Granite Historical Society - The Granite Story

The Granite Story

A Chronicle of the Most Unique Square Mile in Baltimore County

By Paul T. Morgan

Reprinted with permission from The Community News, Friday, March 10, 1967

Information was current at time of publication.

At the extreme western end of Baltimore county, near where the Old Court road terminates at the Patapsco river, lies the tranquil village of Granite. The surrounding countryside of about one square mile contains the visible but almost forgotten remains of a robust industry that flourished there for nearly a century—quarrying the finest, hardest granite rock on the North American continent.

Abandoned quarries, half or totally concealed now by thick woods and dense underbrush are mute reminders of the toil and ingenuity that wrested the crystalline rock from its natural formations and fashioned it into many beautiful and indestructible uses. Narrow roadbeds with bases of granite chips and debris can still be followed through the woods to some of the quarries

Without benefit of electric power, many thousand tons of granite were cut from a half dozen quarries with steam, compressed air and muscle work by hardy men. The product included stringers for Baltimore and Ohio Railroad tracks, Belgian blocks and curbs for street paving, monuments of all sizes, building stone and slabs for entrances to large structures. One of the latter sometimes filled an entire railroad flat car.

Granite from Granite made the walls of the Baltimore Custom House. The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. sent a Dr. David Owen on an inspection tour of building material sources. Of Waltersville and Fox Rock quarries at Granite he reported: "For about a mile square at this locality is an outburst of quartzose, granite of magnificent quality, both as regards beauty of appearance, compactness of structure and uniformity of color, texture and composition. I have never seen anything superior in this country. Indeed, I doubt whether it can be excelled in any country. It cannot be surpassed for strength and durability by any building material in the world." The original Smithsonian Institution in Washington is built of granite from Granite.

From the Waltersville and Fox Rock quarries at Granite came the blocks used in construction of the Library of Congress, the old U.S. Treasury Department, the Patent Office extension, the general Post Office and parts of the inner walls of the Washington Monument, all in Washington, DC.

In Baltimore, granite from Granite built the old Post Office Building and the Court House, a monument to the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution on Mount Royal Avenue, many commercial buildings and churches in the city and numerous monuments in Baltimore cemeteries. The railroad viaduct at Relay is built of granite from Granite. The main building at Woodstock College is constructed of granite blocks from the Fox Rock quarry on the property now owned by the college. One of the Hood College buildings at Frederick, Md., is built of granite from Granite. Among other buildings are the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, St. Ambrose Catholic Church and the Fidelity Building in Baltimore. Locally, granite from the Granite quarries built Randallstown Elementary School and the Randallstown Community Hall, the Granite Odd Fellows Hall, the old Granite schoolhouse, and St. Alphonsus Catholic Church at Woodstock. Among many other construction projects where granite from Granite was used are the Pressor Building in Philadelphia, Pa., a public building in Cuba and the U.S. Naval Hospital in Washington, D.C.

All of the stone in the National Cemetery up to 1900 came from Granite. The nine bridges along the Mount Vernon Highway from 14th street in Washington, D.C. to Mount Vernon, Va. are built of granite from Granite. Stone for the Studebaker monument in South Bend, Indiana came from the Granite quarries. Many other buildings and some homes in the Granite area and elsewhere are constructed of granite blocks from the Granite quarries. A by-product was crushed stone for road beds.

Manual labor, mainly slaves, was used during the first few decades of quarrying, beginning in the 1820s. In the most flourishing era of the Granite quarries, the 1870s through the 1890s, Fox Rock quarry employed about 50 men, Waltersville many more. The first steam drills were installed about 1900. Derricks picked up slabs weighing 50 to 100 tons each.

As many as 130 stonecutters and artisans from Scotland, Wales, England, France and Italy were imported and worked in long sheds to cut and polish the granite rock for many uses and custom orders. Granite dust cut up the lungs of many workers and almost solidified their bronchial tubes. A number died at an early age.

Using surfacing and polishing machines operated by compressed air, the workers effected a glaze and polish so unusual that it was said to be unequalled by any other granite in the world.

During the early 1900s stone cutters were paid $4 per day. Laborers received 17 cents per hour. The working day was from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. with one hour for lunch.

From Fox Rock quarry, deep in the woods on the Woodstock College property, granite blocks and other products were hauled uphill to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at Woodstock by horse teams and threshing machine engines pulling flat bed wagons. Fox Rock Quarry, like most of the others did not have the benefit of railroad track or locomotive service.

