BODWELL: KING OF THE “GRANITE RING” 1852-1922.
A thesis presented to
the faculty of
the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University
In partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree
Masters of Arts
Aaron A. Dumont
June 2004
This thesis entitled
BODWELL: KING OF THE GRANITE RING 1852-1922
BY
AARON A. DUMONT
has been approved for
the Department of Geography
and the College of Arts and Sciences by
Geoffrey L. Buckley
Assistant Professor of Geography
Leslie A. Flemming
Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
DUMONT, AARON. M.A. JUNE 2004. Geography
Bodwell: King of the “Granite Ring” 1852-1922 (89 pp.)
Director of Thesis: Geoffrey L. Buckley
The purpose of this thesis is to bring to light the events that lead to the decline of the granite industry on Vinalhaven. For years historians have blamed the decline of the granite industry on concrete, structural steel, failure to modernize, and the change in
Architectural styles.
However, the demise of the granite industry in Maine is much more complex.
Little has been written about the development of the railroads, and the limestone industry, which played a significant role in eroding the market for granite.
Approved:
Geoffrey L. Buckley
Associate Professor of Geography
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Buckley for all his patience, understanding, and support while working with me on this thesis. Also I would like to thank the rest of
my committee Dr. Anderson, and Dr. Boone for giving me their time and insight. Last
but not least, thanks to all those people who were “from away,” who made my stay at
Ohio University an entertaining and enjoyable experience. Thanks for the memories! 5
Table of Contents
Page Abstract...... 3
Acknowledgments...... 4
List of Tables ...... 6
List of Figures...... 7
Chapter 1. Introduction ...... 8
Chapter 2. Literature Review...... 15
Chapter 3. Industrial Beginnings ...... 26 Colonial Beginnings...... 27 Immigration Advances the Granite Industry...... 31 Solomon Willard: Farther of Granite...... 36 The Granite Railway...... 42
Chapter 4. One Mane, Two Different Firms...... 49 First Commercial Quarrying...... 50 East Boston Quarry...... 51 “Government Times...... 53 Granite and Lime Conglomerate...... 54 New Markets...... 58 Hallowell and the Granite Industry...... 61 First Commercial Quarries in Kennebec County...... 63 Bodwell and the Hallowell Granite Company...... 65 The King is Dead ...... 68
Chapter 5. Geography, Railroads, and Limestone ...... 70 Railroad and Market Change ...... 71 Effects of Rail in State ...... 75 Changing Demographics Affect Granite ...... 78
Chapter 6. Conclusions ...... 84
Bibliography ...... 87 6
List of Tables
Table Page
1. Development of rail by decade...... 71
2. Population change from 1870 to 1880...... 78
3. Production of Limestone in cubic feet from 1877 to 1896 ...... 80
4. The production costs of various stone types from 1919 to 1920 ...... 82 7
List of Figures
Figures Page
1. Locator map of quarries...... 10
2. Example of early colonial timber framed house in Pioneer Village, Salem, Mass...... 29
3. Plug Drill and Feathers ...... 34
4. Picture of Quincy quarryman with Ingersol steam drill...... 35
5. Picture of Bunker Hill Monument ...... 36
6. Boston Custom House...... 37
7. Bunker Hill Quarry ...... 40
8. Replica of Bryant’s first car used on the Granite Railroad...... 42
9. Pulling Jack...... 43
10. Lifting Jack ...... 45
11. Picture of Holmes Hoisting Apparatus ...... 46
12. Railroads in Maine 1850...... 72
13. Close up of Maine railroads 1850...... 74
14. Railroads in Maine 1889...... 75
15. Central and coastal Maine railroads...... 77
16. Monadnock building ...... 79
8
Chapter 1 Introduction
As of 2001 the total stone consumption for the United States was valued at 1.25
billion dollars. Ironically enough the United States is not a major producer of granite for
its own market. Today major producers of granite are Italy, Canada, India, and Spain
(CTaSC 2004). Currently many stone suppliers find it cheaper to ship granite half way
around the world than quarry it themselves. This is due in part to the high insurance and
high overhead costs, which make it more economical to import and distribute stone.
Globalization is thought as a modern day term, which has little context in history
of industry. The early onset of globalization and economies of scale can be seen in the
Maine granite industry. In the middle 1800s Maine’s granite industry had a huge economic advantage, which would change with the advent of railroads and the development of limestone industry. By 1890 Boston’s building stone of choice was
limestone, this is significant because limestone had taken root in one of the nations
largest granite producing regions (Clifford 1939). Many Maine companies like the
Bodwell Granite Company would begin to feel the effects of limestone’s intrusion into a market that had been dominated by granite.
The Bodwell Granite Company was the first company to develop Vinalhaven
Island’s vast granite resources on a large scale. Over the course of twenty years this
company, which had offices in Boston and New York, dominated the Maine granite
industry (Grindle 1979). Not only did it operate extensive quarrying operations on
Vinalhaven, it also operated quarries in the town of Jonesborough, and its President, J.R.
Bodwell, had ties to the Hallowell Granite Company. 9
From 1854 until 1871 the Bodwell & Webster Company existed as a co- ownership between Massachusetts-born J.R. Bodwell and New Hampshire-born Moses
Webster (Grindle 1979). During this time the fledgling granite firm worked on building critical infrastructure, procuring quarries on Vinalhaven, and securing contracts with the
U.S. Government. They worked especially hard to please their government contractors.
As a result, they were rewarded with numerous contracts for granite. Six years after the incorporation of Bodwell & Webster these government contracts became a source of much debate. They came to be known as fifteen-percent contracts because they ensured a
15% profit for the company.
Bodwell & Webster was incorporated in 1871 at a meeting in the coastal town of
Rockland, Maine. The future stockholders voted unanimously to back Bodwell &
Webster. As a result Bodwell & Webster was completely reorganized and renamed the
Bodwell Granite Company. The shareholders appointed J.R. Bodwell president and
Moses Webster vice president. The financial backing offered Bodwell Granite the opportunity to acquire new quarries on the island (Grindle 1979). 10
Figure 1. Locator map showing the locations of Hallowell, Quincy, and, Vinalhaven.
11
By 1884 Bodwell’s tumultuous relationship with labor led to allegations that the company was trying to drive out all competition on Vinalhaven. These allegations came shortly after yet another firm filed for bankruptcy (Grindle 1979). Bodwell’s connections with Rockland’s lime industry allowed him to obtain quarries on neighboring islands as well. It should be noted that a leading figure in Maine’s lime industry, ex-governor
William T. Cobb, held a substantial share of stock in the Bodwell Granite Company
(Grindle 1979).
By 1877 Bodwell Granite was recognized as a key member of the Granite Ring or
the “gang” as the granite cutters union called them. The “Granite Ring” was made up of
a group of Maine granite companies that held a monopoly on the granite market and were
at constant odds with the union. The ring consisted of four major players: General Davis
Tilson of Hurricane Island Granite Company; Mark St. John of the Clark Island
Company; C.A. Dixon of the Dix Island Company; and J.R. Bodwell of the Bodwell
Granite Company. These companies secured a majority of the government’s fifteen-
percent contracts in the Penobscot Bay area. These contracts helped the “Granite Ring”
maintain its hold on the Maine granite industry.
The Bodwell Granite Company was the lifeblood of the offshore granite industry,
and during its heyday the company employed 600 men. When Bodwell Granite closed its
doors in 1922, the economy and people of Vinalhaven Island were dealt a major blow.
As author and Vinalhaven native Sidney Winslow noted almost a generation after
Bodwell closed, “No other industrial organization has played such an important part in
local affairs as Bodwell Granite Company”(Winslow 1945). 12
What caused the Bodwell Granite Company to close on the island of Vinalhaven in 1922 and further, what ultimately led to the decline of the granite industry in Maine?
The collapse of Bodwell Granite on Vinalhaven did not result in the collapse of other quarries Bodwell headed. Prior to the incorporation of Bodwell & Webster, J. R.
Bodwell had purchased granite quarries in Hallowell, Maine. What allowed Bodwell’s quarries in Hallowell to remain open? It is to these and other questions that I focus my attention in this thesis.
In Chapter Two I examine the current literature on the granite industry in New
England. The demise of the granite industry is a subject that has received little attention.
What has been written focuses on labor history and the folk history associated with the granite industry. In this chapter I identify gaps in the current literature and, from an academic viewpoint, try to determine what factors contributed to the decline in the granite industry in Maine.
Chapter Three examines the roots of the granite industry in New England–why it emerged and how the market developed. In this chapter I lay out the history of colonial quarrying in New England. From colonial times until the post-revolutionary war period, progress was made in terms of techniques and stone types used. One of the first commercial granite-producing centers in the country was located at Quincy. The history of Quincy granite serves as a model for the granite industry throughout New England.
Innovations in quarrying techniques would defuse throughout New England. Quincy is one of the most studied areas when it comes to the granite industry. A comprehensive account of the granite industry in that area has been written. I will use this as a 13 foundation for research about the granite industry in Maine because Quincy was subjected to the same market.
In Chapter Four I provide background information on the Hallowell Granite
Works and Vinalhaven. Special emphasis is placed on how each company was formed and what factors, people, and political developments aided in the establishment of each company. I also explore J.R. Bodwell’s connection to both the Hallowell Granite Works and the Bodwell Granite Company. To date relatively little has been written about these connections. As I endeavor to show, however, the key to understanding Hallowell’s ability to outlive the Bodwell Granite Company can be found in these connections. In the process I dispel the current theories about the demise of the industry–theories built largely around legend and rumor.
Chapter Five explores the effect Maine’s geography had on the granite industry.
Not only was Maine becoming more isolated every year, but it also benefited relatively late from the introduction of the railroads. Once rail was established in the interior of the state it negatively affected the dynamics of the granite industry as coastal firms began to experience increased competition from firms on the mainland. Also explored in this chapter is the role the rail played in shifting the demographics of America. America’s westward migration was marked by a vast demand for building materials, which was met by the burgeoning limestone industry. Thanks to a vastly superior network of railroads the limestone industry was able to capture the building materials market from Chicago to
Boston. 14
Chapter Six is devoted to a presentation and analysis of my findings. I briefly recap the major highlights in American history that affected the granite industry in Maine and New England. I then provide a plausible explanation for the demise of Bodwell.
Finally, I talk about why Hallowell Granite Company was able to maintain operations while Bodwell Granite was forced to close. 15
Chapter 2 Literature Review
In 1952 Vinalhaven native and Kennebec Journal columnist Sidney L. Winslow wrote a revised history of the Island of Vinalhaven entitled Fish Scales and Stone Chips.
In his text Winslow covers the same material found in the original Historical Sketch of the Town of Vinalhaven, published in 1890, to mark the town’s hundredth anniversary
(Centennial Committee). Winslow covers the major industries that called the island home. His book is a collection of anecdotes from neighbors and family members about important events and life on the island. Winslow’s book paints a vivid portrait of the island that was home to 3,600 people during the early 1900s (Grindle 1979).
