Ancillary Industries
"The use of modern machinery, new markets, and uses for the material will speed the day when stone as a whole will be recognized among the great industries of the country."
Stone. 1894. “Improved Machinery for Stone, Slate, Coal and General Mining Use,” 1894.
Since the beginning of commercial slate quarrying operations, demand for the product continued to increase, however the earliest modes of operating were exceedingly slow and expensive. The wheelbarrow, horse and cart, and later the horse derrick, most of which were manufactured and maintained by the slate quarrying companies, constituted the machinery for stripping or uncovering the strata, and afterwards for bringing mill blocks of slate to the surface or bank.
Most quarries that were opened had top cover from twenty to fifty feet in depth. In addition the top layer of slate, often tens of feet, had to be removed before quality slate could be quarried. These types of hardships alone limited the number of open quarries, not because of access to material, but instead due to the amount of work needed to uncover it.
While most slate quarries were notorious for not embracing change, the utility of slate as a building material as well as for black boards, and decorative elements such as mantels etc. required the introduction of more advanced specialized machinery to produce the material with greater economy and in larger quantities to satisfy demand. In many cases the design of that machinery was developed by the actual people working in the industry. Much of the equipment was invented by quarrymen including patents by a member of the Parsons family, owners of the Parsons quarry, who invented a slate cutter still in use today and a member of the Chapman family, owners of the Chapman quarries, who invented the most significant piece of equipment for the Slate Belt quarries known as the incline cableway.
With the use of modern machinery and the cable system of hoisting, the entire mode of operating was greatly facilitated allowing for the opening of more and more quarries and the production of more and more products. As a result of this change, ancillary companies grew by becoming the manufacturers of the equipment used by the slaters. By the peak years of the industry, slate was being produced at a savings of fully 50 percent in comparison to the costs of the early years, and these savings were principally the result of advances in the equipment used by the industry, most of which was being manufactured by these ancillary companies.
The logo of the John A. Roebling Company of Trenton New Jersey. Although historically linked to his father Washington Roebling and the design and building of the Brooklyn Bridge, The John Roebling Company manufactured cables and was ideally located for the slate industry with their main offices being in Trenton New Jersey.
The 1903 Catalog for the Ingersoll Machinery company stated: Our present works (Easton PA) are the largest and most complete of any engaged in the manufacture of compressors, rock drills and quarrying machinery.
"A machine for channeling in slate has been successfully introduced into six Pennsylvania slate quarries by the Ingersoll-Sergeant Drill Company of New York. It is a special adaptation of their bar channeler, which as been long used as a general quarrying machine in marble, limestone, sandstone etc."
Engineering News and American Railway Journal. 1891. “Slate Channeling by Machinery,” 1891.
The Sullivan Manufacturing Company was located in Clarmont New Hampshire, and provided equipment to the mining and quarrying industry, most notably the Sullivan channelers which were used extensively in slate quarries across the country.
"Charles M Albert a quarryman employed in one of the slate quarries at Bangor Pa has invented a new quarrying machine to take the place of the usual steam channeler. This operates with compressed air and makes use of the Ingersoll jack hammer. It is said that it will make a two inch channel cut into a bed of rock in any direction and that the cost of operation is only about $2 a day. The machine will be made by the S Flory Manufacturing Company of Bangor. Mr Albert was formerly a railroad man and had previously invented a nutless angle bar or splice to replace the ordinary fishplate used in joining rails."
Stone; an Illustrated Magazine. 1915. “Invents a Slate Quarrying Machine,” 1915.
"The use of modern machinery, new markets, and uses for the material will speed the day when stone as a whole will be recognized among the great industries of the country. To illustrate the mode of operating quarries, either stone or slate, the reader is referred to the accompanying engraving of a horizontal cable way constructed by Messrs S Flory & Company of Bangor Penn manufacturers of improved hoisting machinery for mining slate stone and coal and who make a specialty of cable ways. The plant referred to was erected for the Consolidated Quarry Company at their Capitol View Granite Quarry in Maryland. It consists of two towers which are respectively thirty and sixty feet high and sufficiently strong to support a cable two and one fourth inches in diameter with a span of 720 feet between the towers or derricks. "
Stone Magazine. 1894. “Improved Machinery for Stone, Slate, Coal and General Mining Use,” 1894.
Image Source: I'm Just Walkin
The Lidgerwood Company in Brooklyn New York Manufactured hoisting engines and cableways similar to those of S. Flory Manufacturing. Located in Brooklyn New York, this image , taken in 2015 shows the northwestern facade of the old Lidgerwood Manufacturing Company factory complex.
Letterhead for the S. Flory Manufacturing Company in Bangor Pennsylvania. At one time the company was a major supplier of machinery to the mining and quarrying industry.
