1830 -1864
"Gloucester Goes Giddy Over Granite"

1864 - 1931
"Rockport Rules Rock"

1931 - Present
"Depressed, Disposed, (re)Discovered

1830 -1864
"Gloucester Goes Giddy Over Granite"
Harriet Martineau, 1802 - 1876

After dinner, we proceeded on our travels, first visiting CapeAnn, the extreme north end of Massachusetts Bay. We had the bay before us, and the great Atlantic on our left. We ought to have seen Boston; but the fog had not quite cleared away in the distance. Thatcher's Island was near, with its two lighthouses, and a bright, green sea playing about it. Then we turned and drove northward along the shore, with busy and most picturesque quarries to our left. There were tall poles in the quarries, with stretched ropes, the pulleys by which the blocks of stone were raised: Show More...there were ox-teams and sleds: there were groups of workmen in the recesses of the rocks, and beside the teams, and about the little bays and creeks, where graceful sloops were riding under the lee of tiny breakwaters, where the embarkation of the stone for foreign parts goes on. Blocks of granite lay by the road-side, marked, either in reference to its quality, if for sale; or to its proportion among the materials which are being prepared to order for some great building in New York, or Mobile, or New Orleans. Some may wonder how granite should be exposed for sale in such a district; and who would be likely to buy it. I saw, this afternoon, gate-posts, corner-posts, and foundations of common houses, of undressed granite; and, also, an entire house, the abode of the blacksmith. The friend who sat beside me told me that he hoped to see many more such mechanics' dwellings before he dies. Stone becomes cheaper, and wood dearer, continually; and there is no question which is the more desirable material for those who can afford it. With regard to beauty merely, I know of no building material to equal granite; dressed in the city; undressed in the country. We went into a quarry, and saw an untold wealth of fissured stone. The workmen contrive to pursue their business even in the winter. When the snow is on the ground, and the process of drilling is stopped, they remove ordinary pieces out of the way, and make all clear for their spring labors. They "turn out" 250,000 dollars'-worth a-year; and the demand is perpetually on the increase.
from Society in America, pub. 1837 ...Show Less

Paving Stone Tub Chippers on Granite Pier
Oil Painting by Margaret Howard Yeaton Hoyt. Courtesy of Sandy Bay Historical Society, Rockport

1864 - 1931
"Rockport Rules Rock"The Rogers Family

Between the businessmen who founded the Rockport Granite Company of Massachusetts in 1864, and the men who worked the quarries,
the value and meaning of a handshake was forever in dispute. - Leslie D. Bartlett

Quarry Workers

1931 - Present
"Depressed, Disposed, (re)Discovered
Consider…
a timeline of three individuals who might standout out as central figures in the preservation of what the day-to-day life of the granite industry on Cape Ann was like.

Louis Rogers 
Final Treasurer of the Rockport Granite Company, he preserved corporate records which he bequeathed to the Harvard Baker Library in April, 1953.

Barbara Erkilla
Lanesville native, writer of Cape Ann Granite history (Hammers on Stone) compiler of numerous oral interviews with the living remnants of the quarry industry.

Leslie D. Bartlett
His 2007 installation at the Cape Ann Museum – Chapters on a Quarry Wall revealed the resilient quarry landscapes of Cape Ann for a new generation of Cape Ann natives and visitors alike. And it followed Leslie spending 25  years researching photography and granite papers at Sandy Bay Historical Society and the Cape Ann Museum; over 9 years in research at Harvard with the materials collected by Louis Rogers, and most recently,  unpublished papers of Barbara Erkkila, now housed at the Cape Ann Museum.

Chapters on A Quarry Wall

Download 2007 Catalog from "Chapters on a Quarry Wall" here