Winslow also offers some plausible theories as to why the Bodwell Granite
Company went out of business. He suggests that Bodwell Granite was slow to accept
change and failed to adopt new ideas when it should have. However, a growing body of
evidence indicates this was not the case. In addition to pay and a reduced workday,
stonecutters were becoming increasingly concerned about health issues, especially
silicosis, which was due to the introduction of pneumatic and steam–powered drills on
Vinalhaven (Grindle 1979). This was an industry that depended heavily on technological
advancements to increase productivity and all indications are that the company was at the
forefront of the drive to mechanize production. So was failure to adopt new ideas really a
cause for the demise of the Bodwell Granite Company on Vinalhaven?
This same text also states that the company failed to diversify. However, there is
evidence to challenge this theory as well. By the 1900s there were over 46 quarries on
Vinalhaven containing granite of various textures and colors (Dale 1907). The sheer 16 variety of stone available on the island made it possible for Bodwell’s workers to fill almost any order, from drinking fountains to building stones for bridge piers. In 1865
Bodwell and a group of investors purchased quarries on the mainland near the town of
Hallowell and in 1871 reorganized the firm to form the Hallowell Granite Company
(Webber 1998). Bodwell also owned quarries in the town of Jonesborough. Bodwell’s mainland quarries are proof of his desire to capture the ever-expanding granite market of the late 1800s. In reality, then “the failure to diversify” theory does not appear to hold water.
Prior to publishing the revised history of Vinalhaven, Winslow was the author of a weekly newspaper column entitled “Intimate Views of Vinalhaven” which appeared in papers such as the Kennebec Journal and the Courier Gazette. In his columns Winslow discusses a broad variety of issues ranging from the geologic events that shaped
Vinalhaven Island to social happenings that influenced his childhood. Most important he wrote about the island’s industry. He devoted nearly ten weeks worth of newspaper columns, from March 2, 1945 until May 11, 1945, to the granite industry on Vinalhaven
Island.
In these articles Winslow describes the Vinalhaven granite industry in great detail.
He explores the industrial landscape of the island and how various industries came to be situated there. Winslow’s columns are also a good source for dates, including the start-up dates of Bodwell’s various quarries. In terms of sources, Winslow relied heavily on historical data gathered from past issues of Rockland’s Courier Gazette. 17
Winslow recalls his exploits as a young lad working in the quarry drilling holes by hand for one and a half cents a hole. These stories provide us with critical insights into the way life used to be on the island. He recalls the story of Edward Russell, a genial old Irishman who was a foreman in the quarry. Russell was apparently lecturing the workers on tardiness when he said “Now I want yez to remember that I expect ivery man to be at the whistle when the tool box blows!” It is anecdotes like these that bring a personal perspective into the history of granite, something that is lost when the people who work in the industry are gone.
One of the more valuable articles in the Winslow collection is entitled “Intimate
View of Vinalhaven.” It focuses primarily on James Grant. Grant is known in
Vinalhaven history as the “pay off man.” In the winter of 1893, there was a lockout of all granite workers in New England. Relations between the Bodwell Company and the granite cutters union were tumultuous and numerous strikes and lockouts occurred.
Winter was always a hard time on the island, a time when grocery and rent debt were incurred. Because of the lockout, customers refused to make payment on jobs until they were completed in full. It was Grant who lobbied and negotiated to get coin to pay off the workers and end the stalemate.
Despite the wealth of history presented in these articles, we still know very little about what happened to the Bodwell Granite Company. In his March 13, 1945 article,
Winslow advances the following theory: “It may be truthfully stated that the Bodwell
Granite Company during its entire career was somewhat reluctant to adopt new and up- 18 to-date ideas in equipment in all its departments which perhaps is one of the reasons it met with an untimely end.”
This is very similar to a statement he made in his revised Historical Sketch of the
Town of Vinalhaven. Unfortunately, Winslow does not support this idea with hard
evidence. One can only gather that this must have been common consensus among the
residents of Vinalhaven when Bodwell Granite went under in 1922. Perhaps this notion was derived from the fact that the Bodwell Granite Company’s main product was
building stone, and when the market for building stone declined the people of the island
blamed the company for not making the necessary adjustments. This is a notion held by
people even today.
To date Roger L. Grindle has written the most comprehensive text on Maine’s granite industry. Written in 1979, Tombstones and Paving Blocks: the History of
Maine’s Granite Industry provides an in-depth account of Maine’s granite industry and
the labor movement that developed as a result. It pays particular attention to the struggle
of quarrymen and stonecutters as they fought to unionize in an environment dominated
by the “Granite Ring.” The members of the “Granite Ring” proved to be very anti-union
and wielded absolute power over the workers. Immigrant workers - largely Italians,
Norwegians, and Welsh - were particularly vulnerable to corporate control.
Grindle starts out by describing the somber mood of the late 1800s in Maine’s
offshore granite industry. Right away we are presented with the day-to-day struggles of
the granite firms and their employees. He sums up conditions best with a headline from 19
April 6, 1878: “War!- Plundered Granite Cutters in Arms!- Our Brothers at Vinalhaven
Revolting Against Starvation and Oppression!” “Strike Loafers are Plenty!”
Despite the fact this book is more about labor relations and the plight of the quarrymen, it
provides important background information. For example, it reports when large
government contracts were awarded to the Bodwell Granite Company, when major
strikes occurred, and when key government officials came to inspect the facilities. This
book also compares conditions at the Bodwell quarries to those at other quarries, so it is
possible to see what things were like for the stone cutters and quarrymen.
Upon reviewing the historical evidence, it becomes abundantly clear how difficult
life on Vinalhaven could be for workers. The company controlled what could be brought
onto the island, and people were regularly searched when boarding the ferry. Harsh
winters were particularly difficult for quarrymen. Harsh storms shut down operations for
weeks at a time. It was during the harsh days of winter that debt was usually incurred by
the workers. However, the workers still had to pay lodging expenses while waiting for
winter weather to clear. All of this was piled on top of the company’s reluctance to pay
for work that was already done.
Most intriguing, Grindle suggests that the introduction of structural steel and
concrete was behind the sharp decline in demand for granite. This is another theory that
people have often used to explain the death of the Bodwell Granite Company. If this is
so how could Bodwell have maintained a quarry–legally unrelated but a quarry nonetheless–on the mainland in Hallowell for fourteen years after closing operations on
Vinalhaven? 20
Another aspect to consider was that J.R. Bodwell was twice elected Mayor of
Hallowell, appointed to the Chicago convention which nominated James Garfield for president and served a year as the Governor of Maine before dying in office December
15, 1887 (Nash 1887). In short, Bodwell was well–connected politically, which may have proven very important in establishing government contracts. To what degree did
Bodwell’s political connections ensure the survival of his company?
After reading Grindle’s book one gains an appreciation for Bodwell’s shrewd business sense, which was a reflection of the ideals held by the “Granite Ring.” The
Bodwell Granite Company was quick to purchase new quarries to ensure a firm grasp on the granite supply of the island. One mainland quarry at Jonesborough that was legally affiliated with Bodwell Granite supplied high quality red granite. The quarries at
Hallowell supplied fine monument-grade granite that was used in almost every aspect of building. According to local Vinalhaven historians Hallowell’s quarries were not legally related, and remained a separate entity, but were still significant as far as the big picture is concerned.
It should be noted that Bodwell was involved in a variety of enterprises. He by no means restricted himself to granite. Out of the ground floor of the Hallowell Granite
Company Bodwell’s blacksmiths were creating hand tools for the Hallowell Granite
Company, as well as for one of Bodwell’s side businesses, the Hallowell Tool Company
(Hunt 1966). There is also evidence to suggest that the Hallowell Granite Company played a key role in developing the Indiana limestone industry by supplying equipment and expertise (Batchelor 1944). Bodwell was even involved in an iron-mining venture in 21 the town of Vassalborough. With Bodwell himself involved in so many business ventures it goes against all logic that he would let one of his most profitable businesses fall by the wayside as Winslow’s statements suggest.
The death of the granite industry on Vinalhaven is representative of the downfall of the industry as a whole. However, it is still unclear exactly what caused the decline of the industry and the collapse on Vinalhaven. Very little mention is made of the decrease in Maine’s population as a result of “Ohio Fever,” spurred by the development of the railroad and the availability of cheap land.
The advent of rail played a significant role in reducing the economic advantage held by east coast stone firms. Rail development created local markets for cheap stone, and once the limestone industry was established it took full advantage of the granite industry’s poor political organization and location away from the market center. When new bids came up for contract the congressmen of the limestone-producing states fought tooth and nail for any part of the job (Carroll 1978).
Trade journals and union newsletters provide a wealth of information on the granite industry. Perusing the trade journals of the 1900s it is easy to detect concern about the state of the granite industry. Clearly it is apparent that lockouts and poor labor relations hurt the granite industry financially. It was during the lockouts that the limestone industry and lobby was able to take hold of contracts which, up until that point, were previously reserved for the granite industry.
In 1913 Arthur Brayley was appointed by The National Association of Granite
Industries of the United States to write a two-volume history of granite in New England. 22
The date of publication is extremely important because the granite industry had just concluded one of the best periods in its history. Thus Brayley offers us a “real-time” report on the state of the industry during the early 1900s.
Of particular interest is the construction of the Bunker Hill Monument and the development of the granite industry at Quincy, Massachusetts. No other location could boast the technological advances that were on display at Quincy. The technological developments allowed granite to be effectively quarried on a commercial scale.
Viewed with a more critical eye, it is altogether possible that this text may have
been written to convince the public that granite was still America’s premier building
stone. Indeed, by this time the once huge market for granite was slowly being eroded by
limestone, concrete, and structural steel. The granite lobby was slowly losing its
advantage in Washington. Many felt that granite had been given an unfair advantage,
particularly those in office from Indiana, where limestone was the primary building stone.
(New York Times, 12 July, 1933).
In the middle 1970s, a renewed interest in the granite industry began to emerge.
People realized that an important part of Maine’s history was being lost as people who
used to work in the industry passed away. Thanks to the Maine Folk Life Center a piece
of that history was preserved through taped interviews. Most of these interviews are
recorded on 7/8 reel to reel and for the most part are largely unknown. One such
interview, A Study of Vinalhaven Island, consists of personal accounts from people who
used to work for the Bodwell Granite Company. 23
In general, the interviewer, Gordon Bok, expresses the same views as Winslow and Grindle. In fact, he simply reiterates what Winslow and Grindle have written. The industry died because of macadam, structural steel, and concrete. He never asks the individuals he interviews why the industry died. Perhaps this question seemed too obvious at the time. Bok seems much more interested in the day-to-day routine of workers. While these tapes offer an interesting perspective on history, they lack substance, at least from an academic standpoint. Nevertheless, they do underscore just how isolated the people were who worked on the island.
A key text that explores how the entire industry was established on the mainland
is “Granite Industry of Quincy, Massachusetts,” by J. Nelson Clifford, an economic
geographer from Clark University. This paper was written to illustrate how a region that
has an economic advantage can lose it through economic maladjustment. Clifford
provides a very thorough synopsis of the life cycle of the Quincy granite industry. Even
though he does not specifically examine the Maine granite industry, it is clear that the
events that took place in Massachusetts were a foreshadowing of what would happen in
Maine.
Before 1850, Quincy was at the forefront of innovation in the granite industry.
