicately set into place.

“We like the oddball jobs,” said Chris Jeswald. “Especially stuff like that because it’s a little bit different. You get to do different things.”

For the lift, the company deployed one of its heavy-duty rotators — a 60-ton Jerr-Dan mounted on a Kenworth T880 chassis from the Jeswald’s fleet. The truck backed carefully into the narrow entrance area, where the aging driveway and tight roadside conditions created additional challenges.

Because the cemetery entrance sat along a winding roadway known for fast-moving traffic, Jeswald positioned a smaller company truck farther up the hill with emergency lights activated to protect the work zone while the rotator operated partially in the roadway.

The pillars themselves presented another challenge. Their uneven, textured stone surfaces meant the crew had to carefully choke the load using heavy-duty fabric straps sourced through DNA rigging products. Chris said the natural contours of the pillars actually helped provide grip during the lift.

“We just slowly tilted it up,” he explained. “We kept it low and moved it very slowly. It didn’t budge, didn’t slip at all.”

Once suspended, the pillars were carefully lowered onto rods extending from newly poured bases while workers applied mortar and aligned the historic entrance pieces into position.

The project may not have been a large commercial recovery, but for Jeswald’s, it represented something equally important: community involvement and preserving local heritage.

“It’s not always about making money,” Chris said. “I just like helping people out the best I can.”

That philosophy, he noted, was something passed down through the Jeswald family. Chris credited both his father and his late uncle, Chuck Jeswald, with building a culture centered around helping others.

“He would give the shirt off his back for just about anybody,” Chris said of his uncle.

Known for its distinctive teal-colored fleet graphics, Jeswald’s has built a reputation not only for heavy-duty towing and recovery, but also for taking on unusual assignments that require precision equipment and creative problem-solving.

And in this case, that capability helped ensure a piece of Ohio history remains standing for future generations.