William E. "Smitty" Smith

William Smith: What I would suggest at least when they decide to do it and have a design, that they specify to use some of the old masons. They could specify that and see how it works. And even now being retired, I could put something together and put something together. But they would have to have…

William Smith: But the thing about being in business is you have to be very careful. If you’re working outside of your capacity, you’re in trouble. So, to be successful you have to stay in your capacity. Danielle Dulken: Because you’ll over promise if you’re outside of it? William Smith: Well when I…

William Smith: That’s the very difficult question because masons, I’ll give you an example, we had a mason one time come to work with a pair of white shoes. He worked all day and when he left his shoes were still white. No mortar on them at all and the quality of his work was superb. Okay now you…

William Smith: Well, it was a room that had a pile of bricks, a pile of sand, and bags of lye. Just an open space. Then we had a project, and the projects began with a 6-brick lead. 6-brick lead being you lay out 6 bricks and the next course is 5, the next course is 4, the next one is 3 and that’s…

William Smith: The secret is developing an eye you know. One guy can see a rock and find a place to put it. Another guy would have something and have a problem placing the rock. It all determines in how you see that rock and how it fits in your design. Danielle: It definitely seems like a talent as…

William Smith: After I married, I decided to go into business for myself, and we did that and then we began to try to do that. I only did bricks. After then, I was approached on a job at the Carolina Inn by my boss and he asked if you could lay rocks, and I only had one answer and that was “yes.”…

William Smith: The term, “stone mason” is misunderstood. Sometimes, basically what we did in the local area is we were rock masons. Stone masons are different. Being a stone mason, you have to cut, shape, and make the stones fit. Rock mason is not that way. You just take a rock as it is and lay it…

William Smith: With brick and blocks everything is straight, it is dimensional. With stone it is not dimensional. You have to develop an eye and when we say eye, that means you can pick up a rock and find a place in the wall for it. You know? So, that is an ongoing thing. So, if you were, we’d never…

William Smith: I had a masonry class in high school for one year and that was being a brick mason. Actually, I was trained as a brick mason, and I became a stone mason in the later years. Enjoyed doing stonework because it was very creative and that was the part that really interested me.

William Smith: I was not an academic person so building was something that I could do and I could look at it after it was finished and brag about it because it was hands on and I enjoyed doing things with my hands. Danielle Dulken: And when you say brag about it, you must have been very good at…

William E. Smith, also known as Smitty, grew up in Durham with his parents and seven brothers. His strongest influence growing up was his grandfather, who he spent a great deal of time with – including helping out on his farm in Orange County. He graduated from Hillside High School, which he…