Customer Reviews

Hammers on stone: A history of Cape Ann granite

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My copy is a 1987 hardback reprint by Peter Smith, Gloucester Mass. (ISBN 0-8446-6293-3). There is a good 2-page location map showing the quarries so you can stay grounded in the geography throughout the book. I enjoyed reading it - in 12 chapters the author traces aspects of Cape Ann's quarry history from the late 1700s through to the 1930s (when virtually everything stopped following the 1929 stock market crash) and then to the 1950s. There is a short background on the establishment of what is now Halibut Point State Park towards the end - that park is well worth a long drive to visit for a wander around the quarries and a picnic lunch on the coast. There are over 60 black and white photos and a diagram. Image quality is good or better for nearly all, with a cross-section of landscape & quarry views, granite-laden schooners and lighters being loaded or under way, ox-teams hauling slabs, 0-4-0 tank engines that moved stone around, workers inside cutting sheds, people photos (many people immigrated from Finland and Sweden to work in the quarries), as well as monuments or buildings made with Cape Ann Granite. A good book for people interested in the history of New England, and a handy reference for model shipbuilders or railroaders who want ideas for New England coastal scenes.