List of Quarries in Vermont & Quarry
Links, Photographs and Articles

• South Dorset, Vermont - the Bennington 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 Bennington quarry, a little east of the village, is owned by the Bennington Marble Co., St. James Building, Broadway and Twenty-sixty Street, New York.”

• South Dorset, Vermont - the Blue Ledge Marble Quarry (previously known as the Holley, Fields & Kent Quarry, the Kent Quarry, and the Blue 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 Blue Ledge quarry, opened in 1825 or earlier, was known as the Holley, Fields & Kent, or Kent quarry, later as the Blue quarry. It is about on the 2,000-foot level, half a mile S. 60 ° E. from Green Peak and a mile S. 80° W. from East Dorset village, in the township of Dorset. (See map, Pl. I.) The view from the top of the dumps of this quarry, looking down the Vermont Valley, is one of the finest in the State. The quarry measures about 350 feet north to south by 100 feet across and has walls 60 to 85 feet high. It has recently been reopened. Operator, Norcross-West Marble Co., Dorset, Vt.

  “The marble beds exposed here consist of 60 feet of mottled marble overlain by 25 feet of bluish dolomite, but the 1861 Vermont report states that this dolomite bed measures about 100 feet 10 rods west of the quarry. As there is marble above the dolomite this may be an intermediate dolomite.

  “The marble (specimens D, XXXI, 9, a, rough; c, d, e, polished), ‘Dorset Mountain,’ is a calcite marble of faintly bluish white tint, irregularly mottled with very light gray and of irregular texture, consisting in the darker mottling of untwinned dolomite grains with a diameter of 0.02 to 0.12 millimeter and thus grade 1, but in the general white mass of twinned denticular calcite grains with a diameter of 0.25 to 0.75 millimeter, somewhat plentiful, pyrite crystals, rare muscovite, and very minute undetermined black particles. The stone takes a fair polish, but the dolomite mottling, being harder than the calcite ground, projects in minute relief on the polished face.

  “The marble and dolomite beds dip 10° SSE. and 5° NNW., forming a very gentle anticline with an axis pitching gently south. The chief joints strike N. 10° E. and N. 80° W. and are steep or vertical. The marble beds or some of them are separated by beds an inch thick of white pyritiferous, quartzose, micaceous dolomite calcite marble which weathers light brown. In thin section this rock consists of calcite grains up to 0.5 millimeter in diameter, with finely disseminated limonite and crystals of pyrite passing into limonite, many quartz grains, fibrous muscovite, large scales of chlorite and muscovite, and also nodules of dolomite up to 0.3 inch. This marble has not yet been used to any great extent.”

  Idem., pg. 759.

• South Dorset, Vermont - the Deaf Joe 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.)

  “There are two small and disused marble openings about three-fourths of a mile and 1 mile roughly southwest of Green Peak, one of which is known as the Deaf Joe quarry. At the lower one, on the 1,450-foot level, a white marble strikes N. 60° E. and dips 25° N. 30° W. At the upper one, on the 1,800 to 1,870 foot level, mottled marble about 20 feet thick is exposed with a very low westerly dip.”

• South Dorset, Vermont - the Folsom 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.)

  “Between one-fourth and one-third of a mile south-southwest of the Blue Ledge quarry is the long disused Folsom quarry (see map, Pl. I), the floor of which is but a few feet higher than that of the Blue Ledge. The quarry is about 100 feet square and has walls 50 feet high. Its floor is underlain by 10 feet of dolomite, upon which lies more or less mottled calcite marble, about 50 feet thick.

  “The beds strike N. 60° W., dip 10° N. 30° E., and are crossed by vertical joints striking N. 30° W. and N. 15° E., which form three walls of the quarry. At the west wall is a vertical dike from 1 foot to 2 feet 6 inches wide, becoming 8 feet a little beyond, with a N. 35° –40° E. course. The dike above the quarry floor has been quarried away or is covered with débris. The marble on either side of it is incrusted with limonite and stained red with hematite. On the quarry side the marble for 2 to 3 feet from the dike is much shattered and veined with calcite in crystals.”

• South Dorset, Vermont - the Green Peak Marble Quarries (from Commercial Marbles of Western Vermont, Bulletin 521, by T. Nelson Dale, United States Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 1912.)

