Cape Ann granite
sloop Albert Baldwin, 1896
Nathaniel L. Stebbins photograph
Society for the Preservation of New England
Antiquities
|
Scow lifting stones
at Knowlton's Point, Rockport Photo courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum |
A hybridized granite
coaster
Photo courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum
|
Granite sloop
shooting the gap inside Straitsmouth Island, Rockport
Photo courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum
|
Sloop America and schooners at the Rockport
Granite Company wharf, 1905
Postcard photo from the Sandy Bay Historical Society
|
Gloucester Daily Times, October 18, 1897
The full newspaper account
will appear in next week's essay.
|
The sad news of the drowning of two of
our highly respected citizens, an account of which is given in another column,
seems to bring a calamity home to all of us who have known the men and were as
intimate with them as if they were brothers. Of all the sea faring men these
who are in the carrying of stone have the most hazardous lives. The vessels
load deeply, and when the moment of
danger comes there is little chance for the crew, as the vessel with her solid
freight soon goes to the bottom.
All the participants in the granite
trade, from individuals to corporations, made their decisions within perceptions
of cost, risk, efficiency and competitive circumstances. Mechanization
increasingly influenced business on land and sea with increasing capability
and, potentially, with improvements to working conditions. Steam-powered boats
brought new advantages to the granite shippers from the 1870s forward.
In the face of an important
deadline the Cape Ann Granite Company incurred an unexpected expense to
complete delivery. For the past week the
sloop Albert Baldwin icebound at Bay
View having on board the last of the polished granite for the Boston Court
House; steam tug expected today to tow the sloop to Boston - Gloucester
Daily Times, Jan 20, 1893.
Tugboats often maneuvered the sailing freighters within the confines of harbors. Steam lighters became more dependable and cost effective than sloops for localized granite shipments early in the twentieth century. In those decades the larger capacity stone schooners transitioned toward barges in the tow of ocean-going tugboats. Engines at every stage of the industry supplanted human, animal, and natural power in producing useful stone.
Sources
1. See E. D. Walen and Howard Chapelle, "Rockport
Granite Sloops," in The Mariner,
The Quarterly Journal of the Ship Model Society of Rhode Island, April 1931.
2. John Leavitt, Wake
of the Coasters, 1970.
3. I am indebted for research guidance to Erik Ronnberg,
ship model maker par excellence and
Adjunct Curator for Maritime Collections at the Cape Ann Museum.
Barbara Erkkila (RIP) advocated that the Gloucester Railroad Bridge be reconstructed in Cape Ann Granite. Maybe using our abundant "local granite leftovers" would save the state some of the estimated $63 "mil"?
ReplyDelete