The Vermont Stone Trail A Visitor’s Guide to Granite, Marble and Slate in the Green Mountain State Lake Willoughby Photo courtesy Annalie Babson Table of Contents The 2 The Story of Stone in Vermont Vermont 6 Southern Region Stone Trail 14 Central Region 32 Northern Region A Visitor’s Guide to Granite, Marble and Slate in the Green Mountain State Using this Guide The information in this guide is arranged into southern, central and northern regions of Vermont. Each section begins with a map Serendipity and the dynamic nature of the earth’s showing the number and location of landmarks and points of interest crust gave Vermont rare and excellent deposits of described in the guide pages. The guide pages include a landmark granite, marble and slate. With hard work, description and graphic icons creativity and the efforts of many, each of these indicating the type of stone, features and activities for each resources has been developed into a highly location. successful industry that continues to offer products Landmark Legend that are sought after throughout the world. Type of stone The Vermont Stone Trail is a guide to geological Marble regions of Vermont where granite, marble and slate Slate Granite were quarried, manufactured and utilized. Combination Vermont’s diverse geologic resources have been Other Dimensional used to create some of the finest buildings, Stone provocative memorials and stunning works of art Landmark features and activities found around the world. The Vermont Stone Trail Geology Above: A historical photo of a Boutwell, Milne & Varnum Company Quarry, Barre. invites visitors and residents alike to find a wealth Quarries/ On the cover: An artist uses the pointing machine method to reproduce a marble sculpture in the early 20th century. Industry of historical, artistic, cultural and recreational This is a Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing Trails/ cultural heritage publication. experiences ranging from visiting museums and Outdoor With thanks to: sculpture parks, to exploring old quarries on foot or Museums/ Dimensions of Marble Vermont Division for Sculpture Poultney Historical Society Historic Preservation by mountain bike. Architecture Vermont Geological Survey Preservation Trust of Vermont Parks/ Rock of Ages Vermont Granite Museum Preserves Vermont Marble Museum Slate Valley Museum Monuments/ For your safety, when visiting quarries wear closed-toe shoes and be wary of unstable stone piles and heights. Also, in the case Cemeteries of private property, please respect the landowner’s preferences and view the site from the public roadway. © 2016 Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing All rights reserved. in a rock that can be split easily. Marble is formed station, store and additional quarries located from the metamorphism of limestone or throughout the country and, for a time, it was the dolostone. Soapstone is another metamorphosed largest marble company in the world. dolostone found in Vermont. Quartzite is formed At a time when Vermont’s population was from quartz-rich sandstone. Stone trades use the declining and railroads were opening up new term “marble” broadly to encompass limestones markets for Vermont products, Vermont’s and quartzite that can be polished. emerging stone industry needed skilled and able workers. Immigrants filled the void. Skilled Vermont’s Marble Industry laborers and talented carvers came from the famous Northern Italian quarries of Carrara. y n Marble is a durable stone that is relatively easy to a p Over time, these workers were joined by large m o split and carve. Early American settlers quarried C e t numbers of workers from Poland, England, a marble from surface outcroppings and used it for l S e Ireland, France, Sweden and Finland, all of whom n house foundations, fireplace lintels, hearths o t The Story of Stone in Vermont s n helped to shape the evolving culture of Vermont. e and tombstones. Over time, demand for the e r G y versatile stone grew and numerous quarries and Vermont marble comes in colors of green, blue s e Vermont’s Stone History Dates Back Millions of Years t r u and gray and a remarkable layer of white marble o workshops were established along the Vermont c o t o marble belt including Dorset, West Rutland, is still being mined today in a vast underground h Looking out over Vermont’s serene landscape, Meet Our Rock Stars P Brandon and Middlebury. quarry in Dorset Mountain. Likewise, Isle La it’s hard to imagine the dramatic forces that Motte’s Champlain Black, Rochester’s Verde Just what are the stones of Vermont’s Stone Trail? Over the course of the 19th century, successful once went into forming it. But, oh, the drama! Antique and Swanton Red are known as prized Granite, marble and slate are our rock stars, along small enterprises evolved into companies that It started quietly enough. Vermont’s geologic marbles but in strict geological parlance they with some supporting