For example, the operation at Quincy was the first commercial outfit to quarry and
transport dimensional granite long distances. It was also at Quincy that wooden wedges
soaked in water were first used to split granite and create a marketable product (Clifford
1939). Clifford then discusses the demise. He notes that during 1875-1880 there was a
decline in the granite industry due to the increased use of masonry products such as brick 24
(Clifford 1939). According to Clifford brick offered a cheaper and safer option for construction. First, the cost of producing brick was far lower than the price of quarrying, cutting, and processing stone. Second, brick proved to be more structurally sound in the event of a fire as it would not expand as much as granite. Also, when doused with cold water, hot brick would not explode like granite (Clifford 1939).
Clifford’s text is probably the most accurate and detailed history of a granite firm available. More important, it provides insights into what may actually have happened to the Bodwell Granite Company. Clifford notes that although granite was slowly becoming obsolete, new uses were being developed. By the late 1800s, it was increasingly used for the construction of monuments dedicated to Civil War heroes and battles. Thus the Quincy granite industry experienced a second wind.
Despite efforts to capture new markets, the quarrying operation at Quincy,
Massachusetts closed in 1926. In a pattern destined to repeat itself in Maine, Quincy’s quarries found it hard to compete with cheaper forms of building material. Operational costs became too expensive as insurance premiums skyrocketed. Also, reluctance to incorporate quality control in an ever-competitive business accelerated the demise of the industry. The last quarrying was performed on behalf of the Works Progress
Administration in the early 1930s. Clifford’s article could very well have been written about the Maine granite industry.
Another text very similar to Clifford’s follows the decline of the granite industry in Hancock County. Written by Frank Eugene Domingas in June 1967, it tracks the progress and decline of the granite industry in six different coastal towns in Maine. 25
Domingas found that each granite firm had a different reason for going out of business.
Some of these reasons were quality related and some of the quarries lacked good sheeting. Others were geographic in nature like location of quarry too far from processing facilities, or location of processing facilities too far from transportation hubs.
Domingas discusses the introduction of rail to the industry, and the Darwinian effect that this had on the quarries of Hancock County. He also mentions the shift in the nation’s industrial center. By the time rail reached Maine it had already been widely developed in the center of the country (Taylor 1951). This in turn diminished any economic advantage that was held by Maine’s coastal and semi coastal quarries. The railroad now made other forms of stone as economically viable as granite was.
Domingas provided perhaps the most convincing argument for why the granite industry shut down. With rail being favored over other methods of shipping one can easily see how a granite company located fifteen miles from the mainland – like –
Vinalhaven–would be placed at an economic disadvantage. Conversely a granite firm located on the mainland with easy access to a railhead could manage to maintain its market share. 26
Chapter 3 Industrial Beginnings
In 1894 Maine’s granite industry ranked second in the nation in production and
profit. The only other state in the union that surpassed Maine’s granite production was
Massachusetts. In 1894 Maine’s granite quarries were producing stone that had a net
worth of 1.5 million dollars (USGS 1894). The paving block sector of Maine’s granite
industry alone grossed $710,836 (USGS 1894). This was equivalent to the net worth of
all the granite produced by the state of New Hampshire in 1894 (USGS 1894).
These data show how important the granite industry was to the nation. Many of
the quarries on the east coast were sending stone to large cities such as Baltimore,
Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, proving that granite had become the building stone
of America. It had almost limitless uses and went largely unchallenged as a building
material up until the late 1890s.
Today many people fail to recognize the significant role that granite played in the
development of America, probably because it is literally buried in our collective memory.
Strip away the asphalt, concrete, and macadam in any large city and you are likely to find
uniform granite pavers, just as they were a hundred years ago. Go to the door of any nineteenth century farmhouse in New England, and you will be greeted by a warm grey monolithic slab of granite at the doorstep. Pull the shrubs and weeds away from the side of that house and you will find granite in the foundation. Buildings and bridges that supported America’s vital transportation infrastructure, development, and democracy literally rested on granite. How did this industry develop? It is to this question that we now direct our attention. 27
Colonial Beginnings
Colonists arriving in Boston, Massachusetts during the seventeenth century would have no doubt been familiar with the boulders of New England. These boulders were found on the surface of the earth, as well as buried in the poor New England soils. Every spring like, tenacious weeds, new boulders would appear in the fields and roads, brought to the surface by freeze and thaw action. The boulders were such a problem for farmers that in the 1800s entire papers were written on how to eliminate them. One dubious source claimed that these boulders grew from seed stones, and so if the farmer was careful to pick out every stone in his field he would discourage the growth of future stones.
So how do the boulders of New England fit into the story of granite? The New
England boulder is responsible, at least in part, for the birth of the granite industry in
America. It was on these boulders that colonists first practiced and refined their stone– working techniques. Since most of these stones are irregular in shape and far too big to be moved by cart, the colonists had to find ways of altering the shape and size of the stones. Blasting, heating, and hammering were all methods used to transform the awkward globular shape of the common stone into a more manageable building material.
Building with common stone was very labor-intensive and posed some unique challenges. The typical New England boulder is more or less round, and provides little or no flat surface with which to make a plumb wall. The crude sizing techniques of the time meant that each stone had to be sized and carefully fitted into the wall (Brayley 1913).
Also, load bearing walls built out of stone had to be thicker on the bottom in order to 28 support the weight of the wall above. It became apparent that building a plumb wall was no small chore (Clifford 1939).
Records indicate that up until 1864 there was a house on Boston’s east side in the vicinity of Cross, North, and Hanover streets that belonged to one Ebenezer John Phillip.
It was constructed in 1650 and stood as an example of the common stone construction trade in colonial Boston. The basement walls alone were four feet thick, and the above ground walls were two feet thick. Each common stone or boulder was broken and custom fitted, and then set in a clay mortar (Brayley 1913).
A house such as this would have been reserved for the more affluent members of
society. A more common use for stones would have been in the foundations and footings
of New England colonial homes (Garvin 2001). Typically the colonial New England
home would have had a stone foundation that served double duty as a root cellar.
Whenever possible colonial stone masons would use stone with flat beds or bottoms.
This would help to stabilize the cellar walls in areas where the flat stones were not
available. Masons would have to split the stone with a stone axe. As the stones were laid
on top of each other they were backfilled to further stabilize the foundation walls.
Physical evidence from homes constructed during this time period shows that the
cellars and foundations were laid dry. Only in the homes of the affluent or in areas that
were extremely wet were the foundation stones pointed with lime mortar to minimize the
infiltration of water and soil (Garvin 2001).
The stone houses that Brayley writes about in his text would have been the
exception for buildings constructed during the late 1600s. Stones were most frequently
29
found in the foundations and footings of colonial buildings. Massachusetts colonists would build a stone foundation and then frame the house with heavy oak timbers; this technique was carried over from southern England. Timber framing was a much more efficient and economical means of constructing a house (Noble 1984). This method of building can be seen in Figure 1. Wood construction has long been favored in New
England. This fact was noted by George Washington when he toured New England in
1789 (Garvin 2001). In a land with so much clay, he was amazed by the lack of brick and masonry construction. When he asked about this phenomenon he was told that
Figure 2. Example of early colonial timber framed house in Pioneer Village, Salem, Massachusetts. Source: Digital Archive of American Architecture. 30
New England (Garvin 2001).
The fire of 1679 served as a catalyst to change construction methods in Boston.
After the fire an ordinance was hastily passed that forbade wooden structures in the city of Boston (Brayley 1913). Because of the prohibitive cost builders found ways around this ordinance. One method that was used was to sheath the building in slate, or add stone to the façade of the house. The house would be built with the same methods but had the appearance of a stone building. The end result was a structure that probably cost half that of stone, but was not in full compliance with the law.
There were two main reasons for building a stone clad structure. As mentioned before the cost of labor was prohibitive. The second reason was that the supply of common stones in the Boston area was dwindling. It was during this time that the first slate quarries opened up in the Cambridge and Roxbury areas. Although slate had been popularly used for head stones, the ordinance set in 1679 created an immediate demand for building stone (Brayley 1913).
To further complicate matters, just a few years earlier, in 1665, Portland,
Connecticut established an ordinance which forbade the sale of red sandstone to outsiders. The town of Quincy passed a similar ordinance which made it illegal for non- residents to collect and export common stones.
The first slates to be quarried in the colonies were the Squantum Neck Slates.
These were known as the flagging slates and were extensively quarried for many years.
The flagging slates were first used for headstones and later as sheathing and roofing 31 material to replace the very flammable cedar shingles. With an increased demand for building stone due to the fire of 1679, they were also employed as building stones.
As was the case with the fieldstones, the best sources of slate were employed to meet the high demand for building material. Once the higher quality slates in the area were exhausted, attention was redirected to the less perfect slates, which were found in the Cambridge area. The irregular cleavage planes characteristic of the lesser grade of slates forced the colonial quarrymen to refine their techniques. Irregular cleavage planes would force the quarrymen to read the subtleties in rock in order to reduce waste, which cost time and money (Brayley 1913).
The knowledge that was acquired to deal with the lesser grade slates would be employed in the extraction of yet another type of stone. According to Brayley the
Roxbury Conglomerate or pudding stone represents the last stone that was quarried before granite. Like granite the Roxbury Conglomerate was a stone that could only be worked by skilled quarrymen.
Immigration Advances the Stone Industry
About the same time that the slate quarrying industry was developing in the colonies other events were taking place that would contribute to the development of the granite industry. One such event was the introduction of German immigrants to the area by Brigadier General Waldo. By 1753 these Germans had introduced the technique of hewing stone, or sizing and finishing it with hammers (Clifford 1939). This allowed for 32 stone to be shaped into usable stock for building. The process of hewing stone was incredibly labor intensive, as noted by the people who specialized in this skill.
The first step in creating “wrought” or “hewn” stone involved using wooden wedges or black powder to blast the rock from the quarry site. The result was a collection of irregular fragments, which were then hammered into more regular shapes
(Clifford 1939). These regular shapes allowed for the construction of a straight and dimensional wall. This technique would later be modified into a finishing method called brushing, which was used to create the finish on the Bunker Hill Monument.
The German technique of hewing stone was only the first step toward making granite a viable building resource. A full account can be found in James Garvin’s book A
Building History of North America. According to Garvin, the splitting of stone with wedges can be traced to a Scottish stone mason named John Park. Park introduced the iron splitting wedge to the colonial granite industry in Groton, Massachusetts around
1767 (Garvin 2001).
An older version of how splitting stone came to America was written by Arthur
Brayley in 1913. In his text he credits a Danvers, Massachusetts man for developing the technique. According to Brayley, word reached the governor of Massachusetts, Rollins
Milton, about stones seen in the foundation of a Salem house. The foundation stones yielded tool marks and straight lines never before seen. The “new” technique was credited to a man who Brayley only addresses as Mr. Tarbox.
At the time Tarbox’s technique was discovered, Massachusetts was in the middle of building a new prison. The governor commissioned Tarbox to show the stone masons 33 working on the prison how to split stone using his technique. Tarbox’s technique allowed for granite to be effectively worked in a timely fashion. He is credited with reducing the price of granite from $4.00 a block to $2.50 (Brayley 1913). Whether or not
Tarbox or Park developed the technique is open to debate. It is doubtful that one individual can be given sole credit. We know from Clifford’s text that the colonists knew how to split stone with wooden wedges. Plug and feathering is nothing more than an adaptation to the rising wedge technique, which uses the same string of drill holes, but employs the expansive power of swelling wood to split the granite.
