Quarry- & Stone-Related Articles, Links, Books, Etc.

• United States Government Resources (This includes links to various mining, minerals and other government resources.)

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• 1889 Vermont Marble Company Price List: Rutland, Sutherland Falls, & Dark Marble, Proctor, Vermont, 415 pp. (cemetery stones, monuments, and accessories) Due to the size of this book, I have broken the book into 4 sections in PDF. (Parts 1, 2, & 3, are about 14 MB; Part 4 is 17+ MB.) You can click on the thumbnail image of the “Index” page below to find the section of the book you wish to view, and then you can click on one of the following links to view that section — Part 1. Title page through pp. 99 (14 MB) — Part 2. pp. 100-199 (13+ MB) — Part 3. pp. 200-299 (13+ MB) — Part 4. pp. 300-415 (17+ MB) (PDF) Peggy B. Perazzo

  Title Page

  Index / Contents

• “American Marbles” (November 1888) The Manufacturer and Builder, Vol. 20, Issue 11, November 1888, pgs. 250-251. (Article in digital images viewed at American Memory, Library of Congress.)
• “American Stone Fields” (August 1890) The Manufacture and Builder, Vol. 22, Issue 8, August 1890, pg. 177. (Article in digital images viewed at American Memory, Library of Congress.)
• Angers, France - “A Visit to the Slate Quarries of Angers” (1894) Scientific American Supplement No. 974, Munn & Co., New York, September 1, 1894.
• Ash Grove Cement Plant Photographic Tour, Seattle, Washington – The photographs below and included in the photographic tour of the Ash Grove Cement Plant were taken by Anthony Meadow, who is a member of the Samuel Knight Chapter of the Society for Industrial Archeology –  Peggy. B. Perazzo.
• Bal Maidens & Mining Women - This web site “explores the many different roles which women and girls have undertaken at mines around the world.”
• Benicia Arsenal - Photographic Tour of the Benicia Historical Museum and Grounds:  The Camel Barns, the Spenger Memorial Garden, the Benicia Arsenal Powder Magazine #10, and the Silas Casey Industrial (Tool) Exhibit in Camel Barn building #7, in Benicia, Solano County, California.

• Book of Epitaphs (circa 1890s) (pdf) - Provided by Office of S. B. Sargent, Manufacturer of & Dealer in All Kinds of Marble & Granite Work, Tilton, New Hampshire  (The title and date of publication are unknown, although the S.B. Sargent company is listed in an 1893 publication.  The last half of the booklet is in German.)

• “Brown-Stone (The end of an era)” (November 1869) The Manufacturer and Builder, Vol. 1, Issue 11, November 1869, pgs. 332-333. (Article in digital images viewed at American Memory, Library of Congress.)
• Brunner and Lay Tool Catalog - Brunner & Lay, Manufacturers of Marble, Stone, Granite and Bricklayers’ Tools, Stone Jacks, Derricks, and Contractors’ Supplies, 570 West Polk Street, Corner Jefferson and Polk Streets, Chicago, Illinois. (No date of publication) (Please Note: Using the link at the beginning of this section will take you a menu from which you can access the individual pages of this catalog. You can also use this Brunner and Lay Tool Catalog PDF link to view the booklet in PDF format.)
• “Building and Ornamental Stones of the United States,” by George P. Merrill, article in Popular Science Monthly, conducted by E. L. and W. J. Youmans, Vol. XXVII, May to October, 1885.
• Building Stone of the United States - the NIST Test Wall, presented by the Building and Fire Research Laboratory, sponsored by the National Park Service. (You can visit the NIST Test Wall in Gaithersburg, Maryland.) (The photograph below is used with permission.)

  “The stone test wall was constructed to study the performance of stone subjected to weathering. It contains 2352 individual samples of stone, of which 2032 are domestic stone from 47 states, and 320 are stones from 16 foreign countries....”

  (The following description is from the web site.) “The stone test wall was constructed to study the performance of stone subjected to weathering. It contains 2352 individual samples of stone, of which 2032 are domestic stone from 47 states, and 320 are stones from 16 foreign countries. Over 30 distinct types of stones are represented, some of which are not commonly used for building purposes. There are many varieties of the common types used in building, such as marble, limestone, sandstone, and granite. This site presents the existing data and pictures for each particular stone.”

