firms made Civil War memorials for
communities and battlefield sites
throughout the Eastern United States.
In the 1870s, many of the employees
of Vermont’s granite manufacturers
started to work full time, as opposed
to the early granite workers who often
were farmers or laborers who worked
part time in the industry. In addition to
changes in labor, granite manufacturers
began the transition from hand-produced
products made outdoors near quarry sites
to making products using water-powered
cutting, shaping, and polishing machines
installed in permanent granite sheds.
The same mechanization that occurred
in the granite sheds also took place at
the quarries with the use of horse and
human powered derricks. These der-
ricks allowed quarrymen to extract
granite blocks larger than ever before
and to follow seams of high-quality
granite regardless of the depth the quarry
reached. In the 1870s, construction of
railroad spur lines connecting gran-
ite sheds and quarries to the railroad
main lines became the norm as the levels
of granite production increased with the
growing appetite for granite products in
the Northeast. By the end of the 1870’s
Vermonters, as well as granite companies
along the Eastern Seaboard, began to take
notice of Vermont’s granite products.
People recognized that Vermont’s granite
industry had the potential to grow—and
grow it did! Four decades later, Vermont’s
thriving granite industry made Barre the
“Granite Center of the World.”
Many Civil War monuments, such as Rochester’s,
were made from Barre granite.
Photo courtesy of the Rochester Historical Society.
Scott A. McLaughlin is the
executive director of the
Vermont Granite Museum
in Barre, VT.
Vermont Granite Museum (802) 476-4605 vtgranitemuseum.org
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