Great boulders, or cobbles, of granite on the surface, rounded by weathering, first caught the attention of enterprising young New Hampshire granite experts who came here in the late 1820s as a good source of commercial enterprise. Among them were such family names as Sweatt, Riddle, Putney, Holbrook, Emory, Gault and Eaton.

This photograph, taken last fall along the Hernwood road near Granite, shows a typical granite outcrop such as those spotted by the pioneers from New Hampshire. Shortly afterward the granite men began prospecting.

Their digging soon exposed the fantastic ledges of two main quarries, Waltersville and Fox Rock. Of the latter, legend says it was discovered by men digging for a fox that had taken refuge in a hole between the rocks.

That ended interest in the surface boulders. In addition to the two main granite veins, smaller deposits were unearthed and later exploited as quarries.

Incidentally, in England there is a town named Woodstock, on the River Glyme. It dates back to Anglo-Saxon times when the place was called "Wudestoc" meaning a clearing in the woods.

First settler in the Woodstock area was a Thomas Brown who was appointed Ranger of the Patuxent Region in 1692.

The earliest recorded inhabitants of the Woodstock Granite area were the nomadic Susquehannock Indians, who lived between the Patapsco and Susquehanna rivers. They were of Iroquois stock, but had migrated southward.

Their main settlements were along the banks of the Susquehanna, but as game grew scarce their hunters ranged about in search of it. By the time the first white colonists arrived in 1634, the Susquehannocks were already well established in Maryland and were a terror to their new neighbors.

Father Andrew White mentioned them in his report on conditions in America, saying: "The Susquehannoes, a warlike nation, ravage the whole territory and have forced the inhabitants by the dread of danger to look for other homes."

The Indians created a network of trails through the forests. One of the most important of these trails in Maryland crossed the Patapsco at the site of Woodstock.

By the end of the eighteenth century, due to war and smallpox, there were few Indians left in the Woodstock section. The white settlers had taken over.

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was incorporated by the Maryland Legislature on Feb. 26, 1827. Plans called for a line to run along the narrow valley of the Patapsco to Ellicotts Mills and then, following the course of the river to Frederick. By the summer of 1829 the tracks had reached Ellicotts Mills. Building of the railroad brought fatal earth cave-ins and many brawls. Whiskey was sold freely and cheaply, at three cents a glass. Riots were frequent. Some contractors hired German teetotalers from York county, Pennsylvania, but violence continued to flare. Labor troubles reached a climax in the summer of 1831 when serious riots occurred at Sykes Mills, present site of Sykesville.

Civilization's progress throughout the centuries has left many casualties beside its path. The endless race for more efficiency, greater speed and easier methods has left in capsules of obsolescence many natural resources, human skills and even entire industries. Some have vanished with the ages, while others still stand as stark monuments to vigorous and prosperous eras of the past. Still visible to mark one abandoned industry are the old granite quarries in Westem Baltimore county in and around the community known as Granite. These quarries flourished for more than a century and died during the 1920s and 1930s as the construction field turned to materials easier to obtain and to handle.

The Granite quarry area, which we call the most unique square mile in Baltimore county became nationally known in the 1800s. Early records of land ownership are vague and conflicting, but the section was known as Waltersville until a post office was established in the 1870s when the community became officially known as Granite. An Englishman named Capt. WaIters, whose connection with the area is obscure, married a Miss Elizabeth Worthington in the 1700s. Members of their family were the ancestors of the WaIters, Offutt, and Blunt families. Although the old quarries are almost filled now with ground water, one can still see the great vertical walls of granite, igneous rock thrust up from its hot pressure origin deep below the earth's crust. The first customer of importance for the Granite quarries was the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which bought stringers for tracks, slabs 4 to 5 feet long and 8 to 10 inches wide, dressed to correspond to the flange and tread of the car wheels.

Bright speckled gray in color and composed mainly of quartz, mica and feldspar, much of the rock at Granite is remarkable for its sharp joints, horizontal or vertical or nearly so, giving the appearance of having been built up layer by layer in huge blocks. This "jointing" was brought out by weatherings as the great slabs slowly decomposed at the edges and corners over many years and became rounded, with "sand" in between. These joints sometimes caused trouble in quarrying blocks and slabs. But at other times they made quarrying fairly easy. The rocks broke cleanly when wedges, driven in about three or four inches deep and a few inches apart in a series, were tapped one after the other, lightly and evenly. The ledges were so extensive that pillars 40 to 50 feet high could be cut from the granite without a seam.

