In this chapter it is my intent to give a brief description of granite, particularly that from Quincy, and the early methods used to quarry the boulders and stones.

From my research it is evident that rocks found locally were deposited in the surrounding area during the glacial period, consisting mainly of clay slates and conglomerates, with a thickness of from five to ten thousand feet. The slates are generally fine grained and flaglike, this structure showing that they were located in the sea at some distance from land. A good example of this is the slate quarries in the vicinity of Apthorp Street in the Norfolk Downs section of Quincy which was originally part of the Wilson grant. These flagging slates were perhaps the first that were extensively quarried. A large number of tombstones of this region came from the quarries.

The conglomerates were evidently laid down in the sea at points near the shores and they were probably the pebble waste from a glacial period occurring during the Cambrian Age, or at the time when the recorded history of the earth was at its beginning.

Granite is an eruption of volcanic rock, or one that has been thrown out of the interior of the earth in a molten state. According to geologists, the granite found in Quincy was formed after the slate.

The type of granite found in Quincy is known as syenite and is composed of quartz, feldspar and hornblend. The difference between syenite and other kinds of granite is that it contains hornblend instead of mica. This mixture gives the Quincy granite its dark color, extreme hardness and ability to take a beautiful high polish, having a crushing strength of 17,000 pounds per cubic inch.

The dark and extra dark granite needs no "doping" or coloring. The doctoring of Quincy granite is resorted to only when medium or light stock is substituted for the dark, or in order to cover the plaster in defective polishing. Figure 66 shows a piece of dark polished Quincy granite. The darkest and best grade of granite has for years been quarried from the Granite Railway Company's quarry, which was known as the Pine Hill Ledge. Figures 67 and 68 show the depth of portions of this quarry as it looked around 1925, this quarry being first opened around 1830.

Syenite is mostly confined to the Quincy section; however, there is a small section located in the town of Milton. As the boundary line approaches the Blue Hill section, the syenite disappears or merges with the porphyry of which the Blue Hills are largely composed.

In the early days of the town which was called Braintree until 1792, large stones and boulders were found in abundant quantities on the ground, not only in the North and South Commons, but in the Furnace Lands, Boston Common, 600 Acre Lot and the Quincy Wood Lot. Figure 69 is a rough map showing these locations.

I think the following is of interest being taken from the Braintree town records.

"The method of disposing of these stones and also preventing the exhaustion of these rough, coarse boulders for building purposes was the great topic and exciting question at the annual town meetings of Braintree. At length the inhabitants became somewhat alarmed that the drain created by the use of these boulders for building would not leave them enough to build a common stone wall, or construct a house cellar. To protect themselves from these invasions upon their property, they established the following rules: "1715 - Voted, That no person shall dig or carry off any stone on the said commons, or undivided lands upon any account whatever, without license from the committee hereafter named, upon penalty of the forfeiture of ten shillings for every and each carload so dug and carried away; one-quarter part to be to the said committee in full satisfaction for the use of the town. The instructions to the committee were as follows:

"First - That the committee shall give no license to any and every person to dig or carry away any stone from said land, to make sale or merchandise thereof, without the towns direction.

"Second - That the committee may and shall license to any and every person in the town for such a quantity of stone as he or they shall stand in need of for their own proper use in the town.

"Thirdly - That the committee shall or may seize all stone that they shall find dug or carted on and off said common lands, the digger or carter whereof is not known and the same disposed of to the best advantage of the town, by sale or otherwise, deducting one quarter part thereof to themselves, in full satisfaction as above said."

For years after the passing of this ordinance the same general complaint was made at the annual town meetings that it was impossible for the town to enforce the rules they had adopted.

The inability to execute these regulations was probably caused to some extent by the more liberal views of its citizens who opposed and who were not in harmony with those who advocated and sustained these rigid rules. They doubted the feasibility and justice of passing such onerous laws depriving them of the use of stone for common purposes, and at a meeting held in 1729-30 they were prompted to dissent from the action of the meeting. This dissatisfaction evidently was the cause of the town being obliged to sell the North and South Commons in 1762 and 1765.

