Embedded Files
The “Crusher” was once a crushed stone quarry, in Houghs Neck. It was started in the early 1900’s by the Tidewater Broken Stone Company, which was under the management of Eugene R. Atwood. He was also in charge of the other crushed stone company in Quincy, Old Colony Broken Stone and Concrete Company. While the Tide Water Broken Stone Company was based out of Houghs Neck, the Old Colony Broken Stone Company was based out of South Quincy.
The Tide Water Broken Stone Company bought this land somewhere in the early 1900’s. We know from the Quincy Directory records, that the quarry operated at least from 1909-1914. In 1906, Tidewater Broken Stone Company appeared in the Parker Files giving evidence to believe that the Crusher had been open longer. The Parker Files are a collection of information put together by Warren Parker, during his time as building inspector for the city of Quincy from 1907-1932 and lifelong amateur historian.
On the left you see the Quincy Directory from 1914 showing advertisements from the two crushed stone companies in Quincy, Old Colony and Tide Water Broken Stone. We can see that Old Colony had access to railways and offered team delivery, which meant delivery over roads with a team of horses. On the other hand, Tide Water's trap rock is delivered by boat which was a huge inconvenience because it was highly dependent on the tides and customer access to the water. On the right you can see the directory from 1922, showing Old Colony Crushed Stone and Concrete Co. but no Tide Water Co. and Old Colony now offers truck deliveries.
"When a blast was scheduled, a whistle was blown and all residents would go into their homes to avoid being hit by falling stone” (The Houghs Neck Story, 1981). Most of the stone quarried here was crushed on site, and then loaded onto barges. These barges were floated out on the next high tide and delivered locally. Since transportation by barge was restrained by the tides and customers had to be near the water, the operation was fairly limited. The Tidewater Broken Stone Company wanted to deepen Rock Island Cove to improve their ability to transport the trap rock, however, the plan was not financially feasible. Trains were a much more affordable method of moving stone and gave other quarries a major advantage over the Crusher. This quarry was discontinued after just 5 - 8 years, because it was getting too expensive to transport the stone by water.
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