• “The Building Stones in the United States” (October 1884) The Manufacturer and Builder, Vol. 16, Issue 10, October 1884, pgs. 229-230. (Article in digital images viewed at American Memory, Library of Congress.)
• California – History of Quarrying in California from the California Indians up to Present Time. Presentation for the International Stonework Symposium 2011 – January 13, 2011. (“History of Quarrying in California from the California Indians up to Present Time” brochure in PDF)
• “Cape Ann Quarries, Massachusetts” (1884) Also included in this 1884 article from Harper's New Monthly Magazine are several sketches of stone quarriers and stone cutters at work and other quarry-related pictures.
• Cape Ann, Massachusetts - Leslie D. Barlett’s wonderful quarry photographs were displayed in his “Chapters on a Quarry Wall,” museum installation/photograph collection at the Cape Ann Historical Museum in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in early 2008. Since then he has had other exhibitions including an exhibition in New York City earlier this year.

  Leslie Bartlett has two exhibitions scheduled for 2009: June – August at the Vermont State Capital in Monpelier, Vermont, & September – October at the Vermont Granite Museum at Barre, Vermont. You can view the flyer for the upcoming exhibitions in this PDF document.

  “Chapters on a Quarry Wall.”

  Cape Ann Historical Museum, Gloucester, Massachusetts
  
  This photograph was a part of the museum installation, and it is titled ‘Shadowing Ibis.’

  
  
  Leslie D. Barlett’s “Chapters on a Quarry Wall”

  Photo Collection New York City, New York
  May 5 - May 30, 2009

  Give Me Your Hands:  The Legacy of the Barre
  Sculptors and Their Stone

  
  

  A photographic exhibition by Leslie D. Bartlett. 
  October 2 through December 15, 2011, at the
  Michigan State University College of Law.

  
  

  “Successive waves of master stone sculptors, carvers, and quarrymen came to America during the late 1800s and early 1900s.  This photography exhibition docu-ments their lives, their craft, and the plight of some of the immigrant master stone sculptors who have labored with the granite stone from the quarries of Barre, Vermont....”
  
  Opening Reception, Artist Meet and Greet:  Wednesday, October 12, 2011, 5 to 6 p.m. Artist Lecture:  Thursday, October 13, 2011, 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. Michigan State University Museum Auditorium.  For more information contact:  Nicolas Mercuro, Professor of Law in Residence, MSU College of Law, 517-432-6978 or mercuro@law.msu.edu.

• “Carrara” (Marble) (PDF), article from The Monumental News, March 1893, pp. 123-125.
  
• Carrara Marble Quarries, Italy, “A Marble World” (1903 article)
• Carrara Marble Quarries in Italy – How to Tour the Marble Quarries of Carrara, by James Martin, Guide to Europe Travel. (“How to do a self-drive tour of the Carrara marble quarries. An illustrated virtual guided tour of some of Carrara’s most famous marble quarries, souvenir shops, and museum,” by James Martin.)
  • More information on the Carrara marble quarries can be obtained on the Marble Museum and Cultural Heritage of Carrara City web site.
• Carrara, Italy – “Marble quarries of Ravaccione, at Carrara,” Italy, engraving from a late 1800’s magazine.
  
• Columbia - Bell Marble Quarry, in Columbia, Tuolumne County – Photographic Tour of the Bell Marble Quarry. (These photographs were taken July 1998)
• Columbia Marble Quarry, Columbia, Tuolumne County, California - Photographic Tour of one of the historic Columbia marble quarries. (These photographs were taken July 1998.)
• “The Coming of Age of Marble” (December 1892) The Manufacturer and Builder,Vol. 24, Issue 12, December 1892, pgs. 278-279. (Article in digital images viewed at American Memory, Library of Congress.)
• “Concerning Building Stones” (June 1890) (This article describes: rock face, pointed face, aze-hammered face, patent hammered, bush hammered, square drove, tooth chiseled, sawed face, fine sand finish, pumice finish, polished surface, and includes a few diagrams of some of these faces.) The Manufacture and Builder, Vol. 22, Issue 6, June 1890, pgs. 129-130. (Article in digital images viewed at American Memory, Library of Congress.)
• Cornwall, England – “Lamorna Cove,” in The Illustrated London News, March 8, 1873, pp. 233-234. (PDF) (Another article in this section of the magazine is: “The Kaieteur Fall, Guiana,” in what was British Guiana, pp. 234, also in PDF)

  Granite Quarries at Lamorna Cove, Cornwall, England (ca 1873)

• “Dimension Stone,” presented by the U. S. Geological Survey in the “Mineral Information” section of the web site:

  (Description of “Dimension Stone” from the web site) “Dimension stone can be defined as natural rock material quarried for the purpose of obtaining blocks or slabs that meet specifications as to size (width, length, and thickness) and shape.  Color, grain texture and pattern, and surface finish of the stone are normal requirements.  Durability..., strength, and the ability of the stone to take a polish are other important selection criteria.”

