Pictured is a view showing how the stone was quarried on the hilltops using steam-powered drills and jackhammers around the turn of the century.
(By Stephen Kelley from the People’s Defender 1982)
The large quarry lands located in the Green Township area produced an excellent grade of building stone that was utilized throughout the midwestern United States for over eight decades. The first quarrying was done by Joseph Moore, who acquired the land from Nataniel Massie, founder of Manchester. Joseph Moore later served as an associate judge in Scioto County and was apparently no close relation to the Reverend Joseph Moore, early circuit rider in Adams County.
Judge Moore was a stone mason and realized the quality of the stone on the hilltops of his acreage that overlooked the Ohio River. In 1814 he constructed for himself a one-story stone house just a few yards across the county line in Scioto County on what is now U.S. 52. This old home stood until just before the second World War when it was razed. Moore built his house from blocks of stone that had broken off of the ledges at the top of the hills and had rolled to the bottom. He made his living between 1814 and 1830 by shipping such blocks of stone to the boom town of Cincinnati where there was a constant demand for it. The judge built large rafts with poplar logs and floated his stone down the Ohio River to the various public landings at the Queen City.
Judge Moore sold his land in 1831 to John Loughrey. Loughrey was a little more industrious than Moore and with his hired hands began quarrying the beds of rock on the hilltops. According to one historian, “the stone at first was dragged by oxen to the riverbanks but later chutes were constructed on the hillside down which the stone slid. Finding this unsatisfactory, good roads were built from the quarries to the river and the stone hauled in wagons. Finally, inclined railways were constructed and small locomotives hauled the stone to the top of the incline where it was lowered to the bottom by cable.”
In the early days of operation, the stone was sewn by hand and shipped in rectangle blocks. It was probably about 1840 that Loughery started having his men sew the stone by hand to produce a more marketable product with a smooth finish. The demand for his finished stone increased to the point where Loughery was compelled to erect a stone sawmill near the banks of the Ohio River in 1847. The ruins of the foundation of this old mill are still intact about a half mile west of the county line on Route 52 in Green Township.
As the quarrying operation increased, it was discovered there were several horizons or layers of stone that could be worked. These different ledges varied as to thickness, color and grain and were found suitable for different purposes. Some layers were not as attractive in color as others so were used for building foundations, culverts and other structures that required strength and durability but not cosmetic value. One layer in particular, the “City Ledge” was so named as a result of its extensive utilization for ornate architectural features and faces of structures in New York City, Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, Louisville, Detroit, Chicago and Cincinnati. One source states that some of the Adams County stone was also shipped to and used in New Orleans. It was from the City Ledge that the stone for the Cincinnati Suspension Bridge was quarried.
As Loughery’s business continued to increase, more quarry lands were opened by other businessman such as J. W. Adams, Miller and Son, the Buena Vista Freestone Company and the largest landholder of them all, W.J. Flagg. Flagg was a Cincinnatian and served as a state representative in the 56th General Assembly. His wife, Eliza , was the daughter to Nicholas Longworth, one of the wealthiest men of Cincinnati during the first half of the 19th Century. Longworth had extensive vineyards and wine cellasr in this quarry land in Green Township. Between 1852 and 1884 William and Eliza accumulated over 8,000 acres in Adams and Scioto Counties, most of which were used for quarrying. He, too, had a tramway or railway constructed to transport the blocks of stone to the sawmills at Buena Vista and Rockville. Flagg’s quarry apparently went out of business about 1902.
