Building With Brownstone

Another inland town that prospered through access to the sea was Portland and its brownstone quarry industry. Quarrying began in the late 1600’s when the first settlers arrived in the Middletown settlement area.

Because of the proximity of the river to the sea they were able to develop a commercial industry that involved many distant locations.  It was easy to get the stone there by water.

Brownstone Quarry - Portland Connecticut

The stone was loaded onto scows, barges, schooners, taken down the river and then shipped out to other locations along the east coast.  By 1850 there were three major companies and these three companies employed about 1,500 men during peak operations between 1850 and 1890 and those men were primarily Immigrants.

The stone was used for buildings: churches, row houses, mansions, all sorts of buildings. By the 1880’s most of the stone used in building in New York City came from Portland and approximately 10 million cubic yards of stone had been quarried at that site. Towards the end of the 1800’s brownstone gradually went out of use.

Adapted From Connecticut and The Sea - by Kenneth A. Simon