  • “Construction Aggregate,” presented on Wikipedia.

    (Description of “Aggregate” on the Wikipedia web site) “Construction aggregate, or simply ‘aggregate,’ is a broad category of coarse particulate material used in construction, including sand, gravel, crushed stone, slag, recycled concrete and geosynthetic aggregates. Aggregates are a component of composite materials such as concrete and asphalt concrete; the aggregate serves as reinforcement to add strength to the overall composite material.”

• Eby Granite Works Monumental Booklet, Newville, Pennsylvania - The Photographer Visits Eby Granite Works: Proof of Our Low Overhead Expenses and Some Interesting Facts About Monuments (in PDF format). (The booklet includes photographs of the company’s monument displays and the procedure they used to set up a cemetery monument.)
• Economic Geology of the Kenova Quadrangle:  Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia, Bulletin 349, by Phalen, William Clifton, Department of the Interior, United States Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 1908.
• Epitaphs (booklet in PDF), by the Vermont Marble Company, Proctor, Vermont, early 1900s.
• “The Evolution of The Marble Carver,” in Throvgh The Ages Magazine, April, 1926, Vol. 3, No. 12. 
• Egyptian Obelisks in Egypt Today And Obelisks Moved to Istanbul - Rome - Paris - London & New York - Nova A World of Obelisks (NOVA)
• F. Barnicoat: High-Grade Granite Statuary and Monuments 1903 Catalog (PDF), Granite, Statuary, and Designs, Office and Studio Intervale Street, Quincy, Massachusetts, 24 pp.
  

  Front cover of the F. Barnicoat Catalog

• Flint Granite Company, Builders of Artistic Memorials in Granite, Marble and Bronze (Monument Catalog) (PDF), circa 1905, 34 pp.
  

  Flint Granite Co. Monument Catalog ca. 1905

• Foreign Ownership of U.S. Aggregate and Ready Mix Industries, March 2005, prepared by the Laborers’ International Union of North America, Construction Department. [PDF]
• “Foreign vs. American Marbles” (October 1891) The Manufacturer and Builder, Vol. 23, Issue 10, October 1891, pg. 230. (Article in digital images viewed at American Memory, Library of Congress.)
• From Quarry to Cemetery Monuments– By using the photographs and history in this section, I want to try to give you a sense of the progression of the rock in the quarries and ending with the marble cemetery monuments created in the late 1800’s through the early 1900’s that we find in our northern California cemeteries today – Peggy B. Perazzo.

• Georgia Beauties:  Catalog Number Twenty-Two (pdf), Cemetery monument catalog of the Georgia Marble Finishing Works, Builders of Fine Monuments, Canton, Georgia (no date of publication – possibly 1940s)

  Frong cover of Georgia Beauties Catalog No. Twenty-Two	The Amtry cemetery stone of Georgia Marble (p. 2)	Georgia Marble Finishing Works, Canton, Georgia

• A Glimpse of the Celebrated Stone Quarries at Bedford, Indiana (booklet ca late 1880s)
• Gold Rush Country, California Building Materials (1998) This is a photographic tour of selected buildings and structures in the Gold Rush Country of California starting at Mariposa in Mariposa County northward to Auburn in Placer County.
• “The Granite Industry in New England,” by George Rich, in New England Magazine, February 1892, pp. 742-763 — in PDF format. (The following locations are described in this article: Dix Island, Fox Island, Hallowell, Hurricane Island, Mount Waldo, Penobscot Bay, Spruce Head, St. George, Vinalhaven, Maine; Concord, New Hampshire; Cape Ann quarries from Rockport to Bay View, Milford, West Quincy, and the Quincy district in Massachusetts; Rhode Island; Fitzwilliam and Oak Hill, New Hampshire; Thomaston, Roxbury, Long Island Sound, Lyme, Niantic, Groton, Ansonia, Branford, and Stony Creek, Connecticut; Westerly, Rhode Island; and Vermont.)

