In the late 1800’s it was Bartlett’s quarry, after that it was renamed the Mitchell Mountain Pink Granite Granite Quarry/Berkshire Pink Granite Quarry. Origins of the great Quarries and Quarrymen…the Bartletts then the Mitchell’s who’s grandfather established Chester’s own Hudson Quarry Company later in the 1880’s. Chester Granite and Polishing Works Mitchell’s main involvement in the granite business was from 1930 to 1965, when he and six other men ran the Chester Granite Company. (From the Country Journal interview) Mitchell said that it wasn’t as big an operation as the Hudson Granite Company, which employed a few hundred workers in its prime years, but nevertheless, “we got memorials scattered all over the country too.” Having been a blacksmith when he was younger, Mitchell became pretty proficient at lettering and finishing the monuments when he switched occupations. Late in the 1890’s, Mitchell remembers having to excavate the granite with large hand drills, and with hammers and wedges. “We could plug a hole with those hand drills pretty quickly,” said Mitchell, still displaying the enormous hands. “Got pretty strong, too.” he added.

The technology for getting at the granite, which is anywheres from five-feet to 100 feet below the earth’s surface, has pretty-much changed since those days. In 1903 or 1904, Mitchell fondly remembers using air pressure for the first time to get the granite and for sculpturing it. Using steam boilers to run the new machines, Mitchell said they still had to use the hammers and wedges to make the final cuts. “Now, they burn channels, sometimes only a foot apart from each other, all the way down through a ledge, and then they dynamite it,” explains Mitchell. Mitchell gladly walked hand in hand with the newest technological advances, but retired from the granite business around 1968.

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