The Portland daily press., 1873-11-21
Old Orchard Slate Ouarry.

In August 1872, Mr.. T. S. Lewis, a gentle
man visiting Old Orchard, paid, in common
with many others who summered by the sea,
visit to the Cascades, a picturesque waterfall
some two miles from the beach, in the town of
Saco. While sauntering about the place, his
eye was attracted by some very noticeable out
groupings of slate. Investigation On that day
and many days after led to the discovery of one
of the most extensive and finest slate quarries
in New England. With as little delay as pos
sible, Mr.. Lewis purchased the Harmon farm,
of 40 acres, in which the quarry IS situated,
paying therefor about $4,000. He then began
operations on limited scale, building small
mill and opening his quarry. Finding his cap
ital limited, he associated with himself in Sep
TENDER of the present year, two business men
of Portland. Previous to this he had procured
a corporation act, to be used if necessary or
desirable
The quarry embraces about eighteen acres of
fine, soft, tough, deep colored talcose slate,
admirably situated for working and convenient
to a railway station. The outcrops are frequent
and the great BEDS a hundred feet in DEPTH
are but three or four feet below the light, sandy
soil. The stone, when it is reached, at depth
of fifty feet, is a fine deep blue, scratching al
most as easily as tale, and SO tough that it may
DO drilled through and through with the punch
and then not break. The rift is unusually good
and sheets have been taken out eight by eleven
feet, and but one-fourth of an inch in thick
ness. The Cascades leap with a fall of fifty
two feet down over a rOck-b OF solid slate,
and furnish power enough to run mills of a
thousand spindles,
The present partnership are actively prose
cutting work in the quarry. A mill has been
built which ought to stand, for it is literally
founded on a rock having for its base
great slate bed of many feet in depth. The
magnificent fall has been utilized, and wheel
of sixty horsepower put in. Crackers and
hoppers have been put into the mill and set to
work The upper layefs of the quarry being
''of COLOR" not used for roof-slating, or Or
namental work, but are put into the hopp II
and ground, like grain, to fine meal, which is
then bolted and sifted This powder is the ba-
sis of the wen known "slate paint" now so
generally coming into favor The mill with
its present machinery, turns out one hundred
tons of the powder month. 1t Is put up in
bags, taken to the Eastern railroad station, but
a mile distant, and shipped to manaufctories in
Boston and New York. Below the layers that
are used for this purpose is to be found slate
for tagging purposes, of more than usual ex-
cellence, and large, thin sheets, of quality
rarely seem admirably fitted for the beds of
billiard tables &c. Below these are deep beds
of the fine, blue slate, not surpassed anywhere,
and fit to be used for all the protective and Or
namental purposes to which slate is now de-
voted.
Old slate miners who have visited the quarry
pronounce it to be one of the finest they ever
saw. The cleavergi gives diamond point to the
slate without sign of fracture or crackle.
The proprietors of the quarry will greatly en-
large their operations next year, and devote
more attention to turning out blocks and sheets
of the slate. The Eastern railroad will proba-
bly, build freight station, close by, to accom-
modate the increased traffic, and save drag
ging so heavy loads long distance with horses
or oxen. Perhaps passenger station may be
built as well, for the Cascades and the marvel
GUS mineral spring NEWLY discovered) are near
by, with their picturesque surroundings.
The gentlemen owning the quarry and con-
stitutng the CO partnership are Messrs. A. Il
Dennlson and H. G. Newhall of this city. and
I. S. Lewis and George Frost of Saco