  “Green Peak (Hitchcock’s Mount Eolus), altitude 3,185 feet, although popularly confounded with Dorset Mountain, is properly an outlier of that mountain and of its schist mass. (See map, Pl. I; also maps of Pawlet and Equinox quadrangles, U. S. Geol. Survey.) Marble was quarried on its southeast side at the 2,100-foot level, or about 1,300 feet above the Vermont Valley at East Dorset.”

• South Dorset, Vermont - the Kent & Root 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 Kent & Root quarry, a little south of the village, is 50 by 60 feet in area and more than 100 feet deep. The marble strikes N. 5° –10° E. and dips 45° W., but to judge from the blocks on the dumps is much folded.”

• South Dorset, Vermont - the Norcross-West Marble Co.’s Valley Quarry

  Norcross-West Marble Co.’s Valley Quarry - Also see: Valley Marble Quarry (Norcross) below.

• South Dorset, Vermont - the Owls Head Marble Quarries (1 Upper Quarry and 2 Lower Quarries) (from Commercial Marbles of Western Vermont, Bulletin 521, by T. Nelson Dale, United States Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 1912.)

  “There are two quarries in an upper and two in a lower tier, situated about half a mile west of the Owls Head, about 1 ½ miles north of South Dorset village, on the 1,400 and 1,670 foot levels–that is, 500 and 770 feet above the village. The Owls Head is the western summit of the schist outlier of Dorset Mountain, of which Green Peak is the eastern and higher point. (See map, Pl. I.) One of these quarries is reported to have been reopened in 1903; the others have been idle many years. The property is said to be controlled by the Dorset Mountain Marble Co., of East Dorset, Vt.

  “The marble of the upper two quarries is reported as measuring altogether 150 feet, covered by 50 feet of dolomite, and that of the lower ones as consisting of 80 feet of mixed white and gray marbles. That these apparent thicknesses are not the actual ones is evident from the facts given in the discussion of structure (p. 93). Wherever the beds are not doubled over on themselves the thickness must be much less.

  “A specimen of white marble from the northwestern or tunnel quarry of the upper tier is a coarse white calcite marble with grain diameter of 0.05 to 1.37, mostly 0.25 to 0.75 millimeter, and belongs to grade 5. A specimen of clouded white marble from the lower tier has a grain diameter of 0.07 to 1.12, mostly 0.25 to 0.62 millimeter, and is also of grade 5. It contains plentiful quartz grains in places, with stringers of muscovite and a little pyrite.

  “The structure at these quarries is of very intricate character, as shown by figure 14 and Plate XVI, B (p. 132). In the northwestern upper quarry, where an apparent thickness of 100 feet is exposed with an apparent dip of 5° –10° N. 55° E., the marble consists of minor folds drawn out in an almost horizontal direction by flowage, so that a fold measuring only a foot in thickness at its thickest part, where doubled, has its apex 60 feet away. One fold 25 feet long by 5 feet in width, doubled, is probably altogether 50 feet long and 6 feet across at its widest part. (See fig. 14, a.) In the southeasterly quarry of the upper tier marble and dolomite are interbedded, as shown in figures 5 and 14, b. In the lower tier of quarries similar compressed and elongated folds occur (fig. 14, c and d). The axes of these folds strike N. 15° -60° E. The first inference from such structure is that no reliable measures of the thickness of the marble can be taken in this part of the mountain. A vertical joint in the tunnel quarry strikes N. 50 ° –55 ° E., and at the eastern one the joints strike N. 25° E. and dip 35° S. 65° E.

  Ibid., pg. 103 footnote: This interbedding of dolomite and marble has been referred to on p. 31 and also in Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey No. 195, 1902, pp. 13-15.

• South Dorset, Vermont - the Plateau Marble Quarry (Norcross) (from Commercial Marbles of Western Vermont, Bulletin 521, by T. Nelson Dale, United States Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 1912.)

  “The Plateau quarry of the Norcross-West Marble Co., situated 480 feet northeast of the Valley quarry, is of irregular form and averages about 90 by 80 feet and 15 to 40 feet deep. The stripping consists of 10 to 16 feet of gravel and fine sand. The stripping consists of 10 to 16 feet of gravel and fine sand. A view of part of the quarry is shown in Plate X, A.

