The Granite Industry of Southwestern New Brunswick: A Historical ...

36 The Granite Industry of Southwestern New Brunswick: A Historical Perspective
[Ed. note: The Young quarries are situated on what is now
Crown Land. Some of these quarries (e.g., 33) are currently (2013)
worked on demand for construction aggregate and other purposes,
including artistic sculptural work. See Epilogue.]
O’Brien and Baldwin (St. George Granite Works
or Taylor Brothers)
History
The rise and fall of the Taylor family and its St. George
Granite Works is surely one of the more tragic narratives in the
annals of St. George.
The company was founded by stonecutter Alexander ‘Sandy’
Taylor Sr., who moved with his family to New Brunswick (via
Maine) from Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1872. After working briefly
with the Bay of Fundy Red Granite Co., he launched his own
business in late 1875.
Taylor initially co-leased (with Coutts, Watt and the Milnes)
an old mill in the Gulley on the west side of Magaguadavic Falls;
there, he finished stone quarried by others. In 1880 he secured a
major contract to produce six massive granite columns for the New
York Stock Exchange. They were completed in December 1880
and shipped to market along the newly completed Grand Southern
Railway between Saint John and St. Stephen (Moncton Daily Times,
December 11, 1880).
In 1881 Taylor leased land on the east side of Magaguadavic
Falls directly on the river, erected a modern new mill, and launched
his St. George Granite Works (Map 4). He bought his first St.
George quarry in 1881 and a second quarry, with a ‘capacity for
large stones,’ in 1885 (Map 2, 40). He also either leased or bought
a quarry of greyish pink granite at Hampstead (see Part Two) in
the early 1880s. By 1887 the company included his two eldest
sons, Alexander Jr. and John. They owned
…two cutting sheds 80 x 14 and 20 x 14 feet respectively,
a polishing shed 60 x 40 feet, and also blacksmith and
pattern shops. There are in his works 3 Jenny Linds, 4
lathes, 2 pendulums, 2 verticals, and a column cutter.
Mr. Taylor derives the motive power for his works from
the [Magaguadavic] falls. The work is done under the
immediate supervision of Mr. Taylor, who is a man of
many years’ experience in the business. He has 50 acres of
land near St. George, and also 200 acres at Spoon Island
[Hampstead], on the St. John River. From the former he
obtains red granite, and grey granite is quarried at Spoon
Island. He employs 5 men at his St. George quarry, the
stone being more easily got out than in many other places.
Last year he had 14 stonecutters and 10 polishers at his
works besides a column cutter, teamsters and blacksmiths.
Mr. Taylor's business last year was double what it was in any
former year and he expects it will be much larger this year.
~ The Daily Sun, January 25, 1887
Two years after this article appeared, Alexander suddenly died
while on a trip to Quebec. Alexander Jr. and John, ages 27 and
22, continued the business. They expanded the mill, bought another
quarry, and hired extra men, including their young brother William.
But in the autumn of 1894, John fell ill and died of consumption.
Three years later William died at age 25 of the same disease.
Alexander Jr. was ailing himself and could bear no more. He
sold the company and all holdings in 1898 to John C. O’Brien and
Andrew S. Baldwin of St. George. He moved to Colorado, hoping
to regain his health but returned home in 1901, still consumptive,