Where is brownstone quarry

The contiguous operations extended a half-mile along the river and sank to depths of up to feet below the surface—even deeper than the adjacent riverbed. Work was largely seasonal. Typically, workers were hired for an eight-month season from April through November, though some work went on year-round. The day was highly regimented. The men took up their tools, ate their noon meal, and rested by the bell. Depending on the month, the workday began as early as 6 a.

The length of the noon break varied by the month as well, stretching to two hours in midsummer, when the workday was longest, and shrinking to an hour in the cooler months. Year-round, the workday ended at sundown, when most workers—nearly all of them Irish and, by the s, Swedish—returned to company-owned houses on quarry land or in town. The History and Architecture of Portland Advocate Press, records that unmarried workers usually had rooms in local boardinghouses; married men with families were housed in company-owned tenements; and skilled workers might live in single-family homes.

Many of the Irish workers lived in dense ethnic enclaves in the area known as the Sand Bank. Local businesses and the quarry company store offered credit to workers, and at the end of the eight-month working season, non-salaried workers received a lump-sum payment of their daily or monthly wages, from which was deducted rent, board, and any extended credit.

Yearly salaries were paid to the proprietors, timekeepers, agents, and such skilled workers as blacksmiths, surveyors, and stonecutters. Skilled workers grew more vitally important as methods of quarrying became more sophisticated.

At first the work of cutting stone was accomplished by brute force. Foremen known as rock bosses oversaw crews of quarrymen who used picks, shovels, crowbars, sledgehammers, and wedges to loosen the stone; a system of pulleys, chains, and ropes was used for lifting and hoisting. Initially, inclined roadways took men, oxen, and equipment to the floor of the quarry.

As the holes deepened, the quarrymen descended and ascended by a system of ladders and platforms attached to the quarry walls. Later, oxen, horses, and wagons were packed into large crates and lowered to the floor by derricks and cranes. In later years blasting with black powder eased the burden of loosening the stone, and by the s the hardest work was accomplished by steam-powered pumps and engines.

Wesleyan University. Middle: Quarrymen at work. Portland Historical Society. Bottom: postcard, Draft horses and oxen pulled wagonloads of stone to the scrappling grounds, where the material was sorted into waste piles deposited along the riverfront, stored for seasoning, or dressed at Connecticut Steam Brown Stone, the on-site mill built in In the early days, oxen dragged loaded slings to the docks, but by the s this system was supplanted by steam-powered locomotives and traveling derricks.

At the riverfront, boom derricks raised the stone to a variety of shallow-draft vessels. Manhattan and Brooklyn became dotted with the earth-coloured stone.

The Hummelstown quarry shut in and the larger Portland quarry soldiered on until the s, when a major flood closed the business. In the mids, a geologist named Mike Meehan reopened a non-flooded portion of the Portland quarry, slicing chunks of brownstone off a wall about six metres high 20 feet high and almost m long feet.

Church of the Transfiguration Portland Formation Newark Supergroup. Connecticut River Valley, southern CT. Early Jurassic Ma. Sandstone Feldspathic Arenite. Portland sandstone might be associated most directly with the rowhouse of the late 's, but many of the earliest buildings and monuments preserved in New York City incorporate this distinctive stone. This means that the same bed is exposed across the whole block, thereby ensuring that the color and texture was uniform.

Unfortunately, as soon as a decade or two after construction, many examples of face-bedded brownstone began flaking off in sheets. This common form of is due to the physical weathering process of spalling due to frost action. Water concentrates along bedding planes. This expansion exerts a pressure of 2, psi, which pries off thin layers of rock.

Water depths range to 85 feet. An easy walk-in entry is available. Visibility Visibility varies depending on the portion of the quarry is being dived. Reports frequently range from 10 to 30 feet.

This depends on many factors and can never be guaranteed. Many areas of the bottom contain silt and can stir up easily if one gets too close.

Water Temperatures Water temperatures vary depending on the time of year. Surface temperatures are in the mids in the late summer and low to mids in the winter.