At the meeting of 1729-30 it was voted that no person be allowed from henceforth to take stone for his own use from off the common for building, fencing, or the like, without first giving notice to a committee by the town appointed of his so doing and rendering a true account of their quantity and how he disposed of them.

Because the original King's Chapel located in Boston was slowly decaying and falling apart due to its wooden construction, it was decided to use stone. In looking over the numerous boulders laying on top of the ground in various surrounding towns near Boston, the boulders in the North and South Commons in Braintree (Quincy) were found to be more abundant and uniform and of better quality than the rest. The contract to furnish the stone was awarded to a Mr. Hunt and a Mr. Jonathan Hayward both of Braintree.

These boulders were coarse and in many varied sizes and shapes which naturally meant much hard work. These boulders, it has been said, in order to make them into the required sizes and shapes, first had to be heated and then a large, heavy iron ball was dropped on them, causing them to be broken into small sizes. Then with crude tools they were chipped, hammered and shaped into the desired sizes.

While most of the records and articles I have read all state that the stones came from the North and South Commons, it has been generally believed that it all came from the North Common.

However, in an article published in the Boston Globe on August 6, 1932, it states, according to Mr. Arthur W. Newcomb, the historian of Quincy Neck, "that the granite for King's Chapel came from the South Common and not the North Common as generally believed. The one quarry on the South Common was known by several names, i.e.; Wendell's Quarry, Wendell's Ledge, Echo Lake and "Razzle Dazzle". But whatever it be called, this is the quarry from which the stone was taken for King's Chapel. This was before modern plans for quarrying or cutting stone had been devised.

"The first stones used in the construction of King's Chapel were huge boulders found in the woods on the South Common. They were raised and heated and split by wedges. This method was brought into use by Joseph Richards, a pioneer in the granite industry." This method more or less contradicts the original theory that after heating iron balls were dropped on the boulders. "Mr. Richards invented the bush hammer in 1832 which has been in use since then to the present time.

As previously told, a railroad operated in the South Common. A Mr. Charles R. Mitchell purchased the quarry in April 1867, and in 1869 petitioned to build a railroad to run from the quarry to Hayward's Creek. It was built to run on specially built tracks with specific type cars. Part of the Fore River Railroad crossed the old roadbed just below Newcomb Square. In its early days this railroad crossed Quincy Avenue almost at Newcomb Square. The cars were drawn by horses part of the way, and the rest of the way by gravity. The last car to run over the old road was in about 1890, the tracks for the then new Fore River railroad being laid in 1903. To date I have not been able to dig up any further information on this railroad; maybe I will in the future.

To get back to King's Chapel, the cornerstone was laid August 11, 1749 and the edifice was completed and dedicated in 1752. Figure 70 is an early sketch of this edifice. When this work was finished it was the wonder of the country round.

People coming from long distances made it a point to see and admire this great structure. The wonder was that stone enough could be found in the vicinity of Boston fit for the hammer to construct such a building. But it seemed to be universally concluded that enough more like it could not be found to build such another.

"At some time between the end of the first quarter and the middle of the eighteenth century, that is, now a little more than one hundred years ago, the practice of stone hewing and hammering for the working of granite was first introduced in Massachusetts by German emigrants. It is understood that the Brigadier - General Waldo brought a large colony of German emigrants from their native country, a large number of whom settled at a place called Germantown, then in the town of Braintree, now Quincy. A large part of the colony proceeded under the care of General Waldo to Maine and settled in a new township then called Waldoborough, from which many settlers of German origin spread into other towns in Maine.

"The Germans who remained in Braintree introduced several branches of the mechanic arts, which had not before been in use in this country, among them stacking, seaving, and the art of making glass and toys." (Note: It is interesting to note that the first excavations and project of Richard Muzzrole were in Germantown in an effort to uncover the remains of the first glass works, which he did, as told in the Quincy Ledger of December 1956 and April 1957.)