Regardless of who developed the technique first, it is useful to know how this method works. The first step was to figure out how the stone would split, and then drill a line of holes accordingly. During Park’s and Tarbox’s day these holes would have to be drilled by hand. This was done with a drill that resembled a round stone chisel. In cross section the cutting edge looked like a cross. The hand drill was then struck with the hammer and rotated between hammer strikes.
The process was repeated until a hole 2-3 inches deep was produced. In order to get a straight split not only would the holes have to be drilled in a straight line, but irregularities in the rock would have to be avoided. This is where the working knowledge of the quarryman comes into place. After the holes were drilled each hole received two feathers or thin wedges, and one plug or v-shaped wedge. Figure 2 illustrates the plug and how it fits between the feathers. This is a modern twist on the concept and in this case the plug can be attached to a drill or air hammer. 34
In order to split the rock in one direction the v-shape of the wedge must be perpendicular to the trend of the line of holes. The plugs were then pounded in sequentially and a straight split was produced.
Further adaptations on this technique would not take place until the late 1800s.
Early blasting methods employed a rounded drill hole in which black powder was placed and ignited. The main problem with this technique was that it generated a lot of waste due to the uncontrolled nature of the blast. The solution to this was to drill a series of holes and then break out the granite between the holes to create a channel. Blasting powder was then placed in this channel and covered with dirt. This helped to direct the force of the explosion along a plane, producing an effect much like plug and feathering.
Figure 3. Plug Drill & Feathers. Source: Crowder supply Company. 35
Figure 4. Picture of Quincy quarryman with Ingersol steam drill. Source: Quincy Granite Finding Aid www.ci.quincy.ma.us/topl/legacy/finding/aid.htm
The “Lewis Hole” was a similar technique but instead of creating a channel by drilling and breaking out the granite in between, a shaped charge would be inserted into the hole. The charge was shaped like a crescent moon which helped to focus the energy of the blast in one direction. Further adaptations on the Lewis hole came with the introduction of the Ingersol steam drill (Figure 4). As seen in Figure 4 the Ingersol steam drill was a rather awkward device, but the four adjustable legs offered unlimited mobility in the quarry. Its biggest advantage was it allowed for a v-shaped hole to be drilled into the rock. This eliminated the need for a shaped charge canister, or a channel to be created in the rock.
36
Solomon Willard: Father of Granite
Before 1820, change in the granite industry came slowly. This would change with the construction of the Bunker Hill Monument. This was the single most important event responsible for the boom in the granite industry that was about to take place. Not
only did the Bunker Hill Monument showcase granite’s elegance as a building stone, but
the amount of stone needed (9,000 tons) forced the industry to modernize.
Solomon Willard was born in Petersham, Massachusetts in 1783 and grew up
poor, spending most childhood winters working in his father’s carpenter shop. In 1804
Figure 5. Picture of Bunker Hill Monument. Source: Quincy Granite Finding Aid 37 he went to Boston to gain work as an apprentice carpenter. His first job was to fit pilings with a broad axe for two buildings being constructed on a wharf. He worked at this trade for several years before becoming a carpenter. His ultimate goal was to become an architect. Willard worked by day and attended drawing school in the evenings. He also practiced the art of wood carving. As time passed he gained notoriety as a wood carver,
and his first notable job was carving doorway capitals for Mr. A. Dexter. He also carved capitals for the Brighton Meeting House and for the Park Street Church (Brayley 1913).
Willard, who was now gaining notoriety as a wood carver, did his most notable carving in 1813–the eagle on the Old Custom House in Boston (Figure 5). After this he added carving architectural details to ships to his portfolio. Willard was now employing a crew to help handle the workload that was coming through the door of his shop. In
Figure 6. Boston Custom House circa 1930s. Source: Digital Archive of American Architecture. 38
1818 he constructed a scale model of the capitol at Washington for architect Charles
Bulfinch. After this he made models of the Pantheon and Parthenon for Edward Everett
(Brayley 1913).
After all of his hard work in New England Willard took a much needed vacation in the South. It was here that he studied the art of stone carving. From this point on
Willard devoted much of his time to learning the science behind carving stone. Willard proved to be just as gifted at carving marble as he was wood, and after returning to
Boston he was soon carving architectural details out of stone for various clients around
Boston.
Willard was truly gifted in almost every aspect of the construction process. He drew plans for people, designed models, and instructed students in architecture at his studio. In between redesigning schools and churches Willard found time to invent the hot air furnace. This invention was installed in hundreds of schools and churches throughout
Boston. Willard’s only fault was that he never patented this invention. However, the great work of Willard’s life was the Bunker Hill monument.
On May 10, 1823 a public meeting was held and the Bunker Hill Monument
Association was formed. The goal of this committee was to construct a monument devoted to the Battle of Bunker Hill. The committee decided that the monument should be an obelisk, something that had never been constructed in America. Of all the plans the winner belonged to none other than Solomon Willard. The committee appointed him chief architect and superintendent of the Bunker Hill Monument (Brayley 1913). 39
There were many obstacles to overcome during the construction phase of this monument. The biggest obstacle was obtaining an affordable source of building material.
Willard walked 300 miles to investigate the quarries in the town of Hallowell, Maine but decided that it would be more economical to go with a source of stone located near the construction site.
After his travels around New England, Willard asked the granite firms of Quincy
for proposals on the 9,000 tons of granite that would be needed to construct the
monument. The granite firms could furnish any quantity to suit their convenience, but
Willard received no responses. Apparently the average block of granite needed for the
monument (2ft by 6in by 12ft long) was considered too big and too expensive to haul by
cart.
Willard’s only reply was one verbal proposal for 62 cents a cubic foot, or $7.44 a
block (Brayley 1913). Seeing how 15 cubic feet equals roughly one ton of granite and
that 9000 tons were needed for the monument, perhaps the response was not surprising.
Indeed 135,000 cubic feet of granite were needed for the Bunker Hill monument and at
62 cents a cubic foot this meant that the monument would have a final cost $83,7000.
This was fair beyond the financial means of the Bunker Hill Corporation.
After having no luck with the granite firms in Quincy, Willard made a proposal to
the design committee. He suggested that it was possible to purchase land for a “trifling
sum” and establish a quarry on that land. The design committee investigated some land
in Quincy that had a granite ledge. The ledge was found to have a whole range of
granites suitable for the monument. Stone from this property would be quarried on 40 account from the corporation. The initial idea was that quarrying stone on account of the monument corporation would cut the costs for stone and transportation.
The initial quarry site was called the Bunker Hill Quarry and was located only twelve miles from Bunker Hill, and two miles away from the water in the town of Milton.
With granite resources for the monument secured the only thing left was to develop an efficient means of transporting the granite. Before construction started on the Bunker
Hill Monument Willard had suggested that a railroad would yield savings in transportation costs.
At the time the concept of a railroad was considered absurd in an area that was subject to so much cold weather. The American public seemed enamored with the canal
Figure 7. Bunker Hill quarry site. Picture taken in the 1930s. Source: Quincy Granite Finding Aid. 41
1825 (Granite Railway 1926).
The canal concept had been tried in the town of Quincy by two different enterprises. Once in 1824 by Joshua Torrey, who single handedly took on the task of constructing a canal to reduce the twelve-mile cartage between the quarries and the
Neponset River (Granite Railway 1926). The same year a group of investors formed the
Quincy Canal Corporation, but both of these enterprises ended in failure. Despite these failures the dream of constructing a canal was still popular among the Massachusetts legislature. In fact the Middlesex canal had been operating for twenty-two years when the Governor of New York took a barge from Lake Ontario to the Mouth of the Hudson
River.
On January 4, 1826 seven men - Thomas Perkins, William Sullivan, Amos
Lawrence, Solomon Willard, David Moody, and Gridley Bryant–submitted a petition to the Massachusetts legislature requesting funding and incorporation under the name of
The Granite Railway. This railway would run from the quarries at Quincy to the tidewater. On March 4, 1826 the very controversial bill passed in the legislature. It granted the petitioning party the corporate name of The Granite Railway and allowed construction of the railroad to begin (Granite Railway 1926).
42
The Granite Railway
The design, planning, and construction of The Granite Railway was undertaken by Gridley Bryant with the consultation of Thomas Perkins. Gridley Bryant was a very respectable builder in the Boston area who was held in high regard by the monument committee. He studied drawings of early horse drawn railways built in England so as to
Figure 8. Replica of Bryant’s rail car which was used on the Granite Railroad. Source: Quincy Granite Finding Aid.
gather a sense of proper construction techniques. The final construction of the railway used granite sleepers spaced eight feet apart and resting on a bed of crushed granite, which extended below the frost line. On top of the granite sleepers heavy wooden rails twelve inches high were bolted down. These rails were then clad with iron to further 43 extend their life. Where the railroad crossed highways the wooden rails were substituted with stone and the width of the iron cladding increased to four inches.
The first car was a four wheel beast built around a heavy oak frame. The car was designed to ride over the block and a hoisting mechanism was used to secure the block to the undercarriage of the railcar. On October 7, 1827 the first car loaded with granite rolled down the tracks from the quarry at Quincy to the water’s edge two miles away in
Milton (Brayley 1913).
The success of The Granite Railroad in Massachusetts is responsible for the death of the Middlesex channel expansion project (Brayley 1913). The final cost of the granite railway was first figured at $50,000, but Brayley’s text suggests that is was more in the
Figure 9. Drawing of pulling jack. Source: Brayley 1913. 44 range of $60,000 per mile. The result was that the shipping rates on granite dropped from
$2.00 dollars a ton by cart, to as low as 45 cents a ton (Granite Railway). However the final agreement was that the railway would haul stone for 75 cents a ton (Brayley 1913).
The low shipping rates and ready access to rail not only allowed the monument to be built in a cost effective manner, it further spurred the development of the granite industry in the Quincy area.
The granite railway was soon a victim of its own success. The increase in stone production meant the granite railway had to restrict its daily hauling limits to 30 tons
(Brayley 1913). These weight restrictions were due to the iron clad wooden rails. In
1830 the railroad would be overhauled and iron rails laid, increasing the amount that could be hauled. In addition to new rails the use of steam locomotives was employed.
This increased the range and efficiency of The Granite Railway.
Although the railroad was quite possibly the biggest innovation that shaped the
Quincy granite district, other advances crucial to the development of the granite industry were made. With increased hauling capacity and design requirements of the Bunker Hill
Monument the size of dimension stone increased. This meant that a more efficient method for moving stone out of the quarry was needed. Before the Bunker Hill
Monument stone was moved mostly by manpower via levers, rollers, and a lifting jack or the pulling jack. 45
When a block was freed from the ledge the exposed side would be raised with the lifting jack. This device allowed rollers to be placed under the stone to aid in moving the block, and the process repeated until the stone rested on rollers. If the block was too big to use levers, or in a tight place, another device called the pulling jack would be employed; this helped to move the stone horizontally. Using this device was time consuming because it required that iron rings be set into the block. A chain from the pulling jack would be hooked up to the ring in the block. The pulling jack was then anchored to something solid like the quarry walls, or something that was not going to move. The subsequent stubborn block would then be winched out of place or pulled to a
Figure 10. Drawing of lifting jack. Source: Brayley 1913. 46 location where it could be hauled with draft animals (Brayley 1913).