In 1835, Putney and Riddle obtained a 20-year lease for the Waltersville quarry, largest in the area, from the owner, Capt. Alexander Walters, descendant of the original owner. The second quarry, Fox Rock, was operated by a Mr. Eaton and at one time was part of the Worthington estate. The last owner-operator of the Fox Rock quarry was the Peach family, who used the trade name Woodstock Granite Co. About one mile east of Woodstock was Putney and Riddle's granite bridge. Lessees of the Waltersville quarry built a railroad two miles long from the bridge to the quarry, so that slabs could be transported over the B&O railroad. Waltersville was the only quarry served by rail facilities. The quarry company owned its own locomotive and flat cars. The smaller quarries used horse-drawn teams and threshing machine engines to haul granite to the B&O railroad station at Woodstock and later even to the Pennsylvania railroad station at Ruxton. Ox teams frequently moved the slabs of granite around in the quarries. Water seepage was controlled by pumps. The first important contract of the Waltersville quarry was to provide the granite blocks with which the Baltimore Custom House is built.

A few years later, Putney and Riddle failed and the firm was succeeded by Edward Green and Joshua B. Sumwalt, under the name of Green & Sumwalt. Green died about 1849 and was succeeded in the Waltersville quarry business by his son, Frederick. The firm name was reversed to Sumwalt & Green. They continued the business until 1865, when Atwood Blunt, whose wife was a WaIters and had inherited the property, took over the quarry and operated it for six years. It became known as the Blunt quarry. The Blunt family still owns the property. In 1871 Ansley Gill and James McMahon leased the Waltersville quarry and continued the business until the death of McMahon 16 years later. After a short period of operating the business by himself, Ansley Gill became associated with William H. Johnson of Baltimore and these two formed a joint stock company called the Guilford and WaltersvilIe Granite Co. with George Mann, Hugh Hanna, Grey & Sons of Philadelphia, Pa., and a Mr. Hamilton of Baltimore. This company operated the Waltersville business from about 1890 to 1925. Since then the quarry has been abandoned.

In modern times, Belgian blocks, cobble stones and granite curbs have been replaced by asphalt and concrete on our streets. The heavy, hard blocks from Granite yeilded to softer North Carolina Granite and Indiana Limestone, which are easier and cheaper to quarry and transport. More recently, manufactured cement and concrete blocks have come into wide use. There came a day when Granite quarries could no longer compete with cheaper products and silence fell. One wonders if this industry killed and tossed aside by modern progress, will remain dead. Interest has waned in the heavy quartz-feldspar-mica combination, but there may be another compound that could stir the imagination of enterprising young men from New Hampshire or anywhere else. Every piece of granite is said to contain a small amount of uranium. One ton of granite might give the fuel power of 20 tons of coal. Perhaps Granite's monumental quarry walls may be just resting and waiting for modern progress to catch up.

In a field along the Hernwood road called Possum Hollow there were many surface outcrops of granite, known as cobbles. In 1886, parishioners of the Catholic Church of the Holy Ghost on the Old Court road cut the Possum Hollow cobbles into building stone for a church edifice. Many of the parishioners were quarrymen, who donated their work to the church cause. The Church of the Holy Ghost was opened in 1887, a Jesuit priest serving as pastor. The name was later changed to St. Aphonsus Church.

In 1866 the Society of Jesus purchased 243 acres of land in Baltimore county on the north side of the Patapsco river, opposite the village of Woodstock, from Capt. Blunt and Miss Worthington. The land was suitable for building a House of Studies because it was 25 miles from Baltimore, with almost perfect isolation. Only the occasional passage of B&O Railroad trains disturbed the rural tranquillity. About nine acres were cleared for the original building.

All of the granite building stone was hauled from the Fox Rock quarry over a road cut out in places into the western side of a hill, following the easiest grade. Wood and iron were brought from Baltimore, lime from Frederick. The million and a quarter bricks for partition walls were burnt on the premises. Every granite block was placed by hand. The stone blocks which capped the walls were wheeled in barrows from stage to stage, from ground to summit. Woodstock College, the Jesuit Theologate, was opened in 1869. More land was purchased later. The property now includes about 600 acres.

The east wing and the chapel at the college were added in 1924 and the two towers and the west wing in 1925. The science building was erected in 1927 and the O'Rourke Library in 1929.

Several transactions are recorded between the college and local property owners. These include the names of John J. Evans, the Woodstock Granite Co., Thomas A. Whelan and wife, William J. Peach and Agnes J. Peach and the former Baltimore County Bank at Towson.

Technically, Woodstock College is a school of theology for Jesuit seminarians, supported by the Maryland, Buffalo and New York provinces, but its influence goes beyond provincial boundaries. Woodstock professors and seminarians have contributed to world wide theological development. They also do much social work in the area of Baltimore and vicinity. There is talk of moving the school to the campus of a secular university, probably Yale.

