companies, but the construction of the state
capitol building in Montpelier (1832–1836), the
first commercial building in Vermont
constructed
of
granite brought the
greatest amount of attention to the industry.
Oren Wheaton furnished the granite. He learned
the stonecutting trade from John Parker, the son
of Vermont’s first commercial quarrier and
manufacturer. Oren and his father Pliny
Wheaton (1778–1869) purchased the quarry
holdings of John Parker and Eliphalet Hewitt
and expanded them. The Wheaton quarry on
Cobble Hill provided the stone for the pillars,
foundation, underpinning, window caps, sills,
and cornices for the statehouse.
The granite for the walls was extracted from
Abijah Abbott’s quarry on Millstone Hill in Barre.
Abijah Abbott had opened a small quarry on his
farm on Millstone Hill in Barre in the 1810s, but
Abijah died before he could witness the quarry’s
full potential or his granite’s use in the Vermont
State House. Abijah’s son Richard Flagg Abbott
took over his father’s business and developed it
into one of the largest early quarrying and
manufacturing operations, where he fabricated
probably the first large memorial in 1842 for
Reverend James Marsh, the fifth president of the
University of Vermont. The granite obelisk is 20
feet tall, weighs about 15 tons, and required 30
pair of horses and oxen to draw it the 50 miles
from Barre to Burlington’s Elmwood Cemetery.
The monument continues to demonstrate the
quality of Barre gray granite and the caliber of
the local craftsmanship in the early nineteenth
century.
By the early 1840s, according to Zadock
Thompson’s History of Vermont, Barre’s light
gray granite was considered a “source of profit
to those who own it” and was “eagerly sought by
those who [could] afford the expense, as a most
durable and ornamental article in buildings.” In
1840, Pliny Wheaton
showed the possibilities
of Barre granite by
building himself a
house from granite
Photographed in 1884, Marr & Gordon
Granite Works represented a new
generation of companies that specialized
in producing granite products on a large
commercial scale, with nearly
three dozen employees.
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