But the blocks being quarried on account of the corporation were bigger than normal, and moving blocks by hand was proving slow and costly. The solution came in the form of the Holmes’ hoisting apparatus. The Holmes’ hoisting apparatus was a product of Almoran Holmes. Holmes background as a seaman had a direct influence on the design of the lifting apparatus as it looked very similar to the mast and jib assembly found on sailing vessels as can be seen in figure 11. The lifting apparatus was nothing
Figure 11. Picture of Holmes Hoisting Apparatus. Source: Brayley 1913. 47 more than a mast and jib assembly minus the boat.
The way the rig worked was that the mast was anchored to the ground, and then secured in several directions by cables that ran from the top of the mast to the ground outside of the radius of the gaff arm. The Holmes hoisting rig had a gaff arm of fifty feet, and the ability to rotate 360 degrees. This meant it could reach anywhere within a 100ft diameter circle. Pulleys at the end of the gaff arm and mast would feed the rope down to a winch that was initially powered by men, animals, and then steam engines.
This invention allowed for very efficient handling of stone in the quarry and in the stockyard. The stone could be stacked out of the way while awaiting shipment, and the amount of time in handling the stone was greatly reduced. Initially the first 55,000 feet of stone in the monument were lifted with the Holmes Hoisting Apparatus. The remainder of the stone was lifted by a Holmes Hoisting Apparatus that had been retrofitted with a steam engine. Today we refer to the Holes Hoisting Apparatus simply as a derrick.
The story of the Quincy granite industry is instructive. Numerous advancements in technology resulted from the construction of one monument. Also it is fascinating because the introduction of the railroad allowed the granite district of Quincy to develop in an interesting fashion. Instead of having three or four firms in one area that did everything from quarrying granite to delivering it, the Quincy granite district was different.
This fact was noted by George Rich in his column in New England Magazine entitled “The Granite Industry in New England.” Rich talks about the difference between 48 granite companies in other parts of New England and Quincy. Rich notes that nowhere else in New England are there so many quarries and companies operating in an equal area. Each company had a specialty like transporting stone from the quarry, polishing stone, cutting stone, or building the boxes that the stone was shipped in. Instead of having one large workshop there were hundreds of small outfits. Perhaps this lateral development allowed the granite industry at Quincy to persist long after many companies in Maine. 49
Chapter 4 One Man, Two Different Firms
Vinalhaven is the largest in a group of islands called the Fox Islands, which are
located in Penobscot Bay. It is situated about twelve miles from the mainland. Even
today it takes an hour to get to the island by ferry in fair weather. The island is home to
1,235 people, most of whom make their living from commercial fishing or seasonal
tourism. Like many communities in Maine the island is slowly losing its population as
the young people move away for jobs.
By contrast, during the 1860s over 600 people were employed in some aspect of
the granite industry. The residents of Vinalhaven called this particular time in history the
“Government Times” (Grindle 1979). During this era Vinalhaven’s population grew
steadily, as the granite industry hired the first wave of immigrants to work in the quarries.
The first explorer to unfurl his flag in Penobscot Bay was the Spanish explorer
Estevan Gomez in 1525. At this time the Penobscot River was called Rio de Gomez
(Winslow 1944). The first historical reference to Vinalhaven Island was made in 1603 by
Martin Pring. He was the first to refer to the island chain as the Fox Islands, a name
derived from the large population of silver foxes that supposedly inhabited the island.
Vinalhaven would not see permanent settlement until the mid 1700s. This was
due in part to strong Native American ties to the island. In 1762 David Wooster was
credited with establishing the first permanent residence in the Fox Islands. Other
individuals - attracted by the rich timber resources–tried to settle the northern–most
island of the group, but were driven away by Indians. 50
The first Euro-Americans to inhabit the Fox Islands came mostly to exploit the island’s timber resources or to pursue agriculture (Winslow 1945). In 1826, a New
Hampshire man named Tuck became the first to quarry granite from Vinalhaven. Tuck set out from Massachusetts with a schooner full of tools, an able crew, and a plentiful supply of rum (Grindle 1979). He was commissioned to obtain stone for a prison in
Massachusetts. Quite possibly this was the location where David Tarbox first applied his plug and feather technique. With his schooner, The Plymouth Rock, full of granite he set sail for Massachusetts.
First Commercial Quarrying
Historical accounts indicates that granite quarrying on Vinalhaven was not a commonplace activity. However, Captain Tuck had discovered a good thing, an inexhaustible supply of building stone located close to the water (Grindle 1979). Despite the availability and accessibility of the granite in the Fox Island chain granite would not be quarried again there until 1828. This was when a Rockland, Maine sea captain
“procured” a small shipment from Dyer’s Island for a project in Rockland (Winslow
1945).
Why had this very distinct geographic advantage not been realized? Towns such as Quincy had invested huge sums of money to establish a rail system to transport the stone to the water. The granite found in the Fox Island chain was almost free from 51 overburden. The real geographic and economic advantage of the Fox Islands would not be realized until 1846.
East Boston Quarry
In 1846 the first commercial quarrying operation in the Fox Islands was established. It was based on Leadbetter’s Island and was owned and operated by the
Carlton Brothers. In 1849 work started on Vinalhaven at the East Boston quarry, a result of the business partnership formed between the Carlton brothers and Joseph Kittredge.
The quarry was named “East Boston” because granite quarried there was sent to East
Boston. From this point on most quarries were opened on behalf of a partnership that formed between two or more business parties.
At the time of the development of Vinalhaven’s granite resources the industry was far from stable. During 1846-1847 alone dozens of partnerships formed and dissolved
Winslow’s article from March 2, 1945 confirms that properties frequently changed hands and people’s interests were constantly being sold.
In 1851, an individual from Pelham, New Hampshire named Moses Webster traveled to Vinalhaven to get involved with the Maine granite industry (Grindle 1979).
Born in 1817, Webster eventually became a stonecutter. He first went into business in
Methuen, Massachusetts but was apparently unsuccessful, having accumulated a substantial debt. Webster visited the Fox Islands to verify rumors he had heard concerning the granite located there. Impressed with what he saw, he purchased the East 52
Boston quarry for $300 from Joseph Kittredge. The two then formed a partnership
(Winslow 1945).
The Webster & Kittredge Company was responsible for bringing the first federal contracts to Vinalhaven. This contract called for erecting spindles on fiddler’s ledge, which were probably storehouses for powder. The second federal contract was issued to the company in 1852. This was a contract to supply stone to Fort Richmond on Staten
Island, New York. By this time J.R. Bodwell had joined the firm with a cousin of Moses
Webster’s, S. Gilman Webster (Nash 1938).
In time, J.R. Bodwell and S. Gilman Webster bought out Joseph Kittredge’s share of the Kittredge and Webster enterprise. The same year they filled the Fort Richmond contract the company changed its name to Webster, Webster & Bodwell (Winslow 1945).
The Fort Richmond contract was the largest federal contract ever filled on Vinalhaven up to that point in history. It was for 3,000 cubic feet of granite at an agreed price of 22 cents a foot (Winslow 1945).
Webster, Webster & Bodwell were really put under a microscope on this contract as the man in charge of the project was General Delafield. He had men book deck passage on the schooner Oregon just to inspect the stone. Upon delivery of the first 60 tons of granite the General’s men were very pleased. In return the General’s good word helped to secure another contract to Webster, Webster & Bodwell (Winslow 1945).
The following spring of 1853 S. Gilman Webster retired from the firm, prompting
yet another name change. The outfit also abandoned its original location at the East 53
Boston quarry for a more favorable location on the west side of the town of Vinalhaven.
This quarry was called the Harbor Quarry due to its proximity to the water.
In 1854 Bodwell & Webster received a contract to supply stone for Petit Manan
Light Station. At this time they also opened up another quarry called the Burgess Quarry.
In addition Bodwell & Webster received a contract to supply the New York Naval Ship
Yard. Bodwell & Webster was gaining a reputation for quality.
“Government Times”
The 1860s were extremely good to the island of Vinalhaven and to the Bodwell &
Webster Co. In 1861 Moses Webster retired from the firm, and his interest bought out by
E.H. Walker. Despite losing one of the founders of the company, the firm continued to land new contracts. The first of these contracts was for granite that would be used in the construction of State, War, and Navy Department buildings in Washington, D.C. The second contract was for stone to be used for the Cincinnati Post Office (Grindle 1979).
By the mid 1860s Bodwell Granite Company was the major employer on the island. With an ever-increasing workload and limited labor pool to draw from the
Bodwell Granite Company began to use immigrant labor. This was characteristic of many Maine coastal towns engaged in quarrying. Rockland, Maine, which was a major player in the lime industry, was heavily reliant on Italians to work in the lime quarries.
Immigrant labor was used primarily to fill the jobs that were considered too hard or labor intensive (Maine Lime Industry). 54
The immigrant labor pool that Bodwell was drawing from came mostly from the
British Isles. Many of these immigrants were already skilled quarrymen, like the Welsh who had an outstanding reputation for quarrying stone. However, it was not uncommon to also find Scottish and Irish working in the quarries as well (Grindle 1979). Many of these immigrants would head back home to find work after the contracts on Vinalhaven had been filled.
Granite & Lime Conglomerate
After the Civil War many companies found it necessary to reorganize their management and reevaluate their resources. Bodwell & Webster Company was not immune from the corporate restructuring that American business was going through. The company was incorporated in 1871 at a meeting in Rockland. This was likely done to raise capital to improve infrastructure and to streamline operations. With the size of contracts increasing it was to the advantage of Bodwell & Webster to have the most efficient operations possible.
Future stockholders of Bodwell & Webster Co. unanimously voted to back the article of incorporation. As a result, Bodwell & Webster Company was completely reorganized and renamed the Bodwell Granite Company. The shareholders appointed
J.R. Bodwell president. Moses Webster came out of retirement to fill the seat of vice president. Francis Cobb was appointed treasurer and E.H. Lawery, a reporter from The
Rockland Free Press was appointed secretary (Roger Grindle 1979). 55
The incorporation of Bodwell & Webster did two things for the firm. First, it allowed them to raise needed capital. Second, it increased the size of quarrying operations. Upon incorporation all the old land holdings that Bodwell & Webster Co. possessed were combined with property held by the Rockland Lime firm Cobb, Wright, and Case. Cobb, Wright, and Case was the largest lime producer in the state, and now they held stock in one of Maine’s largest granite firms. They agreed to transfer their
Spruce Head granite property to Bodwell Granite.
The incorporation of Bodwell & Webster vastly increased the number of quarries and types of granite that were available. Combined totals for operations on Vinalhaven and the island of Spruce Head show that the company employed over 600 men. The contracts also continued to filter in as they worked on granite for the State Department building in Washington, the piers on the East River Bridge in New York, and the Union
Mutual Life Building in Boston. The newly organized company enjoyed continuing success in 1873, landing a bid for 6,876 yards of stone for the New York Bridge
Company and a contract for the Rockland Maine Customs House for which stone was supplied from the newly purchased Wildcat Quarry in St. George (Grindle 1979).
