List of Quarries
in Vermont & Quarry
Links, Photographs and Articles
Proctor, Vermont - General Information & Quarries
(Except Vermont Marble Company)
- Proctor, Vermont - the Proctoriana Collection, collected by Otto J. Johnson, which is located in the Vermont
Historical Society Library. (Visit the web site below to read the detailed description of the collection.)
Proctoriana Collection Finding Aid (in PDF format)
Proctoriana Collection, 1823-1967, Doc 126-Doc 140, MSA 186, Ms Size A, B, C
Description of the collection from the web site: “The Proctoriana Collection is research notes, photographs, and printed material on the town of Proctor, Vermont, collected by Otto T. Johnson. The collection was a bequest to the Vermont Historical Society from the Otto T. Johnson estate in 1968. Several issues of Marble Chips were added to the collection in 1993 from a donation by Sanborn Partridge. The Proctor Historical Society donated 25 more issues of Marble Chips for the period 1967-1973, in 1997 (MSA 186).”
“A large portion of the research notes are copies of legal documents such as land transfers, incorporations, and probate records. Johnson used these to describe the activities of early settlers and trace the ownership of key properties in town, especially the marble quarries. There are lists and descriptions of some of the first marble companies and general histories of the industry written by Johnson, Fred Patch, and J. E. Manley.”
- Proctor, Vermont - Marble Quarry (The Philadelphia Museums) This photograph shows
a corner of one of the great quarries in what is the most important marble
producing section of the United States.
There are in this
country other deposits of limestones, some of which are now being worked
and others which will produce very largely in the future, but the quarries
lying in the neighborhood of Rutland and Proctor, Vermont, produce annually
more handsome marble many times over than is taken out in all the rest
of America. This is due to the fine quality of stone in the quarries,
the improved and efficient methods of working and the convenient transportation
facilities which enable the stone to be easily put on the market. Old-fashioned
and laborious methods of quarrying and handling the stone have been entirely
displaced by the most modern machinery. The stone is too easily cracked
and broken to allow of blasting. It is therefore cut out of the beds,
in which it lies, by machines called "channelers". These consist
of rows of long chisels, set in a strong travelling framework. This gang
of chisels is arranged so that it is worked by machinery and vibrates
up and down cutting a channel or groove in any desired direction. When
the groove is sufficiently long and deep the channeler is set at work
in another place cutting a cross channel and the bottom is also perforated.
The block can then be easily split away by means of wedges. Blocks of
marble thus dislodged are lifted by cranes and derricks worked by steam
or electricity and carried rapidly and easily to the railroad cars for
transportation. The picture shows one large block of marble being thus
lifted to the surface of the ground. The clean-cut steps in the sides
of the quarry show plainly how the machines have cut away the marble in
great blocks. In the bottom of the quarry are some portable engines which
furnish power for the quarrying machinery. A few laborers have been engaged
in cleaning away the snow. At Proctor, Vermont, there are very extensive
works where large amounts of this marble are dressed to size for building
purposes before being shipped away. Much of it is sawed into slabs and
polished for ornamental work. Vermont produces some pure white marble,
a great deal of which is somewhat bluish in color, some which is variegated
and some which is almost jet black. - Proctor, Vermont – Marble Quarry, Proctor, Vermont from Annual
Report of The Geological Survey of Arkansas For 1890, Vol. IV,
Marbles and Other Limestones, by T. C. Hopkins, Little Rock, Arkansas:
Brown Printing Company, 1893, pp. 180.
Plate IX., Marble Quarry, Proctor, Vermont 
- Proctor, Vermont - the Columbian Marble Quarry (from Commercial Marbles of Western Vermont, Bulletin 521, by T. Nelson Dale, United States Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 1912.)
“The Columbian quarry, in operation in 1900, was idle for some time prior to August, 1910, but was then about to be reopened. It is about three-fourths of a mile south-southwest of Proctor station in Proctor Township. (See Pl. I.) It is 100 feet or more in diameter and 150 feet deep. Operator, New Columbian Marble Co., State Street, Rutland, Vt.
