SETTLEMENT QUARRY PRESERVE, STONINGTON

HISTORY OF SETTLEMENT QUARRY PRESERVE

The Deer Isle Granite was formed at least 300 million years ago when what is now coastal Maine was geologically active. Some of the magma rose through the crust and became trapped before reaching the surface, cooling slowly over hundreds of thousands of years. In the great expanse of geologic time, the thousands of feet of overlying rock has been gradually eroded inch by inch so that the Stonington Granite is now exposed at the earth’s surface.

“The human history of the area begins with Indians, the ancestors of the Etchemins (meaning “real people”) whose campsites are numerous around the shores of Webb’s Cove. By 3000 years ago, the cove was the southern end of a major transportation route that ran north through Deer Isle, eventually connecting with routes to Castine and the Penobscot River. From the cove to the south, Indians had access to the various islands off the Deer Island Thorofare and Merchants’ Row, as well as Isle au Haut (one of their sources of stone for tool making).

Besides the fish, marine mammals and waterfowl available in the waters beyond, there were abundant resources in the cove itself. In addition to some of the best clam flats on the island, there was good fishing for mackerel, flounder, sculpin, shad and dog fish. Jack’s Brook at the head of the cove, along with other streams, provided good smelt runs, Tom Cod, and eels were plentiful in the outlet brook from east end of Burnt Land Pond that flows into Webb Cove. Duck hunting, too, was productive…

…[Among] the early white settlers on Webb’s Cove was Thomas Buckminster, who in 1790 acquired 50 acres on the east side of Webb’s Cove (later the site of the Settlement Quarry). To the east was land of Thomas Robbins, and to the north, George Gross. At the time, this was the southernmost settlement on the east side of Deer Isle, and the earliest in what would later become the town of Stonington. Thus, it came to be known as “The Settlement.” – Bill Haviland, A History of The Settlement Quarry Preserve, 2008

In the early part of the 20th century the Settlement Quarry was a major industrial site, employing hundreds of men. It was a forest of stacks, masts, booms, and derricks, such as depicted in Stonington’s Granite Museum. It included coal-fired boilers to generate the steam to run the engines that operated compressors, dynamos, winches, and cranes. There was a railroad for moving granite and machinery within the site.

In 1902 the first major granite shipment went to construct abutments of the Williamsburg Bridge in New York City. Subsequent shipments were used for the George Washington and Triborough Bridges, New York’s Grand Central Terminal, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and many other important buildings. Its last major shipment in the late 1960’s was sent to Washington D.C. for the Robert Kennedy memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. The quarry was most active in the 1920’s. It opened briefly in the 1960’s and closed permanently after a final effort about 1980.

Technology changed the quarrying industry. Steel and reinforced concrete replaced granite. Special burning torches replaced black powder. Huge loaders and trucks replaced derricks and schooners. Over the years the old buildings were removed and the equipment salvaged or sold as scrap.

Today, the Maine granite industry primarily supplies veneers for building facades and kitchen countertops. Because of bedrock fractures, the Settlement Quarry can’t supply suitable stone. The Deer Isle Granite from Crotch Island is still barged to the Webb Cove wharf where it is loaded onto trucks and hauled elsewhere for cutting to supply today’s market.