Quarrying the Stone

Stafford’s geologic conditions that produced rich iron ore and other metal deposits also created a distinctive sandstone called freestone, and by the late 1700s stone quarrying had become an important local industry. Although the high-quality sandstone was known from the beginning of the eighteenth century, it was not quarried for major building projects until the late 1700s, when stone from nearby Government Island and other Stafford sites was used in both the White House and U.S. Capital. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, quarrying was labor intensive and relied on simple machines and animal power. A master mason, usually a European, oversaw operations, while stone cutters and stone carvers extracted and rough-cut the stone, and blacksmiths made and sharpened tools such as wedges, chisels, trimming hammers, sledge hammers, picks, mattocks, drills, and axes. Quarrying began by clearing vegetation from the stone, exposing the top, and cutting away a vertical face to create a work area. Workers then cut side channels about 20 inches wide and about 20 feet apart, along with a rear trench, to form a rectangular stone section. Grooves were chiseled into the stone face, wedges were inserted to free blocks from the larger mass, and the stone was hoisted out by a simple derrick and pulley system before being placed on a skid and hauled by oxen to a nearby wharf or to local work sites such as the Daniel Bridge, whose piers are made of sandstone blocks. Although this quarry cannot be directly tied to the 1863 encampments or to the Daniel Bridge, sandstone from nearby quarry sites was used in one encampment fire box, several chimney remains, and one hearth, and one camp firebox contains a large sandstone block with a drill mark resembling those on the quarry face.

Virginia · United States