But what is more material to my present purpose is that this class of German artisans first introduced into this country the practice of preparing hewn or hammered stone, wrought to a plain surface, sufficiently straight and smooth to make a regular wall. The process as then practiced by them and those who were instructed by them was understood to be extremely laborious and, of course, expensive, or the expense depended wholly on the amount of labor required for preparing it. Without describing the process precisely, which I do not understand sufficiently to do, I understand the first thing to be done was, if the rock was in a quarry, to blast out a portion of it by gunpowder. By this process, as can be readily seen, fragments would come out in all sorts of irregular shapes and sizes as by mere chance. The job of the workmen then was to take the pieces of more regular form and reduce them to smaller and more regular shapes, rectangular or square, as required for building purposes. This is done by cutting a groove on a straight line with a hammer, made with a cutting edge like that of a common axe, then striking it with a very heavy beetle or sledge on each side of the groove. This would sometimes split in a line nearly straight, though it would often be irregular. In this way, by dividing and subdividing, the pieces were brought as nearly as practicable to the dimensions required, and then all the irregularities of surface must be removed by hard hewing with very heavy instruments.

Another early method, besides the aforementioned one, was by digging a hole or tunnel under the stone, building a fire in the hole and when sufficiently heated, it was broken into various pieces by the use of sledge hammers. Then came the process of blasting, by drilling holes and using dynamite. This was followed by the use of drills, wedges and shims.

The use of wedges for splitting granite was first used in Quincy in 1803 by Joseph Bemis, George Stearns and Michael Weld. These wedges were flat instead of round as they are today. However, while this is the first known use of this type of wedge in Quincy, the men who started their use cannot take all the credit as it is believed the method of splitting stones with wedges was shown these men by a man named Tarbox at an earlier date.

Teele, in his history of Milton, says: "This wedge was very different from the kind that is in use today. It was broad and thin. The holes that were made to receive this wedge were one and a half inches wide, being made broad enough and deep enough to receive the wedges, which were inserted between pieces of thin iron called "shims", being driven in by a heavy hammer." Figure 71 shows this type of hole which is still to be seen on numerous blocks of granite along Bunker Hill Ledge and its surrounding vicinity. Figure 72 shows the round holes which came into use later on, while Figure 73 is two pictures of attempts to split surface boulders and were abandoned with the wedge and shims still showing after more than one hundred years. During my many trips around the Bunker Hill Ledge, there were many of these boulders with the drills still in them. Lots of the stones left behind, showing the square drill holes, clearly show that was the method used by Solomon Willard. Further, according to Teele, "by walking through various early quarry locations, it is fairly easy to establish the period the particular area or quarry was worked, the flat hole denoting that the work was done early in the granite industry in the nineteenth century." This I found to be true in my travels in and around the quarry areas. The granite cutters' tools needed sharpening constantly in order to get the best results. Figure 74 shows an early tool sharpener in his shop located near or on the quarry property.

Because of the lack of proper tools and equipment necessary for breaking the solid ledges, the early granite workers were obliged to use only such stones as laid loose on the surface of the ground. This fact is borne out from evidence found throughout the Bunker Hill Ledge area. Figure 75 shows a part of a large area west of the quarry opening believed to be the first or northeast quarry Willard refers to. This area shows evidence that large boulders were split here and then transported to the area leading to the railroad. Figures 76, 77 and 78 show the size of some of the boulders in the surrounding vicinity that were probably not suitable for the monument. In my walks over this entire area, the amount and size of these boulders is amazing. These quarry locations will be added later. Figure 79 shows the early method of handling these large blocks of granite after being shaped. Furthermore, not having proper lifting devices early in the operation, levers were used in moving and loading while oxen were used for the heavy work. Figure 80 shows the method used to load the first railroad car, while Figure 81 is a sketch of an early quarry in operation very much like it could have looked at the Bunker Hill Ledge area.

"Finally, the "sheer-pole" came into existence. Even this was expensive, and difficult to operate. The "Sheer-pole" consisted of two long, heavy poles of equal length, fastened firmly together at the upper ends, while the lower ends were drawn apart to make them stand steadily. They were held in an upright position by "guy wires" front and back. A loft tackle was fastened to the top where the poles were joined together and brought down and attached to the stone to be raised. To one end of the rope a pair of oxen was hitched, and in this manner the work of raising the stone was accomplished. This method was much easier than that of rolling the stones upon timbers by hand power along, but was also extremely difficult and tedious.

In later years the round drill came into existence and was far superior to its predecessor and continued in use for many years until the adoption of pneumatic drills.