In 1730–31, the Old Court road from Gwynns Falls to the Patapsco river was laid out on the bed of an old Indian Trail. Near the present location of Pikesville, this road joined the Court road to Joppa, which was at that time an important Chesapeake Bay port.

On the Howard county side of the Patapsco river stands the village of Woodstock, which is now the post office center for the Woodstock-Granite area. In 1957 its population, including about 260 at Woodstock College, numbered about 500. It has not grown much since.

No one seems to know who gave Woodstock its name. The place has never been incorporated and the records are vague. Best source of information lies in the records of the B&O Railroad. In November 1831, the main line of the railroad was extended west from Ellicotts Mills to the forks of the Patapsco. About a mile short of the forks the tracks passed a place called Davis Tavern, site of the present village of Woodstock.

The name "Woodstock" first appears in 1836. On May 27 of that year a U.S. post office was opened there. A settlement grew up around the railroad tracks in a year or so after the coming of the railroad in 1830-31. Some contractors who built the railroad put up houses in the vicinity. First use of the name "Woodstock" appears in county records of 1838, when it was used in three land transactions. After that it becomes quite common in the records of Anne Arundel county and later of Howard County.

In the Civil War, Maryland soldiers fought in both the Union and Confederate armies. Pro-southern sentiment ran high in slave-holding areas. The Woodstock area made its contribution to the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. During the war, Union soldiers and supplies moved along the main line of the B&O Railroad, which made the rai1road a target for Confederate cavalry raids. Large Southern armies were in the vicinity on several occasions. Gen. Robert E. Lee occupied Frederick in September 1862 before marching to Sharpsburg on Antietam Creek. Not quite a year later, Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's ill-fated excursion before Gettysburg took him to Hood's Mills a few miles above Woodstock on the Patapsco. While Stuart's cavalrymen were tearing up the tracks at Hood's Mills, a detachment under Gen. Fitzhugh Lee made a vain attempt to burn the bridge at Sykesville.

In July, 1864, Confederate Gen. Jubal A. Early led his corps east from the Monacacy river in a desperate attack which took him within sight of the national Capitol. On Early's northern flank, Gen. Bradley Johnson's Confederate cavalry reached the outskirts of Baltimore and ranged up and down the Patapsco Valley, destroying highway and railroad bridges. Confederate soldiers many of them Marylanders, were in friendly territory. Confederate Col. Herbert's Maryland regiment was once in the vicinity of Woodstock, bogged down for lack of transport. Woodstock farmers supplied enough wagons for Herbert and his men to rejoin the main body of the Confederate army. Federal authorities cracked down and Beale Cavey of Woodstock, who had recruited the rolling stock, had to hide out for a time in the wilderness known as Soldiers Delight.

This was the cutting shed at Waltersville quarry, operated in the 1900s by Oliver C. Putney. Here the slabs of granite were fashioned into made to order designs for monuments and decorative pieces. Mr. Orville Gosnell remembers seeing a huge polished globe of granite, on which was cut an outline of the Western Hemisphere. Where this unusual production was sent is unknown. Remains of the Waltersville cutting shed, now fallen into ruin, are still visible in the woods along the old road into the quarry.

Organized by William F . Weller, father of the late U.S. Senator Ovington E. Weller (Rep., Md.) the Weller quarry was opened adjacent to the big Waltersville quarry, some time after Waltersville began its extensive operations. The land on which the Weller quarry is located was owned by the Blunt family. The late William F. Weller also ran a farm and a store at Granite. The late Senator Weller was an early chairman of the Maryland State Roads Commission. Some time after the quarry business at Granite was abandoned, the Weller quarry was leased to Joseph Schlee of the Marriottsville road, who equipped it as the Sylvan Dell swimming pool and conducted this enterprise for sixteen years. Mr. Schlee now operates the Milford Mill Swimming Club on the Milford Mill road at another abandoned rock quarry, although not a granite quarry.

The late Patrick A. Feeney a native of Woodstock, was prominent in the Granite quarry industry. In 1868 he was baptized in a basement chapel in the Woodstock College main building while it was under construction. Later he served three years as a stonecutter apprentice, then worked in quarries at Mt. Airy; N.C., returning to Granite as fireman of the Waltersvi11e quarry cutting shed before Mr. Putney took it over.

