This area of Vermont became known for its high quality slate after the first quarry in western Vermont opened on Scotch Hill in 1839 by Alonson Allen and Caleb Ranney. Allen began the first manufacture of roofing slate in Vermont in 1848. By 1869 there were seventeen quarries in Fair Haven, eleven of them on Scotch Hill. Slate quarrying was important to the local economy and attracted many skilled Welsh immigrants who knew the trade from their native Wales.