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Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 52, 26 February 1912, Page 5

Some daring feats are sometimes achieved by steeplejacks. At a height of over 700 feet from the ground, a steeplejack named “Bob” Merrill has just completed the task of re-gilding the top of the Metropolitan Tower, the loftiest of New York’s sky-scrapers. The top of the tower consists of a gigantic octagonal lantern, and Merrill had to cling to it with one hand and ply the brush with the other. Then the flagstaff had to be repainted, and this is how that operation was performed. One of his assistants mounted the shoulders of the other, and Merrill clambered on the shoulders of the second man, from which position he was able to reach the top of the flagstaff and cleanse it. The display of gymnastics was adopted as a new steeplejack method in place of the old system of climbing up the pok. Merrill is famous for tricks of this kind. A few weeks ago, while painting the flagstaff on New York’s City Hall, Merrill took his six-year-old son aloft with him, and swung him hack and forth over the heads of the frightened people in City Hajl Park.