The marble industry in Vermont
In 1768 the first colonists noted that what they had
thought were snow banks was actually white rocks of Dorset seam.
Marble was at first cut for tombstones and hearths from the surface with
hammer and chisel. Mining then intensified after the development of the first
settlements.
In 1784 Isaac Underhill set up in Dorst, what was probably the first
commercial marble quarry in North America. Using their simple tools,the
colonialists struggled to produce marble for lintels, windowsills, fireplaces,
and marble basins.
The first technical assistance came about in 1805 with the invention of "gang
saw" and the "channelling machine", enabling larger blocks to be mined and
worked.
Several marble quarries sprang up at this time along the marble vein that
runs from the North to the South of Vermont, most notably in Rutland, Sutherland
Falls (Proctor), Florence, Brandon, and Middlebury.
One of the first big commisons came in 1837, the Untied States Bank Building
in Erie,PA, known as the "Old Custom House".
Ox and horse drawn carts and
sledges were used to transport the five-ton blocks to Whitehall, a distance of
some 30 miles. From there the marble was shipped over the Hudson to Albany, then
via the Erie channel to Buffalo and finally over the Great Lake to Erie.
The marble quarries in West Rutland
Marble was already mined by 1807 in West Rutland, at the True
Blue Quarry in Chippenhook. The mill ran day and night, while the quarries were operated in shifts.
Cranes with booms made from 90 foot high Georgian pine lifted 40 ton blocks from
a depth of over 100 feet.
The Vermont Marble Company began here commercial
in 1844 with the "tunnelling form" of marble extraction and working.
The
gigantic blocks were cut down with diamond saws or continually moving narrow
steel bands.
The work face was some distance from the main
entrance in the West Rutland hillside, where quarries extend beneath ground for
more than five acres.
The first settlers in West Rutland were farmers and a few
tradesmen from Connecticut and Massachusetts. By 1885 the quarries employed about 3,000 workers. After the recession of the Vermont Marble Company, Stanley Gawet in 1978
bought the entire Vermont Marble Company property located in West Rutland.
The major decline in the population occured between 1930-1950, a decrease of
nearly a 1,000 people in 20 years, due mainly to the closing of many of the
marble quarries.
In 1840 there were only 20
dwellings in West Rutland, however by the 1850's the marble industry began to
flourish. The marble companies built houses and tenements for the workers, most
of whom would move away seasonally when the quarries shut down for the
winter.
Between 1870 and 1880 as the marble industry boomed, the population
climbed rapidly from 1,600 people living in West Rutland to over 3,000.
In
November 1886 West Rutland was incorporated as a town. Later, there were a total
of nine churches in WR, forming the social centres for the community. Currently
there are three churches, which are considered of historical interest.
In 1890, the population
was 3,680, comprising mostly English, Irish, French, Italian, Swedish, Polish,
and a few Jewish families.