types, too. What they all quarried, cut, carved, polished, sold and shipped history dates back 1.4 billion years to when sand, are limestone, serpentine and quartzite— have in common is that they belong to the three marble blocks and finished products. In 1880, a lime mud and clay were slowly deposited in seas metamorphic cousins, so to speak. types of rock. number of southern Vermont companies were adjacent to a much smaller North American consolidated under the management of Vermont marble is prized by artists and architects continent than exists today. These sediments Sedimentary rocks are formed when particles of businessman and politician Redfield Proctor. for its high quality and range of colors and can be eventually became tens of thousands of feet of pre-existing rocks and/or organic matter are Eventually, the new Vermont Marble Company found in buildings and monuments such as the solid rock. moved and deposited by water, wind, or ice, and would expand to include a railroad, bank, power New York Public Library (1895), Tomb of the Next came a long period of pushing and pulling solidified over time. Shale is a sedimentary rock Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery (1921), as the earth’s crust slowly moved, forming and made of layers of clay. Limestone is made largely Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. reforming continents. The pushing created of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as (1943), and Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript mountains, broke the earth’s crust to form coral and molluscs. Sandstone is made of sand- Library at Yale University Library (1963). faults, and created intense heat and pressure sized minerals or rock grains. that transformed rocks from one type into Igneous rocks are formed from cooled molten Vermont’s Slate Industry another. The pulling allowed molten rock to lava, or magma. Volcanic igneous, or extrusive, Slate of varying quality is found throughout intrude into the earth’s crust, and to rift apart rocks were rapidly erupted onto the earth’s Vermont, but it is Vermont’s Slate Valley, running large plates of bedrock. surface and cooled quickly; whereas plutonic, or north and south for 26 miles along Vermont’s In more recent geologic history, glaciers scoured intrusive, igneous rocks cooled slowly deep western border, that is world-renowned for high Vermont and, along with thousands of years of within the earth’s crust. Granite is an intrusive quality slate occurring in multiple colors weathering, removed more than a mile of rock igneous rock that has large mineral crystals including green, purple, red and gray. Slate from what is Vermont’s land surface today. visible to the eye. Variations in the kinds of quarrying began in this region in 1843, on Scotch m minerals within the granite influence the final u We now see evidence of this long and complex e Hill Road in Fair Haven. Durable and easy to s u color of the rock. M history in exposed landforms throughout split, slate was initially quarried and milled for e l b r Vermont. Some—including the Chazy Fossil Metamorphic rocks are sedimentary or igneous a slate writing tablets and pencils, but within the M t n Reef , the Barre granite quarries and the rocks transformed by heat and/or pressure into o next 20 years, products expanded to include roof m r e V Champlain Thrust Fault —bring visitors from tiles, washbowls, bathing tubs, fireplaces, denser rocks made of rearranged or new y s e t around the world. r mantelpieces, tabletops, flooring and more. minerals. Metamorphism is common where two u o c o Geologists tell us that Vermont is indeed a very regional plates of the earth’s crust converge and t As in other Vermont stone trades, slate work was o h exciting place. form mountains, such as the Green Mountains. P physically demanding and dangerous. Early Slate is formed from shale that is metamorphosed Historical Photo: Lifting a slab of marble 110 feet quarries used blasting, manual labor and oxen at a low temperature and pressure, which results at the Vermont Marble Company and horses to remove slate, rubble and water that 2 The Vermont Stone Trail The Story of Vermont Stone 3 on everything from 19th century barn roofs, to the 19th century. Barre, already the state’s largest But mechanical advancements didn’t necessarily churches, homes and places of business. Traveling center for granite, saw its population jump from always benefit the workers. When steam-powered the valley, it becomes a treasure hunt to find slate 1,882 residents in 1870 to 6,790 just twenty years jackhammers replaced the work formerly done in one form or another around each bend. later. Acres of granite sheds located on railway by 12 hand-drillers in the Dorset marble quarries, sidings housed laborers at work on hundreds of a disgruntled employee frequently stole onto the Vermont’s Granite Industry lathes, column cutters and polishing machines.