By the late 1870s the effects of the Bodwell Granite Company began to be felt around the island, as it became apparent to many that a majority of the quarries on
Vinalhaven either belonged to, or were in the process of being purchased by the firm.
There was not a small granite firm on the island that had not received a “pressing invitation” to join the Bodwell Granite Company. The acquisition of small quarries appears have been part of a two-part strategy. The first goal was to control the granite 56 market on Vinalhaven. The second was to keep union members from having a place to work on this island (Grindle 1979).
The incorporation of Bodwell helped it to weather the depression or “Scare of
1873.” In early 1874 the company’s stockholders agreed to raise the capital stock to
$400,000. This helped to cushion the company against future harmful effects, but it came at a cost. In order for Bodwell to raise its stock the company had to lay off 300 workers.
This strained relations between Bodwell and the labor pool.
Bodwell Granite’s relations with its labor force continued to go downhill in the winter of 1876 and 1877. During this time the company only employed 80 men because the Cincinnati Post Office contract was almost finished and there was a lull in work.
Also the company was still three to four months behind on payment to its workers. When workers’ requests for a line of credit at the company store were refused, labor relations were further strained. By March 10, 1877 Vinalhaven had a union.
The first issue that the Granite Cutter’s Union raised was the lucrative fifteen- percent contracts that had helped Bodwell become a success. Up until 1877 every government contract issued ensured that the granite supplier was granted a 15% profit on the contract. The union brought this issue to the attention of Attorney General Charles
Devens. He declared the fifteen-percent contracts illegal. This was a minor victory for the granite cutters on Vinalhaven.
The victory was short lived however. By 1878 there was a full-fledged strike on
Vinalhaven and 200 granite cutters walked off the job (Grindle 1979). Again the issue was back pay which was being held for as much as three months. Union members feared 57 that it was an attempt by Bodwell to compensate for the loss of the fifteen-percent contracts. The strike lasted for three weeks after which time Bodwell Granite finally agreed to look into the grievances (Grindle 1979).
From 1878 until 1892 workers periodically walked out to demand higher pay and a reduction in the ten-hour workday. Bodwell’s relations with labor were uneasy at best.
Initially Bodwell sought to crush the union. Officials also tried to avoid rehiring workers who joined the union. During the 1892 strike the Bodwell Co. tried to hire scabs to fill the positions left vacant by the 1892 strike.
However it became apparent that these strike breakers were not skilled in quarrying, and that the scabs were less than adequate substitutes for skilled quarrymen. It became apparent that with the formation of the union Bodwell’s political advantage dissolved. Also, the geographic location of the outfit appears to have played a role in keeping workers subservient.
It is significant to note that all the major strikes on Vinalhaven coincide with major depressions in the U.S. The first strike that occurred in 1878 occurred at the tail end of the great scare of 1873–1879. The strikes of 1890 and 1892 coincided with the tail end of the depression of 1893-1897. Bodwell’s holding of back pay may have been an act of self-preservation more than avenging the loss of the fifteen percent contract. The fear of retribution was warranted by the union but probably a bit sensationalized.
58
New Markets
By the close of the 19th century, the Bodwell Granite Company had become quite
large. At this time they had the largest cutting sheds built to date in the industry, almost
600 feet in length (Bok 1979). There wasn’t an order that this company could not fill, as
they supplied dimension stone for foundations, walls, and windowsills. Bodwell Granite
had been around long enough and had enough skilled stone carvers employed to be able
to supply the decorative motifs for buildings as well.
Herein lies the real truth about the Maine granite industry and the Bodwell
Granite Company. Rumors have persisted for years that the company was slow to adapt
to changes. This is often cited as the reason why they went out of business. Ironically, in
his own text, Grindle states that Bodwell Granite Company had not been slow to adopt
change. This company had set up polishing machinery as early as 1867. There is no way that Bodwell Granite could have fallen behind the times and filled government contracts
as efficiently as they did.
Not only was Bodwell Granite supplying building stock, it was also in the paving
block market. This was a vast and ever expanding market. As east coast cities grew so
did the market. By the 1880s Bodwell was sending paving blocks to Boston, New York,
Baltimore, Galveston, and New Orleans. The market was even bigger when we factor
smaller cities into the picture as well.
Along with paving blocks the monument business had been growing since the late
1870s. This was due mostly to the proliferation of monuments honoring those fallen
during the Civil War. This market would ultimately change the location in which firms 59 operated. The surge in the monument business is credited for breathing new life into the
Quincy granite industry (Clifford 1939).
The companies of the granite ring were huge both in terms of size and capital.
These companies would not adjust well to the shift in the granite market. Bodwell
Granite Company, which was always up on current trends obtained contracts for monuments, and made an agreement with the South Thomaston quarries for monument grade granite. But for the most part the Bodwell Granite Company’s massive size meant that it needed large government contracts to stay afloat.
By the lockout of 1892, the size and scope of contracts being awarded to the
Bodwell Granite Company were notably smaller. Instead of taking contracts for entire buildings they were taking contracts for additions to buildings as the market began to dwindle. The lockout of 1892 could not have come at a worse time from the perspective of Bodwell and the Maine granite industry. The lockout affected the whole state of
Maine and much of New England. The granite producers were forced to turn away numerous contracts due to the lack available labor.
To make matters worse for the company and its workers, along came the scare of
1893. This depression lasted until 1897. Despite the depression the government offered some high-end contracts like the D.C Post Office, Buffalo Post Office, Museum of Fine
Arts in Boston, Board of Trade in Chicago, and a whole series of new customs houses
(Bok 1979). These contracts would keep Bodwell granite cutters employed until the dawn of the twentieth century. 60
The dawn of the twentieth century in America was marked by the development of the manufacturing belt. Between 1900 and 1907 the Bodwell Granite Company was busy filling contracts. This was essentially the last time that the Bodwell Granite Company would fill large contracts for stone (Grindle 1979). In 1908 Bodwell Granite was no longer top dog in the pack. Struggles with the union had taken their toll financially.
The focus of the market was no longer on construction granite or monument grade stones. The real money lay in the paving industry, which Bodwell Granite Company had never really given much attention to. However, by 1908 the two main employers of cutters on Vinalhaven specialized in pavers.
What seems to be happening in the early part of the 20th century is that there is
more cooperation among the firms. Granite companies now appear to be behaving much
more like companies found in Quincy. Evidence for this comes from 1905 and 1906
contracts won by Bodwell Granite Company, Booth Brothers, and the Hurricane Island
Co. These were for an annex to the Senate Office Building and the Boston Museum of
Fine Arts (Grindle 1979).
In the past it was not uncommon for companies to subcontract work to other
firms, especially if they were busy. To have three of Penobscot Bay’s biggest granite
companies combine on one bid was unusual. Such joint bidding was not limited to the
Penobscot Bay granite companies. Inland granite firms were sending work to the coastal
region of Maine for cutting and carving. The Hallowell Granite Works sent its stone for
the Hudson, New Jersey Court House to Hurricane Island for cutting. A similar occurrence took place with the Mt. Waldo Granite Co., which won the contract for the 61
Cleveland Post office. Mt. Waldo cut the rough stock and shipped it to Vinalhaven for cutting.
This cooperation appears to be taking place because of the union, which by the early 1900s had become very strong. All attempts to crush the union had ultimately resulted in losses for the granite industry as a whole, and the effects of this were just starting to be felt by the industry in the form of fewer large contracts. Another reason for cooperation may have had to do with the railroad, which was very late to arrive in Maine.
As was the case in Quincy, rail made it possible for the granite companies to no longer be isolated from each other. The result was that inland companies could send stock to the coast for processing.
Hallowell and the Granite Industry
Hallowell, Maine is located in Kennebec County. The town lies on the west bank along the outside of a meander on the Kennebec River called “The Hook” (Snell 1962).
The town is located over forty miles inland from the coast as the crow flies. Hallowell’s past is characterized by a series of complex interactions and alliances between colonists, and the native Abenakis Indians, who used to inhabit the Kennebec Valley.
The first time colonists set foot on the future site of Hallowell was when twenty men from the newly established Popham colony explored the Kennebec River. The
Popham party spent three nights at two different locations one of which was the present site of Hallowell. During their stay the colonists encountered a small party of Abenakis.
The Abenakis led the colonists back to a small village where the colonists were met by 62 fifty able–bodied and well–armed men. The colonists made an attempt at trade but the captain, Raleigh Gilbert, gave up on the transaction.
It would not be until the end of the French and Indian Wars that the
Massachusetts Bay Colony would issue a resettlement statement for the future state of
Maine. It was at this time that Benjamin Hallowell was granted a fractional share of land from the late colony of New Plymouth in 1753. As the resettlement of the Kennebec
River valley began, surveyors went to work. As was the case on Vinalhaven, settlement activities were met with stiff Native American resistance.
Settlement of the Kennebec River was a very slow process. By the 1760s the
Hallowell region still only had 200 people at best. To expedite the settlement, forty-nine settlers petitioned the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to incorporate the town to “greatly encourage the settlement, peace and good order” (Snell and Ledew 1962). On
April 26, 1771 the town was granted the name Hallowell in honor of Benjamin Hallowell, and became part of Lincoln County (Snell and Ledew 1962). Despite the efforts of settlers Hallowell would not see rapid growth until after the Revolutionary War.
During the 1790s, Hallowell’s shipping industry began to take off. The beginning of the 19th century was marked by a huge increase in both international trade as
well as local trade. Only Portland surpassed Hallowell as a center of trade at this time.
However, international trade would come to a screeching halt in 1812 when, in a separate
attempt to avoid war, a federal embargo was placed on sea trade. This crippled the New
England economy, which was based almost entirely on use of the sea for trade. The War
of 1812 forced the New England states to look inward to generate capital. Traders were 63 transformed into industrialists. But Hallowell never lost its flair for trade. The navigability of the Kennebec River at Hallowell provided the ice and granite industries cheap and efficient means of transporting their products around the world.
First Commercial Quarries in Kennebec County
In Lucinda Lombard’s historical synopsis of Maine’s granite industry we learn that before stone was quarried from the granite ledges of Hallowell, granite was shipped in from Boston. This practice took place in the early 1800s and persisted until 1815
(Lombard 1990). An enterprising sea captain by the name of Alexander Parris was the first person to transport dimension granite from Boston, Massachusetts to Portland,
Maine.
The first recorded event of commercial quarrying in Kennebec County took place in 1815 just two miles outside of Hallowell at a site called the Haynes Ledge (Hawes
1962). This site employed just six or seven people, probably on a seasonal basis
(Crandall 1962). The technology used at this site would have been rudimentary to say the least, as the rising wedge was still the primary means for splitting the granite at this time.
Also, the Holmes Hoisting Apparatus would not be developed for another ten years.
Thus blocks in the quarry would either be moved using man-power or beast of burden.
The first notable contract filled by the Hallowell granite industry was for the cornice stones at Quincy Market from 1815-1827 (Crandall 1962). The second significant contract was stone for the construction of the state capitol building in 1829.
Like so many others in New England it was a classic Charles Bullfinch design, neo- 64 classical in nature. Much like the Bunker Hill monument, the Maine capitol building would serve as a showcase for Hallowell granite.