  “The relation of the marble beds in this quarry to those in the Valley quarry is very uncertain, as neither the outcrops nor the core-drill records make it clear. These records indicate at least 80 to 100 feet of marble beds at this quarry. The marble, known as “Dorset B,” is of a darker shade than “ Dorset A.”

  “‘Dorset B’ (specimens D, XXXI, 4B, a rough; 4B, b and e, polished) is a calcite marble of light cream color, clouded with light-gray to smoke tint, and of coarse texture, somewhat less irregular than that of “Dorset A,” with a grain diameter of 0.07 to 1.12, mostly 0.25 to 0.62 millimeter, of grade 5. It contains some grains of quartz, groups of grains of granite or vein quartz, rare grains of potash feldspar (microcline), stringers of fibrous muscovite, and plates of white mica, also irregular minute semitranslucent nodules like those of “Dorset A” and a little pyrite in fine particles and crystals and limonite stain. The gray shade appears to be due to the muscovite, the pyrite, and the nodules.

  “The structure at the northeast end of this quarry shows a strike of N. 70° W. At the southeast end the marble is intensely and acutely plicated; the little folds are 6 inches wide and 5 feet long. It is not clear whether these are horizontal folds in a vertical stratum or minor folds along a very gently dipping one.

  “Tests of compressive and transverse strength of the marbles of the Valley and Plateau quarries were made for the company at the United States arsenal at Watertown, Mass., on March 5, 1903, with the following results.

  “The marble of the Plateau quarry, ‘Dorset B,’ and the ‘Dorset A’ from the Valley quarry are used for construction and the “green bed” for internal decoration.

  “Specimens: A triangular block of white marble taken from a building close to the main quarry, inscribed “A. D. 1831,” in which the letters and figures have preserved their sharp edges and which in all probability came from the adjacent quarry opened 46 years earlier, is regarded as the best evidence of the weathering quality of ‘Dorset A’ marble.

  “The more important edifices made from these marbles are the New York Public Library, Forty-second street and Fifth Avenue (except the approaches); the entire group of buildings of the Harvard Medical School; the John Hay Memorial Library, Brown University, Providence, R. I.; the Memorial Continental Hall, Washington (except northwest corner), including 13 monolithic 27-foot columns, (Pl. XI); the Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto; the Art Association Building, Montreal, with four 32-foot monolithic columns (see Pl. X, A); the portico and columns of the residence of Mr. W. T. Sessions, Bristol, Conn.; and the Congressional Church at Dorset, Vt.; and of “Dorset B” the exterior of the residence of Henry Phipps, Fifth Avenue and Eighty-seventh Street, New York.

  “The ‘green bed’ supplied the panels and wainscoting of the National Commercial Bank, Albany, N. Y.; the interior of the American Trust & Savings Bank, Chicago; and the interior marble (except flooring) of the Hampden county courthouse at Springfield, Mass., including the columns in the rotunda and the pilasters shown on Plate VII.”

• South Dorset, Vermont - the South Dorset 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.)

  “A few data were obtained in or as to three idle quarries near South Dorset village. The locations are shown on the map (Pl. I).”

• South Dorset, Vermont - the Valley Marble Quarry (Norcross) (from Commercial Marbles of Western Vermont, Bulletin 521, by T. Nelson Dale, United States Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 1912.)

  “The Norcross-West Marble Co.’s Valley quarry is a mile north-northwest of South Dorset village, and about 2 ½ miles S. 79° W. from the top of Green Peak, the southern outlier of Dorset Mountain, in the southwestern part of Dorset Township. (See map of Equinox quadrangle, U. S. Geol. Survey, and geologic map, Pl. I.) It was opened in 1785, was worked in 1870, and reopened in 1902. It measures about 500 feet in a northeast direction by 100 feet across and averages 70 feet in depth.

  “Operator, Norcross-West Marble Co., Dorset, Vt.

  “The marble beds consist, beginning at the top, of 116 feet of marbles, white and white mottled with light and dark gray, underlain by 10 to 17 feet of dolomite, and that in turn by 51 feet of gray marbles. (See p. 93.)

