Granite quarrying in eastern Hancock County centered on Franklin and Sullivan, where high-quality stone around Tranton and Hog Bay could be moved easily by bay to Atlantic seaboard markets and was used in projects including St. Andrews, the New Brunswick Court House, the Philadelphia Navy Yard, curbstones in Boston and New York, and paving stones in Washington D.C. Granite was first quarried in Sullivan in 1830 and in Franklin in 1875, and by the last decades of the 19th century the industry had become a major economic force in the area before showing decline from 1910 onward. Preparing granite for commercial use was hard, labor-intensive work: quarrymen removed rough blocks as unskilled laborers with the lowest pay, while cutters finished the stone and were ranked by the complexity of their work, with paving cutters at the bottom of the cutters' pay scale earning $30.00 per 1,000 stones finished and higher pay going to those who cut curbing, monument bases, and construction granite. Workers became union men and earned wages equal to those in other quarrying centers; a curbstone cutter averaged $2.25 to $2.70 a day, a quarryman $1.50 to $1.75 per day, and teamsters hauling stone averaged $3.50 to $4.00 per 1,000 paving stones moved. Franklin and Sullivan quarries used teamsters driving galamanders to move rough granite, and finished stone was taken to wharves for loading onto sailing vessels. Blacksmithing was essential at every quarry because steel tools constantly needed sharpening and repair, and workers from Franklin, Sullivan, and surrounding towns often lived during the week in boarding houses near the quarries. Granite from Franklin and Sullivan was transported mostly by ship, especially by schooners, and the demand for those vessels supported a local shipbuilding industry, including at Shipyard Point in Franklin. Because granite was a dangerous cargo whose shifting could doom a vessel, proper loading was critical; this danger was illustrated when the Franklin-built schooner John Paul, carrying granite, encountered a heavy storm in the Nantucket Ship Channel, its load shifted, and it sank on January 13, 1914. Franklin later became the first town in Hancock County to ship granite by rail when granite from the Highland Quarry was loaded at Eastbrook siding in May 1900, although most quarries continued to ship by sea because the railroad was not easily reached by the larger quarries around Taunton and Hog Bays.