By Sheila Dassatt
When Mike and I attended Sardineland at the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, I learned a lot from the folks that came to our booth. They had questions and learned from us, such as watching Mike create a lobster trap head with his unique knitting table. We also had a newly built lobster trap for them to see. The trap was outfitted with shrimp mesh heads and a hand knit parlor head. This way people could see the past and the present within this one trap. It was amazing that so many people did not know what the trap was and asked what it was for. We were very happy to explain it to them and show them all about the “kitchen and the parlor.”
The one thing that inspired me was some of the questions that were asked of us. One question that stuck with me was a gentleman that asked about the origin of the stonecutting in Maine. He also asked about the granite quarries that originated in Stonington, Maine. We gave him the basic history of the stonecutting and told him about the Granite Museum on Main Street in Stonington.
Fishing has always been the mainstay of Stonington, which is known for granite and the fishing industry. But in the mid-1800’s, granite was the king or top industry of the time. The granite that came from the Crotch Island quarry was high quality granite. What distinguishes the Stonington granite is that it’s pinkish in color, called Sherwood pink and Goss pink. When you see granite and it is just gray in color, it is not Stonington granite. It is most likely from Vermont or another quarry in Maine.
Swedish and Italian immigrants were very integral to the Stonington, Maine granite industry. They brought specialized skills to the quarries on Deer Isle and Crotch Island in the late 19th and 20th centuries. My grandmother was Norwegian and was able to communicate with the Norwegian immigrants. This was all a very special time and era for working together.
In the days before the more modern glass, steel and concrete, the primary building material was granite. Stonington granite, which we are very proud of, was used for projects such as the Brooklyn Bridge, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Rockefeller estate in New York’s Hudson Valley, Sing Sing Prison, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan and the John F. Kennedy Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC. I remember at the time of the Kennedy Memorial being built, that it was a very proud project that employed a lot of workers. Each worker and truck driver was pleased to be part of the Memorial and a part of the Island will be in Washington DC with such a lasting honor, housing the Eternal Flame.
To learn more about the Deer Isle Granite Museum, go to: https://deerislegranitemuseum.wordpress.com/. You can also watch the museum’s video about Stonington’s granite history at https://youtu.be/qFVrYqBh-no. This is all about a different era in our history and you will find it very interesting.
What really fascinates me are the stone boats of the era. These men on these boats really took their chances especially with a fully loaded boat of stone and rough seas. Horse drawn carts called “galamanders” moved the blocks from the quarry to the boats. The stone sloop was a 19th century broad beamed sailing vessel that carried stone and granite to ports such as Rockland, Portland, Boston, New York City, and Wilmington, Delaware. The typical sloop was 90 feet long and displaced 120 gross tons. They were broad-beamed and had a mainsail as big as 1,000 square yards. Sloops were preferred for carrying stone because the single mast left the dock free for moving the stone with a boom pole. A crew of five could haul 200 tons of granite, which would be unloaded with a manual or steam derrick fixed at the base of the mast.
A lot of smaller sloops on the Boston run were loaded just shy of the sinking point. The “Annie and Reuben” which my uncle was a crew member on, had over 200 tons aboard lying at Crotch Island wharf with water flowing through the scuppers to the height of an inch or more on the main hatch coaming. And this was when it was flat calm!
Stories of stone freighter sinkings were common. Some of the causes were losing caulking, springing a plank or leaks that the pumps could not keep up with. Some of the cargo could be removed for safety in these occasions, but the granite blocks were unmovable. This would tragically be the loss of a sloop and devastate the family. An example is the schooner LAMARTINE, which sank in 1893 after its granite cargo shifted during a storm.
By 1899, the stone sloop era was coming to a close. The cost of cutting and shipping granite were rising and the steam lighters (flat bottom barges) replaced the sloops and schooners in moving granite by water. At this point, this brings in what my Dad used to do, continuing with tradition. He operated a tugboat out of Belfast and one of the major jobs that he did at the time was towing one of these barges. It could be a very dangerous job even with flat bottom barges. He had stories about towing one of these barges, especially in rough weather.
My hat goes off to all of these quarry men and the men that moved the product. It was a very dangerous job. So when you see these beautiful monuments and stone steps, please remember what it took to cut the stone and get itthere and where it came from.