“The marble is white clouded. The beds strike N. 10° –15° W. and dip 50° E. A complete analysis of the stone is given on page 13.
“About 100 feet north of the quarry along the strike the same beds, recently uncovered, with a glaciated surface and pothole 5 feet by 4 feet 6 inches, strike N. 20° W. and dip very steeply to the east. The marble exposed measures about 60 feet. East of it is the boundary of the dolomite series.
“The general structure on both sides of the quarry is shown in section H. Plate III.”
- Proctor, Vermont - the Parker & Pinckney Marble Prospect (from Commercial Marbles of Western Vermont, Bulletin 521, by T. Nelson Dale, United States Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 1912.)
“The Park & Pickney prospect, tested in 1910, is 1 ½ miles north of Proctor and 1 ¾ miles south-southwest of Pittsford village, in Proctor Township. (See Pl. I.) Operators, Parker & Pinckney, Pittsford, Vt.
“The marble (specimen D, XXXI, 53, C) is a bluish-black or very dark bluish-gray graphitic dolomite marble, already described on page 46. It belongs in the basal dolomite. It takes a good polish.
“The beds explored consist, beginning on the west, of 75 feet of bluish-black dolomite, followed by 250 feet of buff dolomite and then by about 250 feet of bluish dolomite of various shades. The structural relations of these beds are not clear. The eastern and western belts probably belong at the same horizon. The strike is N. 5° W. and the dip 60° E., but this may vary, reducing the figures given for at least the larger thicknesses.”
- Proctor, Vermont - the Riverside Marble Quarry (from Commercial Marbles of Western Vermont, Bulletin 521, by T. Nelson Dale, United States Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 1912.)
“The recently opened Riverside quarry is 2 miles south of Proctor station, between Otter Creek on the west and the railroad on the east, in the township of Proctor. (See Pls. I and IV and map of Castleton quadrangle, U. S. Geol. Survey.)
“Assuming that the dip of 60°, which is that of the beds exposed in the quarry, prevails throughout the 200 feet of marble which has been core drilled west of it, the marble here measures 255 feet and is close to the top of the dolomite, which crops out a little farther east. Some 100 feet of marble beds have been explored between the east edge of the quarry and the dolomite but as the dolomite and overlying marble a little to the south dip west, most of these beds are probably continuations of those in the quarry.
“The marble, ‘Riverside’ (specimens D, XXXI, 15, a, rough; b, polished), is a coarse calcite marble of translucent, slightly bluish white color, with dark-gray spots and bands at irregular intervals along the planes of bedding, and of uneven texture, with grain diameter in the white calcitic ground of 0.05 to 1.0, mostly 0.25 to 0.5 millimeter, and thus of grade 5 (coarse). The thin sections do not cross any of the dark spots. That these spots are largely dolomite is evident from their standing out in minute relief on the polished face and being easily scratched with a knife; and that they are also graphitic is evident from the nature of other similar clouded marbles. The average grain diameter in the dolomitic passages would be about 0.05 to 0.1 millimeter. The calcitic parts contain sparse quartz particles, some up to 0.32 millimeter, and also pyrite, some of which is oxidized.
“The marble beds strike N. 5° W. and dip 60° E. The dolomite along the base of the Pine Hill ridge one-fourth mile southeast of the quarry has a like strike but dips about 50° W., and the marble at an idle quarry a little south and west of the dolomite boundary strikes N. 15° W., dips about 67° W., and has an exposed thickness of 90 feet. Unless faulting intervenes a synclinal axis passes between these two quarries. The marble surface at the Riverside quarry had a glaciated surface protected by a covering of till. Glacial potholes 10 to 15 feet by 6 to 8 feet were found, and near the old quarry to the south-southeast are others 8 to 10 feet in diameter.”
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