Halibut Point State Park

Babson Farm Quarry

Beautiful Coastal Landscape

When quarrying ended here in 1929, rain, run-off, and springs on the quarry floor quickly filled the pit with

water. Until the mid-19th century, quarrymen kept their working area dry by removing water by hand, a bucket at a time, or by harnessing a team of oxen to a winch. Some quarries installed wind-powered pumps, but by the 1860s, most used steam engines, running day and night, to remove water. At its deepest point, the Babson Farm quarry is about 60 feet deep.

Ali is one of those people that you are lucky if you get a normal picture of her. She is always doing something funny. I tell her I am taking a picture of her and she does funny things.

What a lovely view. I love how you can see the lake and then you can see the ocean just behind it.

Derricks

Cape Ann granite weighs 168 pounds per cubic foot. Moving stone from the floor of the quarry to the surface posed a major challenge to 19th-century technology. Borrowing techniques that were used on large sailing ships, quarrymen devised an arrangement of blocks-and tackles and pulleys called a derrick to hoist the heavy stones. Each derrick had a tall vertical post called a mast, and a horizontal arm called a boom. Before steam engines became available in the 1860s, derricks were powered by hand or by teams of oxen. Steam engines made it possible to hoist and move larger blocks of granite from the quarry floor. The granite blocks in front of you supported a donkey engine which rotated the mast and boom of a nearby derrick. During the quarry’s busiest years, circa 1910, there were four derricks in use here. One had a 96-foot mast and an 80-foot boom. It could lift 40 tons. In 1912, an even bigger one capable of moving larger blocks was erected with a mast that towered 107 feet.

These made me laugh they are speed bumps on a foot path. Slow down you are walking to fast. Ha Ha who ever thought to add a speed bump they were all along the path.

Me checking out how not very clean the water is. And thinking about how much work it would have been to keep the water out of this hole. In Wyoming it wouldn't be to much work but out here with the amount of rain they get it would have been a tough job. Think about all the people whose basements flooded and rather than using a pump hauling all that water out one bucket at a time. And second you have to love the waterfall of seagull poo on the quarry wall.

I liked the background of this one with the visitor center up on the hill. It is a restored World War II fire-control tower houses the park's Visitors Center and Headquarters.

Dog Holes

The single round hole on the face of this piece of granite is called a dog hole. Large granite blocks typically had a dog hole drilled into each end to hold the tips of giant hooks called dogs that were suspended by cables and chains from a derrick. The loop of chain tightened the grasp of the dogs as the block of granite was lifted from the quarry. Once the block reached the surface, it was moved by oxen, horses or train to nearby sheds where men shaped it into paving blocks, curbing, building stone or ornamental pieces. Here at Halibut Point granite was transported directly to the wharf at Folly Cove where it was then shipped to its

destination.

Ali the explorer!

Dead Men

Large iron staples like the one in front of you were known as dead men. It took at least six cables, all attached to the top of the mast and then anchored to dead men like this one, to hold a derrick in place. The orange-brown granite across the quarry to your left is called seam-faced granite. It was colored over many

thousands of years as water seeped through the naturally-occurring cracks in the granite, causing the iron-containing minerals in the granite to oxidize or ‘rust’. During the 19th century, this sapstone was considered undesirable because of its color, but after 1900 it came into fashion as veneer for the surfaces of buildings. After being removed from the quarry, it was taken to a cutting shed, cut into pieces several inches thick, and polished to a high gloss.

Here is the Derrick, Dog Hole, and Dead Men all together on one slab of granite.

Ali and I decided to take a stab at climbing the rock.

Working a Motion

The small body of water in front of you was once an active motion, the quarrymen’s term for a small quarry. A motion was generally worked by two men who used drills and hammers to produce the rectangular blocks called paving stones that were used for surfacing streets and public spaces. Behind the motion is the foundation of a coal-burning power plant that generated steam to run the drills and derricks, and behind that the remains of a railroad embankment. In 1910, the quarry’s owner, the Rockport Granite Company, purchased a steam engine and named it “Nella”. It hauled granite from the quarry site to the wharf at nearby Folly Cove where the stone was loaded onto specially designed sloops that carried it to markets all over the hemisphere.

If you look really hard there is water back in the trees which is the "Working a Motion" It is back behind the pile of rocks in the picture above.

Splitting the Stone

In the early days of the granite industry on Cape Ann, granite was split by making holes with a flat chisel and then by driving flat wedges down into the holes. Some split stones can still be found around the park that show signs of these rectangular holes. By the late 1830s, the process was greatly improved: new chisels with shallow V-shaped cutting edges were struck with a hit-turn-hit-turn motion. This technique made circular holes into which half-round shims like the ones still in this stone were inserted. A tapered wedge was driven between them, splitting the stone. Even with this improved technology, nearly 75% of the large blocks split crookedly and had to be relegated to the grout pile.

View of the ocean from the ledge above the Grout Pile.

Large Granite rocks everywhere.

The Grout Pile

You are standing on a large grout pile, a mountain of waste granite pieces dumped here over a period of many years. If you walk to the end of the pile, face the ocean and look to your right toward the horizon, you will see a small part of the proposed Sandy Bay Breakwater. In 1885, construction of the breakwater began off the coast of Rockport to provide a safe haven midway between Boston and Portland for sailing ships. Lack of continued federal funding and the decline of sailing ships brought the project to a halt in 1915. Much of the granite from the Babson Farm Quarry went into building the breakwater which is now considered a hazard to navigation.

Steam-powered Drills

The diameter of the drill holes in this split piece of granite, as well as their smoothness, is an indication that they were made with a steam-powered drill. When steam drills were invented in the 1880s, it became possible to cut deeper holes and thus quarry larger pieces of stone. Before steam drills came into use, even the deep holes needed for blasting were made by hand, sometimes with drills over six feet long, that were struck with large hammers.

Bollards

Originally cut and shaped by hand, granite bollards like this one were set in the shore or on wharves to secure the lines of ships. Eventually, steam-powered lathes came into use that could shape rectangular pieces of granite into bollards as well as ornamental columns. Many of the vessels that tied their lines onto granite bollards carried Cape Ann granite along the coast and throughout the hemisphere for use in constructing bridges, tunnels, buildings, warehouses and monuments, as well as to pave thousands of city streets as far away as Havana, Cuba and Valparaiso, Chile.

The Babson Farm Quarry here at Halibut Point, along with most of the other quarries on Cape Ann, closed in 1929. Within a year, in part because of the general economic climate of the country, the Rockport Granite Company went out of business. The growing preference for steel-framed buildings and for asphalt and concrete road surfaces guaranteed that the industry would never recover. Today, a single granite quarry remains in operation on Cape Ann; several others are active across New England, the best-known being in Barre, Vermont. Most granite for the American market is now quarried in Texas, with some imported from as far away as India and China.

                                                     Engagement pictures Me and Stony!

Isn't he handsome and such a hard worker.

Beautiful flowers all over the area I just loved the colors and wanted to share.

                      This is the Back 40 Loop it was a circle all grass path and such a nice little walk.

                                     Ali at the end of the path heading back to the parking lot.

Ali and I just before calling it a day! Thanks Ali for coming with and for making it a fun and eventful day. I am looking forward to a trip to DC to visit her in a month or so.