  “The marbles of this quarry are known as ‘Dorset A’ and ‘Dorset green bed.’

  “Dorset A” (specimens D, XXXI, 4, b, rough; e, f, g, polished) is a calcite marble of cream tinted to very light, faintly greenish smoke color, and of coarse irregular texture with grain diameter of 0.07 to 1.25, exceptionally 2 millimeters, but mostly of 0.25 to 0.75 averaging by a Rosiwal estimate 0.208 millimeter and thus of grade 5 (coarse). (See p. 54.) It contains semitransparent nodules of uncertain composition (carbonate? or silicate) and sparse small grains of quartz. The greenish smoky tint, in places in streaks, appears to be due mainly to the nodules and muscovite, but in places also to pyrite, which measures up to 2 millimeters. The polish when examined with a magnifier is only fair. A thin section of this marble is shown in figure 13.

  Analysis of calcite marble from South Dorset.

  Calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) - 98.43

  Magnesium carbonate (MgDO₃)-.26

  Iron oxide (FeO) -.38

  Moisture (H₂O) -.44

  Lose and undetermined -.49

  (Total) - 100.00

  “The results of physical tests of this marble will be found on page 101.

  “‘Dorset green bed’ (specimens D, XXXI, 4, a, rough; e, d, polished) is an actinolite-calcite marble of faintly greenish to pale cream color with very dark to light greenish-gray streaks, really beds, not over 0.1 inch thick (where single and straight), acutely plicated at intervals. Its texture is coarse but more regular than that of “ Dorset A.” As its grain diameter is 0.12 to 1, mostly 0.25 to 0.62 millimeter, it is also of grade 5. The little gray-greenish beds consist of fibrous actinolite with a little quartz and irregular semitranslucent nodules of uncertain character and bluish-green tourmaline. Pyrite is plentiful up to 0.5 millimeter in diameter. Some limonite stain appears, presumably from the oxidation of the pyrite. The polish over the actinolite streaks is naturally poor.

  “The pilasters of the “green bed” shown in Plate VII, which were cut parallel to the strike of the bed, seem to indicate some brecciation in that direction.

  “The structure at this quarry seems to be that of a very gentle anticline with a N. 70° E. strike, but at the northeast end of the quarry the beds rise in minor folds with an average dip of 30° - 40° NNW, and a pitch of 10° N. 30° E. and the dolomite bed which underlies the marble of the center of the quarry reaches the surface with a thickness of 10 to 12 feet. This indicates a syncline between the northeast wall and the anticline of the quarry. Two vertical joints occur along the east wall with strike of N. 20° E. The strike of the marble (N. 70° E.) seems to be related to the N. 55° E. strike at the Continental quarry, a mile nearly southwest, and at the quarries near the Owls Head, a mile northeast. The dolomite is crossed by cleavage planes filled with quartz dipping about 20° E. A thin section of this rock is described on page 30.”

• South Ryegate, Vermont - Rygate Granite Works Co. (Quarry Owners and Manufacturers) (The following advertisement is from The Monumental News, August, 1895, Vol. 7, No. 8, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 504.)

  Ryegate Granite Works Co., South Ryegate, Vermont.

  Quarry Owners and Manufacturers of Ryegate, Standard and Barre Granite.

  Facilities.

  Unlimited Water Power - McDonald Stone Cutting Machine - Power Derricks - Turned Lathes - Most Improved Polishing Machinery - Artistic Models.

  Specialties.

  Platforms, Steps, Columns, Polished or Hammered. Round Rail for Cemetery Enclosures, Statuary, Mausoleums, Building Fronts, Rough Stock.

  Before placing your orders for any above kinds of granite work, write us for prices.

• Stow, Vermont - Steatite/Soapstone Deposits (Excerpt from Report of the United States National Museum Under the Direction of the Smithsonian Institutions For the Year Ending June 30, 1886, Chapter entitled “The Collection of Building and Ornamental Stones In The U. S. National Museum: A Hand-book and Catalogue,” By George P. Merrill, Curator, Department Lithology and Physical Geology, pp. 285-291. “Soap-Stones of the Various States and Territories,” pp. 359-360.)

