Found My Quarry

From Dave Brigham:

I'm becoming more attracted to Greater Boston's waterfront. I've enjoyed checking out the sights in the city, but I'm ready to branch out a bit. This is what brought me to Quincy's Rock Island Cove Salt Marsh.

Through a Google map search of the area just south of Boston, I found a bunch of places, and once I did a quick investigation into Rock Island Cove, and learned there used to be a quarry there, I knew I had to check it out.

The salt marsh, of course, is beautiful.

But my quarry was the quarry. Having read just a little online about the site, I wasn't sure what to expect. I was hoping for building remnants; what I found was some steep rock walls leading into what seems to be a fairly shallow pit.

And of course, there was graffiti.

The pit was filled with trees and grasses and trash.

I suspect if I'd ventured down there I would've found more interesting pieces of history. But drilled into a rock a good distance from the pit I found this pin:

I don't know anything about quarry operations, so I have no idea what was secured here. I assume a cable was strung through here that was perhaps used to hoist rock from the hole.

From two sources online, I learned that the company that quarried the stone was called the Tidewater Broken Stone company. Founded in 1906, the company owned 26 acres of "the best quality trap rock suitable for crushing purposes," according to "United States Investor, Volume 21, Part 2" by Frank P. Bennett and Company. I tell ya, Google documents is awesome.

According to the same source, Tidewater supplied "practically all the stone used in water front construction, both in government and city works."

It's no surprise this place is called Rock Island. The quarry seems fairly small, but there is certainly plenty of stone in the general area, so I imagine Tidewater had quite an operation in its day.