SOAPSTONE — BUSHNELL 483 



Hartford County, west of the Connecticut River. The quarry was 

 briefly described in a letter written by F. H. Williams to W. H. 

 Holmes. It read in part: 



Bristol, CqNN., June 28, 1892. 

 Bristol has always knowu of an old Indian soapstone quarry in its limits. 

 From its surface many articles have been gathered. A man has recently 

 begun the construction of a road across the face of the side hill over the 

 quarry. He has uncovered under 4 feet of solid earth a sloping side of the 

 rock, upon which are a number of vessels all blocked out, ready to be cut 

 away. The peculiarity of the thing is in the extreme depth beneath the soil 

 in which they lie on the solid ledge. Above is towards one foot of mold 

 black, and then 3 or 4 feet of solid loam ♦ * * i can not keep it long 

 from being blasted, but shall photograph it ♦ * * 



Photographs of the quarry were made and one is reproduced in 

 plate 8. An oval piece of stone, shaped and ready to be removed, 

 is clearly visible in the lower left corner of the picture. 



Vessels, large and small, made of soapstone, were used by the 

 native tribes of eastern Massachusetts, and fragments of such uten- 

 sils have been found on widely separated sites. One example from 

 Bristol County, which touches Rhode Island on the west, is shown 

 in plate 7. This may have come from the large quarry at Johnston, 

 a short distance westward in the latter State. 



On December 4, 1879, a committee of the Rhode Island Historical 

 Society presented a report on the soapstone quarry which was opened 

 in February 1879, "in Johnston, R. I., about one-eighth of a mile 

 west of the Greek Tavern, north of the Hartford turnpike." 



The several pits, the largest of which measured about 10 by 6 feet, 

 and 5 feet in depth, were filled with vegetal mold and pieces of 

 stone, and in the largest pit were encountered "some whole stone 

 pots, some partly finished pots, some only blocked out, numerous 

 stone hammers, and horns of a deer, the bones of an animal and a 

 few shells. * * * The sides and bottom of this excavation contain 

 about 60 distinct pits and knobs of places where pots and dishes 

 were cut from the rock." 



The quarry must have been of great size, and the report states 

 that "from the excavations and their surroundings have been re- 

 moved about three hundred horse cart loads of stone chips left by 

 the Indian workmen." The quarry, with other known sites, was 

 described by Putnam." 



SOUTHWARD FROM VIRGINIA TO THE GULF OF MEXICO 



Having sketched the distribution and use of soapstone from Vir- 

 ginia to the Connecticut Valley and eastward, it will now be of 



^ Putnam, F. W., The manufacture of soapstone pots by the Indians of New England. 

 11th Ann. Rep. Peabody Mus., p. 273, 1878. 

 197855 — iO 32 



