Contractor James Sullivan Savage would have no trouble finding good men for the ticklish job of raising and setting the heavy stones of the higher courses of the monument; able sailors, who would take a shore job for a change. Maritime Boston was full of these good riggers, who were used to dizzy heights, and to whom the half hitches, square knots, guys, slings, and tag lines would be easy. Up to this time the monument had been built by day labor, not by contract. Now, Savage had taken a contract to finish the monument for $43,800, from the elevation of 85 feet to the top. He was well trained in masonry, for he had worked on the job since the start under Willard, whose rigid ideas would not let him take a contract himself for profit on such a patriotic project, but who agreed to superintend the work of Savage to the finish. Savage had the traits of a good contractor--energy, resourcefulness, honesty--and the sense that knew how each detail must be executed toward the end of producing a job to be proud of. Savage replaced the one-horse capstan of the hoist by a six-horsepower steam engine, an innovation that speeded up progress. The steam engine as a prime mover in land and water transportation had become well established, and its use to drive textile machinery had proved successful. Steam power in the construction industry, however, was a novelty. Shouts and wigwag signals from the setting gang at the top to the engineer on the ground were replaced by a bell-wire signaling system. This must have been a pull bell, for many years would pass before electric bells came into common use.[11] [11] Joseph Henry had developed the electromagnet at about the time of the laying of the lower courses of the monument, and, a few months after its dedication, Morse would operate the first telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore, but the transmission of electric currents by insulated wires even for a few score feet was still too new to receive serious attention on a construction job. As its lighter stones would be easier to handle, the granite inner cone (newel) around which the stairs wind was erected a few courses ahead of the walls of the monument. It thus served as a support for the derrick which raised the heavier wall stones. Through apertures in the hollow walls of the newel, a heavy beam (wood?) was passed, upon which the derrick was set.