From Quarry to Cemetery Monuments

Ordering Monumental / Cemetery Stones from Catalogs / Price Lists, etc.

• Introduction
• Cemetery Monument/Stone Sample Cards
• Book of Epitaphs (ca. 1890s) (pdf), provided by the office of S.B. Sargent, Marble & Granite Dealers, Tilton, New Hampshire
• Books for Stone Carvers Relating to Cemetery Stones, Monuments, & Mausoleums
• Epitaphs, booklet published by Vermont Marble Company
• Marble Color Plates: Imported and Domestic Catalog, Vermont Marble Company, ca. mid-1900s
• Marble Samples in a Box from the Vermont Marble Company
• Products of Tompkins-Kiel Marble Company Stone Catalog, ca. 1915
• Vermont Marble Company Dealer’s Sales Portfolio:  Information on Designs and Other Illustrations (pdf), October 1940.
• Cemetery Stones/Monuments/Statues Available from Catalogs, Brochures, etc.
  • Berkeley Granite Company, Elberton, Georgia – Wholesale Price List, Berkeley Blue Memorials, 1952
  • Charles F. Earl & Co., American & Foreign Granites & Italian Statuary Monument Catalog, Utica, New York
  • Eaton Studio – F. C. Eaton, Barre, Vermont Monumental
  • Catalog (early 1900s)
  • F. Barnicoat Sculptor, Modeler and Designer of High Grade Granite Statuary and Monuments Catalog, Granite Statuary & Designs
  • Flint Granite Company Monument Catalog
  • Georgia Beauties: Catalog Number Twenty-Two, the Georgia Marble Finishing Works (1940s ?)
  • Green Mountain Marble Corp. Price List of Monumental Marble, December 21, 1946
  • Harrison Granite Company Clientele Catalog (& Monuments) (pdf), established 1845, New York City, Quarries & Works:  Barre, Vermont, 1918
  • Medium Quincy Granite Monuments Catalog, Gray Rock Granite Company, Successors to Elkhill & Bishop, Quincy, Massachusetts, no date of publication
  • Marble Statuary, Vermont Marble Co., Proctor, Vermont, no date of publication
  • Memorials in Georgia Marble – Eclipse Designs, Georgia Marble Company, Tate, Georgia, circa 1920 
  • The Memory Stone 1768-1926, Vermont Marble Company, Proctor, Vermont
  • Michaels Bronze Tablets Catalog, The Michaels Art Bronze Co., Inc., Covington, Kentucky, Since 1870.  (No date of publication, but the latest date shown is 1932.)
  • Modern Memorial Art Monumental Catalog, Some Examples Cut in Stony Creek, Milford Pink and Victoria White Granites (Dodds Granite Co.)
  • Modern Memorials in Marble, Vermont Marble Co., 1922 (includes price list)
  • Montgomery Wards Tombstone Catalog
  • Monuments .. For The Ages, Miller Monuments, Inc., Plymouth & Elkhart, Indiana
  • Monuments of Georgia – Marble & Granite, Roberts Marble Co.
  • The New England Granite Works Monumental Catalog
  • O. M. Burrus & Bros. Inc., Monumental Catalog, Burlington, Iowa
  • Oglesby Blue Granite Mausoleum Catalog, Elberton, Georgia
  • Personality In Memorials, Marker Catalog No. 106, Comolli Granite Co., Elberton, Georgia (no date of publication)
  • Producers’ Marble Co., Vermont – Eighty-four Choice Designs Selected from the Late Producers’ Marble Company’s Illustrated Catalogs of 1886, ’87 and ’89
  • Reservation…for the last long rest! mausoleum catalog, by Cold Spring Granite Company, Cold Spring, Minnesota
  • Sears, Roebuck & Co. Tombstones and Monuments:  Catalog of Memorial Art in Granite and Marble, circa 1906 (large file)
  • Special Granite Designs in the Famous Pride of Elberton Blue Granite, Design Book No. 16 & Price List for Special Granite Designs, No. 16-H, 1920’s  (Georgia)
  • Sterling Granite Company Monumental Catalog – Book 12, Elberton, Georgia
  • Symbols of Service Monumental Catalog & Price List, Vermont Marble Co., Proctor, Vermont, 1919
  • Tombstones and Monuments:  Catalog of Memorial Art in Granite and Marble, Sears, Roebuck & Co., circa 1906 (large file)
  • Universal Monument Company, Atlanta, Georgia – Catalogs, Price List, stone samples, etc.
  • Vermont Marble Company Catalogs – both Lettered (A, B, C...) & by Theme (The Child)
  • Vermont Marble Company Dealer’s Sales Portfolio:  Information on Designs and Other Illustrations, October 1940.
  • Vermont Marble Company Price Lists, Proctor, Vermont
    • 1882 Price List – Vermont Marble Company Producers and Finishers of Sutherland Falls and Rutland White and Blue Marble, 1882 Price List and Key for the Trade Only
    • 1889 Price List Rutland, Sutherland Falls, and Mountain Dark Marble, Vermont Marble Co., Proctor, Vermont
    • Names of the Parts of the Monuments – Terms Used
    • Vermont Marble Company Price List of Monumental Marble, Effective September 1, 1946, Price List for Design Book No. 21
    • Vermont Marble Company Wholesale Price List of Monumental Marble, Effective January 3, 1950
  • W. A. Hambleton Granite Monuments & Statuary Catalog – At Wholesale Catalog, Book No. 10, American & Foreign, Mansfield, Ohio.
• Architectural Plans for Cemetery Monuments

