my father was involved with the moving of the Louck's house, it was a stone walled home with walls 36 inches thick and 2 stories, along with a 3 fireplaces and an attached summer kitchen
The way it was done was as follows: the moving waited until the middle of the winter, and the home was elevated using 50 ton jacks, high enough to enable the placement of multiple units of steel dollies
The steel dollies were placed on mats of planks that were moved along as the house inched forward for the 2 mile trip from its original location on the shore of the st Lawrence to the new site of ucv
The motive power was 3 very large wreckers, actually army equipment, and a HD 21 cat to add some muscle especially to get the move started
Things went well, just a few cracks here and there, which were mended eventually after arrival on site
moving the buildings did not go without problems, the buildings moved along on the old #2 highway that followed the river somewhat, and had some very bad curves and slopes in spots, it was in one of these areas that one of the homes slid sideways and ended up in the old canal, about 30 feet down
there is a good film produced that shows the coffer dam being built and the eventual demolition of it using many tons of tnt in a massive explosion
it took about 3 days for the lake to fill, and even the engineers were nervous because evidently no one seemed to know exactly where the lakes level would end