The capitol was the first recorded building in the vicinity of the Hallowell quarries to be constructed entirely from Hallowell granite. From July 4, 1829, when
construction started on the building, until 1832, when the capitol was finished, the granite
industry of Hallowell grew. Not only was this the first time that Hallowell granite was
used to construct an entire building, it was the first time that blasting powder was used in
the quarrying process in Hallowell (Crandall 1962).
After the completion of the state capitol building the Hallowell granite industry
went through a short lull, as the industry began gearing down from the project. However,
with the population of Boston growing steadily and the demand for building supplies
increasing it didn’t take long for the Hallowell granite industry to recover. By late 1832
Hallowell was shipping stone to Boston. This marks the first time that granite from
Maine was sent to Massachusetts for construction purposes.
Without the shipping industry the Hallowell granite industry could not have
prospered as it did. The granite industry relied on cheap and efficient shipping to move
its product to market. The Maine state capitol building was the largest local contract
filled by the Hallowell granite industry. Certainly without means to ship the stone to
Boston the temporary lull in Hallowell’s granite industry would have lasted much longer
than it did. In later years Hallowell’s reputation as a port city would be instrumental in
establishing a rail line to Boston, providing the granite industry with yet another form of
cheap transportation. 65
The years 1836-1837 were marked by a proliferation of all types of mining activity in Maine (Kessler 1948). Maine had just become a state in 1820 and the legislature was more than happy to uses Maine’s natural resources to build up the economy. In 1837 the Maine Legislature granted 135 acts of incorporation. Of these 137 acts of incorporation, 30 were for companies that dealt in granite. Three of these granite companies were situated in the town of Hallowell (Incorporation of New England
Business).
These historical data prove just how important Hallowell’s shipping industry was
to the development of the granite industry. This is particularly important given
Hallowell’s inland location and the fact that the majority of the granite firms established
in the state of Maine were located on the coast. Also, its granite industry was established
well before other towns that would become involved with granite.
Bodwell and the Hallowell Granite Company
In 1837 the three quarry sites incorporated in Hallowell were Hamlen’s Ledge,
Hall’s Ledge, and Ballard’s Ledge, which would come to be known as Haines’s ledge
(Lombard 1990). Of the three the Haines quarry was the most notable because it served
as a source of granite for the Maine capitol building. It derived its name from its original
owner, John Haines, who in 1828 sold the property to a group of local investors. These
investors were a mix of businessmen from the Hallowell and Gardiner area. The
investors called the company the Hallowell Granite Company. It enjoyed only moderate
success throughout its thirty-seven year existence (Crandall 1962). 66
Eventually one of those investors, John Otis, gained control of the whole operation. When he died this quarry was purchased by A.G. Stinchfield, Esq. Stinchfield operated the quarry for a little while and then sold the operation to a group of investors in
1865 (Crandall 1962). Heading up this group was none other than Maine granite tycoon
J.R. Bodwell. His associates in this deal were Charles and William Wilson.
After purchasing the Hallowell Granite Company J.R. Bodwell assumed a leadership position. Money was poured money into improving the existing infrastructure, and the defunct Haines quarry was reopened.
In 1870 the company suffered a slight set back when cutting sheds on Clark’s
Wharf adjacent to the Kennebec River were destroyed in a flood (Crandall 1962). This set the company back financially due to the loss of time and materials. After this event the company was forced to reorganize and J.R. Bodwell was declared president. The name was changed from the Hallowell Granite Company to the Hallowell Granite Works
(Crandall 1962).
The Stinchfield Quarry became the Hallowell Granite Company’s northern most quarry. With J.R. Bodwell at the helm the Hallowell Granite Company purchased yet another quarry–the Longfellow Quarry. The third quarry that is present in Hallowell remained a private venture and functioned independent of the Hallowell Granite
Company (Cradall 1962).
With the reorganization of the Hallowell Granite Works J.R. Bodwell was now president of two granite firms. In 1870, when the Hallowell Granite Works was incorporated and reorganized, Bodwell’s other company, the Bodwell Granite Works, 67 was experiencing great success. Bodwell used his business savvy to turn the Hallowell
Granite Works around. He invested in critical infrastructure, especially derricks to efficiently move the stone around.
In addition to completely modernizing operations at the Hallowell Granite Works he also purchased two schooners, the Jeremiah T. Smith and the Edward H. Smith. This gave the Hallowell Granite Works reliable and efficient transportation that was not subject to price increases. To further increase the company’s profits Bodwell established offices in large cities such as Boston, Chicago, and New York (Crandall 1962). This allowed Hallowell Granite Works to be a competitive granite firm in areas where substantial demand for building materials existed.
The interesting thing about Bodwell’s involvement with the Hallowell Granite
Works is that it remained completely separate from the Bodwell Granite operation
(Vianlhaven Historical Society). This is rather surprising considering the scope of operations on Vinalhaven. Perhaps the backers of the Bodwell Granite Company were not game for taking on another set of operations so far from their main offices in
Rockland. 68
The King is Dead
The obvious common link between both companies is J.R. Bodwell. He proved twice that he could create companies that were capable of clearing large profits. In the case of Vinalhaven he lived to see the best years of his offshore empire grow. In the case of the Hallowell Granite Works he would not live to see the company reach its zenith.
But Bodwell was an all–around businessman involved in a number of ventures. He had significant interests in lumbering, agriculture, stock raising, ice, and railroad development
(Stubbs 1962). He also found time to run for mayor of Hallowell in 1880 and then for reelection in 1884. Both times he won the election by a margin of three to one (New York
Times 1884). He also served as representative for the town of Hallowell in 1877 and
1878. In 1880 he was a delegate to the convention which nominated James Garfield as a candidate for president (Nash 1936).
In 1887 Bodwell was elected governor of Maine. He was able to serve only a year in office before dying on December 15, 1887 (Stubbs 1962). While governor he remained president of the Bodwell Granite Company and the Hallowell Granite Works.
The history texts indicate that he was well liked by his constituents as well as his colleagues. He was criticized for being a member of the Blaine political machine, which had been responsible for squeezing Joseph Chamberlain out of the political scene.
After passing away his son Joseph F. Bodwell succeeded him as president of the
Hallowell Granite Works. In 1897 it was reported that there were 500 men working at the Hallowell Granite Works, 250 of whom were said to work in the quarries (Crandall
1962). From 1804 until 1908 the Hallowell Granite Works prospered (Crandall 1962). 69
The reason for the company’s success during this time is due in part to the economic climate, but some credit must also be given to J.R. Bodwell for having the insight to modernize and enlarge the infrastructure of the Hallowell Granite Works. 70
Chapter 5 Geography, Railroad, and Limestone
In the early 1800s the determining factor in whether or not a granite firm would
be successful was its proximity to cheap and reliable transportation. As we can clearly see from events that took place in Quincy the whole industry was structured around the railroad. It was only after the railroad was constructed that Quincy’s granite industry started to experience growth.
Hallowell’s experience in Maine is very similar to Quincy’s in many respects.
The date when quarrying commenced in this area was roughly the same as Quincy’s.
Unlike Quincy, Hallowell was located further away from the market center in New
England. Hallowell’s small population, along with a lack of infrastructure really hindered the growth of its granite industry. If the industry had been located in any other
Maine inland town at this time it would have died. The industry’s saving grace was that
Hallowell was Maine’s second largest port city next to Portland (Snell and Ledew 1962).
It was Hallowell’s strong background in international trade that attracted the railroad to the town in the early 1860s (Snell and Ledew 1962). The early arrival of rail meant that Hallowell’s granite industry was able to endure the shift in transportation that took place later. Many coastal quarries were hurt by this shift in transportation. Inland location had once been a liability for granite firms, but the railroads provided a direct link to larger western markets.
The Vinalhaven operation was truly unique. Early on it enjoyed a substantial
economic advantage over Quincy and Hallowell. The island had vast resources with little 71 to no overburden, and the granite was located in close proximity to shipping facilities, mainly harbors. In the early years of the industry stone was quarried right along the water’s edge. Little or no cartage was needed after processing and the stock could be immediately loaded on schooners or granite sloops. Vinalhaven’s primary markets were located along the east coast from Boston to Philadelphia. In later years Bodwell Granite would ship as far south as New Orleans and Galveston.
Railroads and Market Change
The development of the railroads played a major role in opening up the west and populating the Mississippi Valley (Earle 2001). Thanks to the railroad, the granite industry found itself with a market that had vastly increased in size but narrowed in scope. Cities in the West like Chicago, St Louis, Cleveland, and Cincinnati served as sources for numerous government contracts. However, in later years the friction of distance would start to take its toll.
Railroad Mileage By Decades, 1830-1860 1830 1840 1850 1860 State Railroad Railroad Railroad Railroad Indiana 0 20 226 2,163 Maine 0 10 257 472 Massachusetts 3 270 1,042 1,264
Ohio 0 39 590 2,946
Table 1. Shows the development of rail by decade in major granite–producing states, and major limestone–producing states. Source: Batchelor 1944. 72
In the grand scheme of things the introduction of the railroad into Maine was relatively slow. Table 1 shows the slow development of rail in the state of Maine. By the
1850s all the New England states except Maine had extensive railroad networks (Taylor
1951). In 1850 Maine and Indiana had roughly the same amount of track mileage.
RailroadsRailro inad Maines In M a1850ine 1950
±
Source: Railroad Maps 1820-1900
Figure 12. Early map of railroads in Maine around 1850. The colored lines are proposed European owned rail lines that would tie Maine to Canada. Source: Railroad Maps 1829-1900.
73
However, in 1860 Indiana had gained a significant amount of railroad mileage while
Maine’s mileage doubled it was nowhere near the amount of the other states.
From Table 1 it is easy to see the rapid development in rail that took place in
Midwestern states like Ohio and Indiana. The development of the railroad in these two states is especially important because they became suppliers of limestone and sandstone, which would ultimately come to challenge the national standing of granite. Competition from these other building materials has gone largely unexplored when considering the decline of the granite industry.
Figure 12 is a map of Maine rail lines in 1850. Most of the 257 miles of track are depicted on this map. Also present on this map are rail lines that are under construction, and future proposed rail lines.
Figure 13 is a close up of the same map, but it focuses on the central and coastal regions of Maine. The large-scale view of the 1850 map clearly shows that the Penobscot
Bay region of Maine largely disconnected from any rail lines. 74
Figure 13. This is a close up of Figure 1 and shows the different stages of development for Maine’s rail lines in 1850. At this time the Kennebec and Portland R.R. line was still under construction. This is the line that linked Hallowell to the rest of the country. Notice that there is only a proposed spur line for the Penobscot Bay area. Railroad Maps 1829-1900.
75
Effects of Rail in State
In the 1870s the Bodwell Granite Company was filling government contracts and generally prospering. Because of modernization the outlook for the Hallowell Granite
Works was better than ever before. Then a new market developed that catered directly to the granite industry–monuments. Monuments represented the fastest growing sector of the granite industry in the 1870s, a direct result of wanting to pay tribute to fallen heroes
Railroads In Maine 1899
µ
Source: Railroad Maps 1828-1900
Figure 14. Established rail lines in 1899 that refocused the granite industry. 76 and battles of the Civil War (Grindle 1997). Both the Bodwell Granite Company and the
Hallowell Granite Company became heavily involved in the construction of monuments.
