78 



possessions of the corporation, and great improvements made in the 

 property. A railroad has been constructed, on which a locomotive 

 and eighteen platform cars are employed in the transportation of 

 stone from the quarries to the wharves, a distance of a mile and a 

 quarter ; the wharves have been extended and the harbor protected, 

 and the population and property of the village more than doubled. 

 The securing of the contract to furnish stone for the new Boston 

 Post Office gave an impetus to this company which at once placed it 

 in the front rank in the granite industry of the old Bay State. The 

 largest granite blocks ever quarried in this country were furnished 

 by this company, for the Scott Monument at Washington, D. C., 

 one of the blocks, for the foundation, being twent3'-eight feet two 

 inches long, by eighteen feet eight inches wide, and three feet two 

 and three-eighths high, weighing nearly one hundred and fift3 T -one 

 tons. The company employ two hundred and seventy-five men, and 

 use four steam engines for hoisting and drilling purposes. 



The stone business at Lanesville antedates the operations at Bay 

 View, and is still carried on on an extensive scale. The changes in 

 the management of this business at this village have been numerous 

 within the past quarter of a centuiy. There are now three firms en- 

 gaged in it, the Lanesville Granite Company, the Bay State Granite 

 Company, and Messrs. George Barker & Co., the latter being a 

 branch of a firm also doing business at Quincy. These companies 

 represent a capital of about $110,000. 



The only other part of the Cape where the business is carried on 

 to any considerable extent is at West Gloucester, where the quarry- 

 ing of stone was commenced by the Gloucester Granite Company, a 

 corporation with a handsome capital, which was exhausted in the 

 heavy outlays required in the construction of a wharf, railway and 

 buildings, and in working the surface drift and developing the value 

 of the quarry. This property has since passed into the hands of 

 other parties, who are building up a successful and profitable trade. 



The granite business combines with the fisheries in attracting set- 

 tlers from abroad, the number of native-born citizens engaged in 

 either being but a small per cent, of the whole number employed. 

 The two branches of industry however serve to attract totally differ- 

 ent classes of residents, the fishing business drawing its workmen 

 principally from Maine, the British Provinces and the Western Isl- 

 ands, while the granite industry brings its quarrymen from " the 

 Gem of the Sea," its teamsters from the Granite State, and its- 

 skilled hammerers from the heather hills of Scotland. 



