MOORESVILLE — Tom Swain’s teen-age friends like to needle him while he’s acting as their boss during his mission to restore a 167-year-old brick sidewalk in Mooresville.

“He doesn’t let us talk,” said Eagle Scout Stuart O’Reilly as he arranged old and new bricks on the pathway.

“I’m the real brains of the operation,” said Eagle Scout Aaron Byers, a tall young man who was one of Swain’s worker bees.

“He’s terrible,” said John Bishop, another Scout. “No, he’s alright.”

The ribbing is all a part of Swain’s quest to earn Eagle Scout status through Boy Scout Troop 303 at Trinity United Methodist Church.

With the help of fellow Scouts, friends, family and donations from area companies, Swain and company have spent more than 300 hours restoring the decaying brick walk way in this historic community south of Athens.

“I’m very proud of him,” said his mother Anne Swain, who has a law degree but is currently a homemaker. “This was not an easy project. He had to solicit donations, coordinate deliveries, organize work crews and plan and execute the work.”

Some of it came naturally to the 17-year-old Huntsville teen, a senior at Randolph School.

“He’s always been a 60-year-old in a young man’s body,” his mom said. “He’s always been extremely organized and detail-oriented. ”

At any given time on Saturday, Swain could be seen directing his friends to move bricks, stack bricks, place bricks, straighten bricks, and, sometimes, hand him bricks.

His 22-year-old sister Anna and his mother Anne sweep sand into the cracks of the newly-installed pathway, while his dad Albert, an attorney, sits like a kid in a sandbox placing bricks in a pattern on the walkway.

The bricks in the original pathway – which stretches between the post office and the church – were 167 years old, made in 1839 when the sidewalk was built. Gov. Bibb and his wife Pamela gave land to Mooresville for the building of a church. A year later, the post office was built. It is the oldest standing post office in Alabama and the second oldest in the United States. The first is in New England.

Much of the sidewalk was covered over by more than a century and a half of dirt. Swain and the others first had to unearth the bricks. Those that didn’t disintegrate, were saved and reused in the new pathway along with new bricks.

On Saturday, Swain and company was finishing the project, except for the cleanup.

Assistant Scout Master Lewis Price and his wife, who have lived in Mooresville for many years, suggested restoring the sidewalk.

They could not have done the project without donations. General Shale of Madison donated the bricks. Sherman Industries and Woody Peebles donated the sand. Vulcan Materials donated the gravel that was placed under the sand on which the bricks lay. A former Scout Master for many years, Dr. John Ennis, and his grandson Matthew Ennis also helped every weekend.

Scouting teaches boys the skills they will need to negotiate the landscape, not only in the woods, but also in the day-to-day world.

“It is a lesson in planning and leadership,” said Price.

“It teaches them life skills, working with people, bringing volunteers together and coordinating,” said his mom.

In this case, it also taught him what every mason knows, brickwork is brutal on the knees.

After high school, Swain plans to attend a small, private college and study business.

He could probably skip college.