  “The Granite Industry in New England,” by George Rich, in New England Magazine, February 1892, pp. 742-763 — in PDF format.

• “Granite Quarries” (PDF), in Scientific Magazine Supplement No. 1574, Vol. LXI., No. 1574, March 3, 1906, New York.

  A Scene in a Granite Quarry (circa 1906)

• “The Granite Quarries of the New England Coast” (pdf), by S. G. W. Benjamin, in Harper’s Weekly, January 10, 1891, Vol. XXXV, No. 1777, pp. 29-31.  (Maine and Massachusetts coastline granite quarries)

  “An East Shore Granite Quarry” ca. 1891

• The Great Industries of the United States - Being an Historical Summary of the Origin, Growth, and Perfection of the Chief Industrial Arts of This Country - Quarries (1872)
• Griffith Granite Quarry in Penryn, Placer County, California - Photographic Tour of Quarry.
• Harrison Granite Company Clientele Catalog (& Monuments) (pdf), Harrison Granite Company, Established 1845, 200 Fifth Avenue, New York City, Quarries & Works:  Barre, Vermont, January 1, 1918, 24 pp.

  Harrison Granite Co. Clientele & Monument Catalog Covers	Title page of the Harrison Granite Co. Clientele & Monument Catalog	Letter from Harrison Granite Co. to a customer in June 1921

• “History of Cemetery Memorial Art,” (PDF) Summary of an address before the National Retail Monument Dealer’s convention at Milwaukee, by S. B. Duffield, in The Monumental News Magazine, early 1900’s, pp. 479-482. (Illustrations include: French’s Melvin Memorial, Concord, Massachusetts; Tomb of Tuleman; Alexander’s Tomb; Tomb of Mausolus; Scipio Sarcophagus; Choragic Monument to Lysicrates; Celtic Cross at Monasterboice, Ireland; Tomb of Theodoric; Petria, City of the Dead; Catacombs of Rome; Column of Trajan; Arch of Titus; Pyramids and Sphinx; Oblisks of Egypt; a 1500-ton stone at Baalbec in quarry; and Temple of Baalbec.)
• “History of the Slate Industry” (PDF), excerpt from Hower’s Lightning Slate Reckoner on 33 Practical Sizes Roofing Slate, by F. M. Hower, Proprietor of the Peach Hill Slate Quarry and President of the Eagle Slate Company, Cherryville, Pennsylvania, 1884.
• Hower’s Lightning Slate Reckoner on 33 Practical Sizes Roofing Slate (1888/1904) (PDF), being a complete and most convenient system of computing the amount in “squares” of any given number of slate…a very convenient ratio on each of the thirty-three different sizes for each two, three and four inches lap, mapping ninety-nine different ratios, together with rules and practical information, To Quarrymen, Operators on Slate, Slate-roofers and others, by F. M. Hower, Proprietor of the Peach Hill Slate Quarry and President of the Eagle Slate Company, Cherryville, Pennsylvania, 1884, 99 pp. (For an interesting comparison, visit Terry Hughes’ “Penrhyn Quarries Slate Calculator,” described on his web site as: “This calculator was produced by Penrhyn Quarries (McAlpine Slate Ltd.) in 1986, just before desk top computers became commonplace. It is one stage in the development of roof design tools from books to spreadsheets.”)

  Contents of this book include: “History of the Slate Industry,” “As to Cost of Maintenance and Repairs,” “How Slate are Put On,” “How to Measure a Roof,” “Punching,” “Slate as Siding,” “Weight of Slate,” “Slate” (dimensions), “Table of Ratios,” “How to Use the Tables,” and “Number of Squares in a plane Roof.”

