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

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54 The Granite Industry of Southwestern New Brunswick: A Historical Perspective The discovery site, continued the reporter, was situated at the north end of Joseph Craig’s farm on a bluff about 500 feet high and 1,500 feet long. Sheriff Stuart obtained the quarry rights from Craig, as well as nearby land and water rights so he could transport stone to Bocabec Cove. In November 1893 both Tayte, Meating & Co. and Epps, Dodds & Co. placed their first orders for black granite from Bocabec. Stuart possibly envisioned a black granite industry centred in Bocabec. He built a haulage road to Bocabec Cove, shanties for the men, and a wharf. He installed a small polishing mill in St. Andrews for ‘minor projects’ until a larger mill could be erected at Bocabec Cove. And in 1894 he incorporated the Bocabec Black Granite Co. with a group of investors from Maine. However, the realities of oveseeing the shaping and finishing of stone proved daunting. By 1895 Stuart was managing the quarry solely as a source of raw material for the established St. George granite firms, especially Tayte, Meating & Co. and Epps, Dodds & Co. The latter firm quarried and finished Stuart stone for monumental work until at least 1911 (Parks 1914, p. 148). The quarry fell into disuse during World War One, perhaps due in part to the shortage of men. It remained inactive until the mid-1940s, when the New Brunswick Department of Public Works used the rock in two stone bridges in Charlotte County (Martin 1990b, p. 205, 207). By the time the first automobiles crossed those bridges, Sheriff R.A. Stuart had been dead for about a decade, buried beneath a gravestone of polished black granite. Quarry The Stuart Quarry (51) is located on Chickahominy Mountain about 1,500 feet to the southeast of Stein Lake. It is reached by travelling two and one half miles northeast of Chamcook Station on Highway 127 and then north on a haulage road for half a mile (Map 2). Above: Gravestone of Robert A. Stuart (1840–1935), made of black granite from the Stuart Quarry, St. George Rural Cemetary. LF
Part One — The St. George District 55 Chickahominy Mountain. Above right: View from the top of the mountain, looking southwestward across Bocabec Bay. Upper: Axle of an old rail cart from the Stuart Quarry on Chickahominy Mountain. Lower: Stuart Quarry, overgrown with vegetation. LF Parks (1914, p. 148) describes the black stone from this quarry as a coarse-grained diabase. He reports that the stone is hard to cut, as evidenced by its low drilling factor, and so was not used ‘so largely as its susceptibility to fine polish would warrant.’ The feldspars are almost unaltered, and much of the augite has not altered to hornblende. The corrosion test shows that the dark minerals are attacked and that a surface film of lighter green appears. According to Parks, the greater weight, higher specific gravity, lower pore space, lower coefficient of saturation, considerably greater transverse
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Energy and Mines The Granite Indust
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Energy and Mines The Granite Indust
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Preface and Acknowledgements iii Ta
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Preface and Acknowledgements v Pref
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Preface and Acknowledgements vii Ac
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Part One — The St. George Distric
Page 13 and 14: Part One — The St. George Distric
Page 63: Part One — The St. George Distric
Page 79 and 80: Part Two — The Hampstead District
Page 103 and 104: Appendices 93 class of stone his cu
Page 105 and 106: Appendices 95 It has long been the
Page 107 and 108: Appendices 97 Quarry 6, Map 3. View
Page 109 and 110: Appendices 99 Above left: Quarry 12
Page 111 and 112: Appendices 101 Above left: Quarry 3
Page 113 and 114: Appendices 103 Left: Quarry 46 (‘
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