  “Vermont. - Most of the steatite of this State is found on the east side of the Green Mountains and near the eastern line of the talcose slate formation, beds of it extending nearly the entire length of the State. The rock occurs usually associated with serpentine and hornblende. The beds are not continuous and have, as a rule, a great thickness in comparison with their length. It not infrequently happens that several isolated outcrops occur on the same line of strata, sometimes several miles apart, and in many cases alternating with beds of dolomitic lime stone that are scattered along with them.

  “At least sixty beds of this rock occur in the State in the towns of…Stow….”

• Sudbury, Vermont - the Sudbury Breccia 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.)

  “A reddish hematitic dolomite resembling some of the fragments in the breccia of the Dyer quarry, in Manchester (p. 97), occurs at a point 4 miles WSW. of Brandon, in Sudbury Township, along a brook flowing north into Otter Creek. It is about half a mile northwest of the site of the Cool farmhouse.

  “The bed from its location appears to be very near the top of the marble. The rock is brecciated in places and coarsely cemented with flesh-colored and colorless calcite.”

• Sutherland Falls, Rutland County, Vermont - the Sutherland Falls Marble Quarry History up through 1872.

  The following excerpt is from a paper from the First Annual Report of the Vermont State Board of Agriculture, Manufactures and Mining, for The Year 1872, by Peter Collier, Secretary of the Board Montpelier, J. & J. M., Poland’s Steam Printing Establishment, 1872, “Rutland County Marble, with a History of the Marble Industry of Vermont, and a Statement of Comparative Value,” An address delivered before the State Board of Agriculture, &C., at Burlington, Jan. 24, 1872, By J. E. Manley, Esq., of West Rutland. (pp. 656-666). (You will find the complete history of the Rutland County Marble Quarries circa 1872 in the entry entitled: “ Rutland County, Vermont - Rutland County Marble, with a History of the Marble Industry of Vermont up through 1872 above.”)

  Sutherland Falls Quarry.

  “The next deposit, most celebrated and second in value, is at Sutherland Falls, near the line of Pittsford. It is much harder than the Rutland marble, heretofore described. This marble is sought by dealers for monumental work, being very durable and susceptible to a very fine finish. It is all variegated, and some of it presents a brecciated appearance rather than stratified rock. The No. 1 of this quarry resembles somewhat the veined marble of Italy, used in this country, but unlike it in texture, and from the presence of small particles of flint as in the brocatelle, will not receive as even or as high polish as the Italian, but, nevertheless, receives, under skillful hands, a very fine finish. The other layers most desirable and most valuable are the dark and light mourning veins, resembling very much the marble found in the Pyrenees and in some parts of France.

  “The dark mourning veining has a ground of deep blue, whilst the characteristic color is nearly black, running through the layer continuously but zig-zag in its course, presenting a very beautiful appearance. The light mourning vein has the same characteristics, but the ground being nearly white instead of blue. Both of these layers are free from flaws in their general character and receive a very fine finish. A few rods to the east of this quarry is a deposit of white marble of considerable extent, but no sound marble has ever been obtained, so that it is without name in the list of quarries. The deposit in line with the Sutherland Falls quarry is different in color and texture as you go north, also south. About one hundred and fifty rods south is the quarry of the Columbian Marble Company, being one of the oldest opening upon this deposit; contains variegated and almost black marble.

  “This marble, for the second time, has been but recently put upon the market, but is attaining an enviable reputation for mantel and monumental work, being quite hard and fine, and stands at the head of dark marbles. There are several deposits at Pittsford, Brandon, and Danby, a minute description of which I am unable to give, except to say that the marbles for most of these openings have been successfully placed upon the market. The marble of Danby is much coarser than the same quality of the Rutland marble, and No. 1 being coarser is of less value than the Rutland No. 1, yet quite as durable when exposed.”

• Sutton (near), Vermont - St. Johnsbury Marble Co. Quarry. The following information is from The Monumental News, “Quarry Notes” section, August, 1895, Vol. 7, No. 8, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 504.

  “The St. Johnsbury (Vt.) Marble Co. propose opening a granite quarry near Sutton, Vt.”

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