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Introduction

Many of the large stone companies such as the Vermont Marble Company of Proctor, Vermont, opened branch offices in large cities such as San Francisco, California. In addition to customers viewing displays at these branch offices and local monument shops, catalogs, pattern books, price lists, sample cards, epitaph books, stone samples, etc., were provided so their traveling agents facilitate selling their cemetery products.

There is a family account that describes Frederick Field’s son, Arthur Field, as working as a traveling agent for their company taking their cemetery stones around to local communities to either sell the stones brought by wagon or to take orders. Field’s signatures can be found on many stones throughout the San Francisco Bay Area as “F. Field, San Jose” or “Excelsior Marble Works, San Jose.”

In 1892, one traveling agent (or drummer / commercial agent) addressed his stone buyers as follow in a letter presented as: “A Traveling Man’s Advice” in The Monumental News Magazine, Vol. IV, No. 1, January 1892, R. J. Haight, Editor and Publisher, 243 State St., Chicago, Illinois, pp. 29.

“Allow me space in your valuable journal to say a few words relative to the Wholesale Agent’s pleasures and grievances on the road at the present time. I think no other class of drummers (pardon the name) on the road receive so many courtesies from their trade as our own marble and granite drummers. They generally have only one man in a town to see; consequently spend considerable time with the dealer, thereby giving both a splendid chance to become friends and know each other well. The retailer is not drummed to death as in most every other branch of trade. No class of drummers are treated as nicely as we are socially. There seems to be a mutual tie between us; the retailer will do anything in his power to assist us in making time. He don’t get angry if we in a modest way tell him we want to make the next train, he will kindly assist us in our purpose by saying go! I have nothing to buy, could’nt (sic) buy anything this time, if you stayed a week, etc., etc. Now this is pleasant to us all and we feel that life is not such a burden after all. But let me say a few words to the marble dealers, not all of them though! If we sell you something which comes and does not exactly come up to your expectations, don’t grumble so much. ‘Don’t say,’ I must have a discount or a new piece, don’t always keep harping on discounts it makes us blue. Then again, when we give you a price on anything, don’t always exclaim, ‘oh! you are away off,’ ‘guess again,’ etc., etc., when you know the price we quote is about a low as any other you have or when you have no other price at all. You are in such a habit of saying a price is too high that no difference what we quote you say ‘we are away out of sight.’ Don’t get into this unpleasant way, everything else, believe us, is pleasant. Don’t let this way of acting marr (sic) all other pleasantness. Let our dealings with each other be so pleasant that in the future we can look back to our days on the road and think of the many happy hours spent with each other, both socially and in a business way.

“Drummer.”

According to Leeanna Rossi’s booklet, Headstones of the Gold Rush Era: Sculpting Masterpieces in Marble,* overland transport by “The Wells, Fargo & Company price list for June 1, 1879 placed the cost of merchandise shipped from either New York of Boston at $17.00 per 100 pounds. Shipping stone was very expensive as blocks of marble for cemetery stones, etc., weighted many hundreds or thousands of pounds.” (*The Headstones of the Gold Rush Era booklet is available from the Sacramento Historic City Cemetery web site.)

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Cemetery Monument / Stone Sample Cards

These are images below are of some of the sample advertising cabinet cards that were presented on heavy cardboard by the traveling agents for the Vermont Marble Company of Proctor, Vermont: Vermont Marble Co. sample advertising cemetery monument cabinet card

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