Penobscot River from the Brewer Bridge, looking down river at the rafts of cut long lumber, ready for shipping. Schooners on both sides of the river are waiting on loads.
Preliminary Geological Map of Maine, showing soil and rock types. Note especially the avacado green line that extends from Thomaston almost to Camden; that is limestone. Also, the pink with red flecks on the map shows where there is granite. Note the granite from St. George, across Penobscot Bay to the southern part of Vinalhaven, on to the Stonington area. Also, there are significant granite resources in northern Penobscot Bay, where there were quarries in the Mt. Waldo area of Frankfort.
Dougherty lime quarry in Rockland was one of a number of quarries in the Rockland / Camden area. The steam engine in the bottom of the quarry could power air compressors to drive air drills or cranes to hoist out the cut stone.
This map, based on a map from the Maine GIS Library, shows major towns and islands in Penobscot Bay. Yellow on the west side of the Bay shows the approximate location of lime deposits. Pinkish tan shows granite quarrying areas, both along the southern part of the Bay and also in Frankfort. Reddish-brown depicts the location of some of Penobscot Bay's brick industry. More brickmaking occurred upriver in Orrington and Brewer, on the east side of Penobscot Bay.
llustration of the mast ships and the preparation of their loading. Ports in the ends of the ships allowed mast timbers to be slid into the ship without shortening them. These ports would be closed and caulked shut after the cargo was loaded.
From the book, New England Masts and the King's Broad Arrow, by Samuel F. Manning, 1979. Illustrations courtesy of the author and illustrator.
This image of a beaver hat was provided by the web site, "White Oak Society" and their White Oak Learning Centre & White Oak Fur Post in Deer River, MN. This is a living history organization dedicated to the study of the fur trade era. Their site is www.whiteoak.org. To see more on beaver hats, click on "On-Line Learning" and then on The Beaver Hat, most of the way down the page.
These eagles were carved for the Buffalo, New York, Post Office. From 1896 to 1898, carvers and stone cutters at the Sands Quarry on Vinalhaven, operated by the Bodwell Granite Co., cut stone for this building. These eagles were famous enough to have their carvers recorded: Robert Whyte, Charles Athearn, Robert Clarke, and Elbridge Rolfe. According to Whyte it took 150 work days to carve an eagle.
Another photograph of these eagles and more photographs of the Vinalhaven Quarries are in Images of America, Vinalhaven Island, Vinalhaven Historical Society, 1997.
There must have been hundreds of waterpowered saw mills in Maine. It does not take much water to run one. Here Belfast photographer, undertaker, and chronicler of his town, Charles R. Coombs, caught this small mill on the Goose River in Belfast, just off Swan Lake Avenue. It was then run by Dan Robertson.
