The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1884-02-08

out of Berkshire county. Massachusetts,.
into Litchlicld county, Connecticut The
earliest date of quarrying in this belt,
given in the local histories, is that at
Pittsford. by jeremiah Sheldon, in 1895.
This quarry was afterwards owned by
Epaphius Jones of Middebury. AMI
marble sold from it here in 1904. No in
formation equally in point has been OBJ
tanned as that suggested in the commu-
nication below. from Professor Dexter,
the able and courteous librarian of Yale
college:
President Dwight, in his historical
account of New Haven, published in
1911, refers to the quarry in Milford. New
Haven county. as being Immediately
upon navigable waters sufficiently copi-
Gus to work the mills necessary for saw
ing it.
I" / find in Silliman's Journal for 1920
an account of tour by the editor in
1917. in which he, describing the marble
quarries between New Preston and New
Milford. speaks of the marble as being
sawed by means of the waters of the
Aspetuck.
I'm Circuits History of the Town of
New Milford Oitchtield CO.. ! find an
account of the opening, about 1900 of
a marble quarry on land in what is now
the village of Marketable, by Phlo
Tomlinson, the Inventor of the automatic
feeder. by which sand and water were
applied to the saw while in operation.
Now, leaving these quotations, which
establish the fact of the saving of mar
bic early in the century at New Milford
by water power. we will read some pass
ages from Professor Frederick Halls
statistical account of Middlebury, pub
lishcd in 1921
" Proceeding down the creek from the
bridge on the western side you
come to the marble mandatory. The
marble in this village, which is wrought
on large scale and extensively diffused
over the country, was discovered by DR..
Ebenczcr w. judd the present principal
proprietor. as early as the year 1902. A
small experiment in working it, he tells
me. was made in 1905. A building on
very limited scale was erected and ma
chncry for saving the marble (the idea
of which had its origin in the inventive
mind of the proprietary was then first
put in operation.
=" In 1906 new and commodious build
ing. two stories high and destined to COM
prise sixty saws to be moved by water,
was erected In 1908 this enlarged es-
Enlistment went into operation and has
continued to the present day.
The saws are made of soft iron with
out teeth and are similar in form to those
which are used in saving marble by
hand in Europe. The softer they are
the longer,they last. This. to some, may
seem paradoXical. But the explanation
given by the conductor is to me tolerably
satisfactory. In the operation a hard
ci1 i,.in j. a,
tened by the drOppngs of water from
above-thrOugh which the saw in its YER
tical motion is constantly passing. Now
the softer the saw the more strongly
the mois ened sand adheres to it; and
this sand assists in wearing away the
stone. Whereas. if the saw were steel
or hardened iron, little or no sand would
adhere to it the saw would come direct
" in contact with the marble and wear
itself away nearly as fast as if it were
the stone. A leaden saw, he remarked,
is found to divide n block of marble
quicker than one made of iron. The
saws are put in motion by crank which
is turned bya water wheel.
1.-The machinery has sawn annually
from five to ten thousand feet since the
year 1908. This method of saving by
water creates vast saving of manual
labor. All the saws are tended by sin
gle person whose time is not half occu-
pied in this employment.
Sales of the marble amounted to in
the year 1914, SS.03l 90; 1915, S7,0lS.77;
1917, SG.49G39; 1919, 81 ,49S SO; annual
expense about So. $1,000
In addition to the above accounts of
the cutting of marble, another statement
is submitted which has been vouched for
by aflidavits of some of the old inhabi-
tants of the town. This statement gives
the credit of the device of saving marble
to a young Mddebury lad, Isaac f..
Markham, who at the age of ten years
used to watch the process of preparing
the rough slabs of marble which We're
first cut with chisels and then polished
by rubbing down by sand.
"IIe conceived the idea of cutting mar
BILE and like stones by applying the thin
edge of a soft piece of iron to the piece
to be cut, and moving forward and back
ward, supplying the sand and water to
the track of the moving plate. He car
ried out his idea by making working
model. For his saws he used narrow
strips of sheet-ron, placed in gang,
which was propelled backward and for
ward by means of "A crank which he turn
ed by hand, This model was placed in
his fathers office where it attracted much
attention. By an arrangement with the
father, Dr. +, W. Judd put up trial mill
and the invention proved a success. This
was in the summer of 1904 and DR.. Judd
at once set about making preparations for
erecting a large mill for saving marble.
This mill he got into working order in
1906 in which he prosecuted the business
up till 1887 the time of his death. Isaac
L. Markham died in 1925, having estab-
lished reputation for great mechanical
skill and genius"
With these statements spread out be-
fore us. we may safely arrive at certain
conclusions.
l. The art of saving marble is one of
great antiquity. At the time of Pliny it
had been known at least four hundred
years, and the origin of the invention,
even then, had been lost in the ages of
the past.
4. The saving of marble by water
power was known and practiced as early
as the fourth century.
3. With our present information it is
Il = L