• Hummelstown Brownstone Company, Altonville, Pennvylania - early 1900s (booklet in PDF Format)

  The following is a list of the photo captions included in this booklet.  (There are several other unnamed photos in addition to a map of the area.) (pp. 8) “Berst House”; (pp. 9 & 10) “General View Quarry No. 4 looking west”; (pp. 16) “North American Building, Philadelphia, Pa.”; (pp. 17)  “The Market and Fulton National Bank, New York City"; (pp. 18) “Salem Lutheran Church, Lebanon, Pa.”; “Roman Catholic Protectory, Flatland, Pa.”; “Administration Building, State Hospital, Harrisburg, Pa.”; “Pennsylvania College Building, Gettysburg, Pa.”; (pp. 19)  “High School, Altoona, Pa.”; (pp. 20)  “York Collegiate Institute, York, Pa.”; “Bullitt Building, Philadelphia, Pa.”; (pp. 21)  “City Hall, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.”; “Engine House, Philadelphia, Pa.”; (pp. 22)  “Presbyterian Church, Indiana, Pa.”; (pp. 23)  “Emory Methodist Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh, Pa.”; (pp. 24 & 25)  “General View of Mill and Shops from north side of No. 3 Quarry”; (pp. 26)  “Third United Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, Pa.”; (pp. 27)  “Library, Mount Holly Springs, Pa.” “Residence, Dayton, Ohio”; “United States Post Office, Pottsville, Pa.”; (pp. 28) “Orange County Court-House, Orlando, Florida”; (pp. 29)  “Zion Lutheran Church, Hummelstown, Pa.”; “Christ’s Lutheran Church, Lewisburg, Pa.”; (pp. 30)  “Home Savings Bank, Washington, D.C.”; “Pottier & Stymus, New York City”; “A. A. Scottish Rite, Williamsport, Pa.”; (pp. 31)  “First National Bank, Frackville, Pa.”; “Residence, Washington, D.C.”; (pp. 32)  “Harrisburg Academy, Harrisburg, Pa.”; (pp. 33)  “Rev. B. F. Stevens Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church, Harrisburg, Pa.”; (pp. 34)  “Denny Hall, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa.”; (pp. 35)  “The Arcade, Cleveland, Ohio”; “Susquehanna Trust Company, Williamsport, Pa.”; (pp. 36)  “Union Station, Indianapolis, Indiana”; (pp. 37)  “National Exchange Bank, Baltimore, Md.”; “Bank entrance detail”; (pp. 38 & 39)  “General View, Rear of Mill”; (pp. 40)  “Residence detail, Philadelphia, Pa.”;  “Bank entrance detail, Philadelphia, Pa.”; (pp. 41)  “Bank entrance detail, New York City”; “College entrance detail, Philadelphia, Pa.”; (pp. 42)  “Stevens High School, Lancaster, Pa.”; (pp. 43)  “Residence, Broad Street, Philadelphia, Pa.”;  “The Citizens Trust Company, Gettysburg, Pa.”)

• Hummelstown Brownstone: A study of the Hummelstown brownstone industry and its contribution to the American building arts (South of the borough of Hummelstown, Dauphine County, Pennsylvania), by Ben F. Olena.

  Postcard Showing Derricks at Corner of Quarry #4 at Brownstone Quarry

  Asbury United Methodist Church, Uniontown

• Huntington Botanical Garden Photo Tour – Stones Used in the Garden and Buildings, in San Marino near Pasadena, California, late September, 2010.
• “In The Marble Hills” (in Vermont) (1890) This article about marble quarrying includes several very nice sketches relating to quarrying marble from the Century Magazine, September 1890.
• “In The Marble Quarries of Vermont,” from Popular Mechanics, October 1914.
• Indian Diggings Marble Quarry Area and Indian Diggings Cemetery, El Dorado County, California - Visit to the Indian Diggings Cemetery and Indian Diggings Marble Quarry Area in the summer of 2003.
• Inyo Dolomite Quarries Photographic Tour  (These quarries are located in the eastern foothills of the Owens Valley near Lone Pine, Inyo County; and they were known as the Inyo Marble Company quarries in the late 1800s.)
• “Isle of Portland, England - Portland Quarry,” from The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, #378, February 24, 1838. “A Week in The Isle of Portland in 1837” (PDF) (Part one of this two-part article is available by using the preceding link.)
• Lessons In Stone - Harvard’s Building Blocks Teach Natural and Cultural History, in Harvard Magazine (Text by Davis B. Williams; photographs by Jim Harrison.)
• Lettering in Marble: A few plates and a few words of explanation - all bearing on the subject of lettering as it applies to the memorial trade, issued by the Vermont Marble Company, Procter, Vermont (in PDF format)

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Commercial use of material within this site is strictly prohibited. It is not to be captured, reworked, and placed inside another web site ©. All rights reserved. Peggy B. and George (Pat) Perazzo.