On the mainland, granite firms that specialized in monuments took on a new character. With an effective rail network in place, Maine firms that specialized in monuments located next to key railheads. This shift was a foreshadowing of things to come for the granite industry in Maine. It represented a more cost–effective and direct route to market. Thus attention began to be refocused from the coastal region to the central region of Maine. The railroads were so efficient that they made the price of sandstone from Ohio highly competitive. Rail also allowed limestone to capture the building stone market in Boston. By 1890 Quincy’s granite industry was feeling the squeeze as limestone flooded the Boston building market (Clifford 1939). The fact that the birthplace of the granite industry was feeling the effects of cheap limestone should not be overlooked. 77
Central Maine and Coastal Railroads in 1899
µ
Figure 15. Coastal and central Maine rail lines in 1899. Notice the proposed rail lines from 1850 are operating in 1899.
78
Changing Demographics Affect Granite
By 1870 the population of the United States was estimated at 39,818,449 people
(Batchelor 1944). In 1880 the population had grown to 62,622,250 and the fastest growing region of the country was the North Central
Region, which included Chicago (Batchelor 1944). This rapid growth of the North
Central region is due in part to the railroads and immigration from Europe. From Table 2 we can see the population of this region jumped from 12,981,111 in 1870 to 22,362,279 in 1880. This created a substantial construction demand, which fueled the Indiana Oolitic
Limestone industry.
U.S. Population 1870 1880 U.S.A 39,818,449 62,622,250 North Central 12,981,111 22,362,279
Table 2 This table shows the change in population from 1870 and 1880. Source: Batchelor 1944.
On the East Coast geologists and engineers conducted extensive tests on the granites of Maine, noting in particular the stone’s physical limitations. Granite was the ideal stone for massive Romanesque Revival buildings. Stone construction faced some serious limitations, however, when it came to height, so the builders of the time had no other option than to build horizontally instead of vertically. This meant that the overall cost of the building increased due to land prices. 79
Walls were constructed entirely out of heavy masonry and had to be strong enough to support the weight of all the walls and floors above. Generally this building style was restricted to six floors. Any higher and it came at the expense of light and ventilation.
Window size was restricted by the thickness of the walls.
In Chicago, a great deal of experimentation was permitted. A perfect example of this was the sixteen-story Monadnock building constructed in 1891 (Figure 1). Chicago
Figure 16. Monadnock building shortly after construction. Source: Digital Archive of American Architecture. soon became home for a new type of building, the skyscraper. The skyscraper employed a steel skeleton, which supported the weight of the floors. Stone and brick were then used to build walls around this steel skeleton. Steel skeletons meant that builders were no 80 longer restricted to granite for building but could use any type of stone they wanted. For the first time stone was selected for aesthetic value rather than physical properties.
Despite the change in stone usage from purely structural to decorative, granite was still able to maintain a strong hold on the foundation business. This was the one area of the building trade where man–made stones and limestone could not compete. Granite had outstanding physical properties and could bear an incredible amount of stress. This was something that could not be said of other building stones during this time period.
Steel–reinforced concrete still had a long way to go during the late 1890s, so granite would remain the building material of foundations throughout the early 1900s.
Evidence for this comes from the last big boom in Maine’s granite industry. This directly coincides with the increase in construction that takes place in the manufacturing belt.
Year Cubic Feet Limestone 1877 339,153 1878 421,571 1879 443,520 1880 519,420 1881 718,575 1882 651,200 1883 597,109 1884 980,598 1885 869,695 1887 2,360,000 1892 3,814,000 1894 4,580,418 1895 5,368,307 1896 5,455,582
Table 3. This table shows the increase of cubic feet produced from 1877 to 1896. Source Batchelor 1944. 81
The hit that the national stone market had taken in the early 1890s with the advent of the steel–framed building, was not evenly distributed across the industry. The demand for limestone was increasing, while the demand for granite was decreasing. Table 3 shows production of limestone in Indiana from 1877 to 1896. These numbers show a huge jump in production, one that accompanies population increase.
Also responsible for the increased stone production was the invention of the channeling machine by George J. Wardell of Rutland, Vermont (Batchelor 1944). Like
Indiana, Vermont had vast deposits of limestone as well as marble. George Wardell’s invention was essentially a small steam locomotive that rode along a set of tracks in the quarry. Attached to the small locomotive was a concentric flywheel in which chisels were attached. As the channeling machine road along the tracks the chisels would cut the stone in a straight line. This device significantly reduced the man-hours that were needed to cut dimension stone (Batchelor 1944).
In many cases the builders did not care what type of stone they used. More often than not it was a matter of simple economics. In many cases, the cheaper limestone won.
The channeling machine had been tried in Maine granite quarries but with little success.
The granite was simply too hard and no real advantage was gained (Brayley 1913). Thus not only was the limestone industry able to benefit from the economic advantage of being situated closer to market, but it could also produce stock faster and in larger quantities than the granite industry.
Indiana’s Oolitic limestone had a unique advantage in that it was significantly softer when it was quarried, but would then harden in the sun. This allowed the 82 limestone to be cut in the quarry with steel saws and produced in a very efficient manner.
The limestone would then “cure” in the sun. Ease of quarrying and production was yet
another advantage that limestone had over granite.
By 1890 the limestone industry had even infiltrated the New England building
market. Indiana Oolitic limestone had captured the Boston building market, further
straining Maine’s granite industry (Clifford 1939). In the 1900s granite and limestone
were essentially competing for the same jobs, but there was a dwindling number of
contracts available for trim work and windowsills (Grindle 1979).
By the 1900s the use of cast stone, concrete, and terra cotta were on the rise in the
building industry. A move to capture the general building industry by the granite
industry proved unsuccessful. In every case, manmade alternatives to stone were cheaper
Comparison of Unit Prices of Leading Facing Materials (units in dollars) Brick (in thousands) Cut Stone in Cubic Feet Cast Year Terra Cotta Common Facing Stone Granite Marble Sandstone Limestone Limestone Indiana 1919 N/A 13.38 20.27 1.98 N/A 4.42 N/A N/A N/A 1920 139.44 16.95 24.71 6.34 5.61 N/A N/A N/A 1921 132.66 12.84 20.76 7.38 4.98 3.00 2.80 2.76 1922 115.73 12.31 19.93 6.78 3.53 2.46 2.98 3.02 1923 119.07 12.91 20.14 6.04 2.93 2.31 3.14 3.29 1924 116.95 12.11 19.67 5.94 3.39 2.23 2.96 3.02 1925 125.55 11.71 18.36 2.36 5.94 3.50 2.29 3.14 3.20 1926 126.42 11.74 18.25 5.30 3.25 3.64 3.02 3.02 1927 106.64 11.10 17.21 2.79 6.07 3.59 4.56 2.90 2.89 1928 95.60 10.81 16.15 5.82 3.50 4.22 2.60 2.60 1929 103.92 10.67 16.88 2.40 5.91 4.47 3.96 2.59 2.52 1930 103.91 10.31 16.61 5.52 3.85 3.92 2.73 2.76 1931 100.38 9.35 14.69 2.39 6.02 5.32 3.76 2.19 2.13 1932 92.68 8.59 13.73 N/A 3.57 1.94 1.86 1933 71.51 8.65 14.08 1.81 2.59 1.57
Table 4. This table illustrates the price of production from 1919 until 1933 for various stone types and manmade materials. Source: Batchelor 1944 83 and just as effective. Batchelor suggests that the limestone industry lost out on many smaller jobs because operators refused to sell lower grades of stone.
Instead, the limestone producers insisted on putting only the best stone on the market.
The end result was that granite and limestone came in direct competition with each other.
By 1920s, Maine’s coastal granite industry was suffering from the competition with low– cost limestone.
Table 4 illustrates the price difference between granite and other building stone types. Limestone’s physical properties and ease of quarrying translated into immense dollar savings when compared to other stone types. By the early 1920s, after Bodwell had closed operations on Vinalhaven, it was apparent that one cubic foot of granite cost almost three times as much as limestone. This is the hard evidence that explains the erosion in the market place for granite.
With limestone in direct competition for the same high–end government bids the granite industry found itself falling back on paving blocks to stay alive between major contracts. In fact, most centers of major granite production had turned to the production of paving blocks and curbing stones for roads. 84
Chapter 6 Conclusions
In the preceding chapters I explored the history of the granite industry to better
understand America’s relationship to it. From its earliest colonial uses to the grandeur of
Romanesque Revival architecture, so much of our history is reflected in buildings that
were fashioned out of granite.
The trend began in Quincy with a few enterprising individuals who applied some common sense and some Yankee ingenuity to reinvent an industry that would spread up the East Coast into Canada. Vinalhaven stands as a testament to what can happen when the resources are situated in a favorable geographic location. The lack of overburden, proximity to water, and presence of good harbors came together to create a legacy that continues to persist in island lore.
Many industry experts forecasted that the industry would last forever on
Vinalhaven. In theory, the industry probably could have lasted a great deal longer, but
America was on the move westward, and Vinalhaven could not escape the fact that it was a small island located at considerable distance from emerging markets.
When America’s population moved westward its appetite for building material increased markedly. Limestone had the added advantage of being located closer to the market and not dependant on transportation via water. Water was still a much cheaper method but rail provided a more direct route to the market. Economically, limestone was cheaper to quarry and thus more of it could be produced in less time. 85
The advent of man–made materials pitted granite against limestone for the same contracts. With the granite industry in turmoil, the limestone industry gained a foothold and ultimately won the competition.
So what killed the Bodwell Granite Company? Was it structural steel and concrete? In a sense yes, but that was only the finishing blow. The real damage to the market began in the 1870s when a growing country with an insatiable demand for building stone discovered the limestone industry. The low price per cubic foot explains why by the 1880s limestone had already captured the Boston building market. Boston represented the heart and soul the of the granite industry. With the Boston market for granite declining it was only a matter of time for Maine’s granite producers.
In the late 1820s the development of rail in Quincy had made granite a viable building material. In the late 1870s rail again affected the industry. Just like the railroads had allowed the limestone industry to flourish, they also allowed the mainland granite industry to exist. We can see from Domingas’s thesis the effect that rail had on Hancock
County but what about the rest of the state?
To simply blame the collapse of Bodwell on failure to modernize or on the advent
of structural steel and concrete is to deny the events that took place in America during the
1870s and 1890s. The demographic shift from east to west, changes in transportation
modes, and distance from the market are the true culprits. Structural steel and concrete
are secondary factors the change in America’s population.
The answer to my second thesis question (Why was Hallowell Granite Company able to survive fourteen years longer than the Bodwell Granite Company?) has two parts. 86
First and most important, Hallowell Granite Company was able to survive the 1920s because its mainland location gave them two options for shipping. Second, Hallowell
Granite Company was in no way legally connected to the Bodwell Granite Company.
This means that when Bodwell Granite closed down the Hallowell Granite Company was not dragged down with it. Lack of legal affiliation meant that Hallowell Granite
Company assets remained safe from creditors. Their only common link was the man at the top. This is something that historians who have studied these two companies have failed to mention. 87
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