Early in the 1900's Mr. Feeney went into partnership with Frank Atherton, a native of Maine, to organize the Feeney-Atherton quarry on the Hernwood road, on land purchased from the Weller family. At its peak this quarry employed about 60 men. It was closed in 1922. In his later years, Patrick Feeney described granite quarrying as "a tough way to make a living." His son Aquin P. Feeney, now in the real estate business here, worked as an assistant to block cutters and as water boy during several summers. William Atherton, son of the 1ate Frank Atherton, is still cutting stone at the Merkle memorial plant at Rockdale.

Small quarry operations were the Star Granite Co., with entrance from the Hernwood Road and another on the Blunt property in rear of the Waltersville quarry. During the winter months, when the quarries were sometimes temporarily shut down, stonecutters often worked "cobble holes" which were surface outcrops of granite, making Belgian blocks, paving stones, and street curbing, which they sold to bring income during dull quarrying periods.

In the heyday of the Granite quarry industry many families settled in the area, leaving descendants still residing there. Family names remembered by friends, who contributed to this story include the following, in addition to those mentioned elsewhere: Taggart, Elseroad, Porter, Klein, Ferguson, Braglio, Graziano, Bortell, Kirkpatrick, O'Neill, Hamilton, Miller, Nash, Johnson, Potts, Murray, Whalen, Cavey, Donovan, Dunnigan, Gibbons, Wheat, Grant, Kemp, Parlett. Dr. Harry F. Shipley was physician in the area. Arthur U. Butts served as tool sharpener and repair man at the Waltersville quarry for about 50 years.

Three denominations appear in the history of the Granite-Woodstock area. The old St. Paul's Methodist Church on St. Paul avenue, Granite, probably 75 years old, built of Granite blocks, has been abandoned. Its parishioners now attend Mt. Olive Methodist Church at Randallstown.

Granite Presbyterian Church on the Old Court road is still flourishing. In 1924, the original edifice, built of granite blocks, was gutted by fire, despite the efforts of local residents and about 150 scholastics from Woodstock College, who formed bucket brigades. The church was restored and re-occupied. Scholastics of Woodstock College developed Catholic life in the area. Before 1869 the nearest Catholic church was the chapel at Doughoregan Manor in Howard county. Within ten years the Jesuits of Woodstock College opened churches at Harrisonville, Elysville and Poplar Springs.

Generally the Patapsco river is brown and peaceful, although still capable of an occasional rampage. Fifty to a hundred years ago, floods on the river were disastrous affairs. Acres of debris piled up at every bend. One flood left a wheelbarrow hanging twenty feet up in the branches of a tree. Woodstock's wooden bridge was swept away at least three times and had to be replaced by an iron structure. Sections of the B and O Railroad were often washed out. At such times, the only way to cross the river was by flat-bottomed scow, or perhaps on Jim Cavey's granite wagon, once the waters had subsided. There was also a swaying foot bridge just above the town of Woodstock.

In the twentieth century, telephone and electric service, automobiles and oil heating plants have come to Granite, as elsewhere. Otherwise there is only one truly modern innovation. This is the Nike-Hercules anti-aircraft missile installation on the Hernwood road near St. Paul avenue. This missile unit was initially activated by the Department of Defense in the fall of 1956 in a directive to integrate the Army National Guard into the U. S. Army Air Defense program. The unit was at first designated as Battery A of the 684th Gun Battalion at Catonsville.

In the fall of 1957 it was redesignated as Battery A, 2nd Missile Battalion, Nike-Ajax. In 1958 it occupied the Granite site in dual occupancy with the Regular Army Nike-Hercules. It was combined with units of the 1st and 3rd Missile Battalions in July, 1962 and redesignated as Battery B, 1st Missile Battalion, Hercules, 70th Artillery, and assumed complete control of the Granite site and the Nike Hercules System there. The Battery commander is Capt. Donald S. Bowes. In cooperation with other National Guard and Regular Army units, Battery B has the mission to help provide 24 hour, seven days a week, air defense of the Washington-Baltimore area. Battery B is under the operational control of the 35th Artillery Brigade, Fort George G. Meade commanded by Brig.-Gen. Robert C. Gildart.

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the following in assembling this Story of the Granite - Woodstock area: Mr. Orville T. Gosnell, Clerk of the Circuit Court for Baltimore County; the Rev. John A Conlin, S.J., Vice-President of Woodstock College; Mr. Wilson Herrera, President of the Baltimore County Historical Society; Mr. Aquin P. Feeney; Miss Marie O'Dea, Associate Editor of the Catonsville "Herald Argus"; the staff of the Enoch Pratt Library; Major Rhoda M. Messer W.A.C., Information Officer, 35th Artillery Brigade, U.S. Army, Fort George G. Meade.