Did you Know? #3 - The Guilford Quarries Operated Between 1834 and 1917? 

For almost 85 years, the quarries in the Guilford Industrial Historic District provided some of the best granite in Maryland and the Country, sent to several states for monuments, buildings, and pavement. The primary economic centers for granite within Maryland during this time were at Port Deposit, Woodstock, Ellicott City and Guilford. In 1898 the Maryland Geological Survey claimed that the Guilford granite was “perhaps the most attractive stone found within the State”. During a 1908 inspection, the Maryland Geological Survey (Watson 1910) listed 4 quarries on the north and south sides of the Little Patuxent River, and on the east side of the river downstream of the bend below the Guilford Mill area.

These quarries were owned and operated by Maryland Granite Company, Guilford and Waltersville Granite Company, the Penny Quarry (behind the largest quarry and operated by Maryland Granite Company), and the Guilford Granite and Stone Company which was actually the Howard Granite Company since the Guilford Granite and Stone Company was in business less than a year. The Howard Granite Company quarries (there were three) were on the south side of the river along the CA connector pathway to the historic Pratt Bridge.

As the Maryland Geological Survey (Watson 1910) described, the Howard Granite Quarries on the south side of the river were dedicated to stone crushing. 

“It comprises three small openings, the largest one of which is about 75 by 60 feet and 50 feet deep. The object of the company was to produce crushed stone, and a large crusher was erected and operated near the quarry. Operations were suspended about four months prior to the writer's examination in March, 1908.” 

These operation were large enough to support a siding from the B&O railroad, where the CA connector pathway currently is, of 1,280 feet from the station that was near the bridge (B&O 1913).

The description of the larger Maryland Granite Quarry included that

“the quarry measures about 500 by 300 feet and has a depth of about 100 feet. The average depth of stripping is about 10 feet. The sheets, 3 to 10 feet thick, are approximately horizontal and tapering lenticular…. The product is used chiefly for monuments, though much of it is used for general building purposes in the dressed and rough states, largely in the rough. Much of the coarse waste is worked into paving blocks. Very little of the stone is used for curbing and no crushed stone is produced.” (Watson 1910)

As quarries tend to do, they all filled with water at some point and became local swimming holes through the 1960s. But the Howard Granite Company quarries on the south side of the river were drained and mostly filled with soil in the 1970s and 1980s, and the CA connector pathway leading from Summer Park Court was built right in the middle of the larger of their quarries. But a walk down that path towards the Patuxent Branch Trail leads you to view several large piles of quarried blocks that were set aside for the stone crusher (it was at the eastern end of the stormwater management pond that is now there) to create rubble for roads and the such but were never used.

The success of these quarries created an economic power in Guilford bringing hundreds of workers, a new church, a school, housing, and a large company store. There was so much economic activity that an annual Guilford Day, sponsored in part by the Maryland Granite Company and located on Henry A. Penny’s farm, was started in 1906 drawing thousands of participants for jousting, baseball games, foods, and many other activities. The annual Guilford Day celebration lasted until 1918, the year after the Maryland Granite Company went bankrupt and auctioned its equipment including the rail cars. It is unknown at this time whether any quarrying continued beyond 1917, but it was likely the new property owners used some of the remaining stones that had been quarried for housing and crushing them for road work.

The railroad was decommissioned in 1928 due to lack of use after 27 years. “It was built in 1901 to serve certain stone-quarry operations, which were abandoned in 1924. No passenger or other service was ever performed except that in connection with the quarry operations. In 1924 the traffic consisted of 15 carloads of crushed stone outbound, which produced a total revenue of $593.19. There have not been any operations since. The estimated population in the tributary area is 50, which is included in the unincorporated community at Guilford.” (ICC 1928).

Sources

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. 1913. Official List No. 15. Form 6 Revised. Offices, Agents, Stations, Sidings and Mileage of the Above Lines. Reproduced by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Historical Society, Sykesville, Maryland. 205 pages.

Interstate Commerce Commission. 1928. Abandonment of Part of Branch Line by Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Finance Docket No. 6731. Pages 327-8p. Interstate Commerce Commission Reports. Washington, DC. (Available through Google Books).

Merrill, George P. and Edward B. Mathews. 1898. Volume 2. Part II. The Building and Decorative Stones of Maryland. Maryland Geological Survey. The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore. P. 157 (Downloaded from Google Books)

Watson, Thomas Leonard. 1910. Granites of the Southeastern Atlantic States, US Geological Survey Bulletin 426. Chapter 2, pp 54-56. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC - 287 pages. (Download from Google Books)