Attendees had the opportunity to introduce themselves, and many took advantage of the time to share business practices or regional news, and discuss how best to disseminate industry information to one another. It was a fruitful set of meetings that reinforced a sense of community and mutual support, lending structure to a group of businesses that, while largely independent, can absolutely stand to benefit from communicating with one another.

During the tour, Burr Morse, owner of Morse Farm Maple Sugar Works in Montpelier, remarked to me (a Chicagoan new to both Vermont and this position– grateful to be participating in the tour not just for the novelty and history, but more importantly because I’ll hopefully lead similar ones), “This is literally Vermont’s best kept secret; I plan on sending everyone I know down here to Proctor to check you guys out!”.

Throughout the day, members of the VAA, many of whom are longstanding wholesale customers of the Marble Museum, took the opportunity to browse the gift shop, which we had operating at a nearly normal clip—we open for business officially on May 16th!

Working for Vermont Marble Co. was often a lifetime commitment—and one that was willingly made by employees. The immigrants, who built the company into one of the nation’s largest, settled in the Rutland region, married and raised their children. Many of their children then had successful careers themselves at Vermont Marble Co.

Employees would work 25, 40 and even more than 50 years in the buildings and shops of Vermont Marble Co. Because of their loyalty and their pride of craftsmanship, these families left a lasting imprint on our nation through their work on America’s icons.

Jean Green shared information about her father, Bruno Mayer. He worked as a finishing shop carver-cutter and began his employment with the company in February 1923. Since the company fabricated building projects across the United States, they often had to supply expert craftsmen to do the finishing details necessary to complete the job. Rather than risk damage to finely carved details during shipping, the company sent carvers and letterers from Proctor all across the nation. These men worked onsite to finish the sculpted details, lettering and setting of stone for building exteriors and other projects.

“My father, Bruno Mayer, worked at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. One of the Ambrosini brothers went with him. My father did the lettering. I remember my father saying that when they were met at the airport, college officials thought they had flown from Italy. He also told me that initially he was to do only the lettering. When he completed the job, the college decided to gold leaf. My father thought that gold leaf enhanced the work.”

Mayer worked for the company at the time when Vermont Marble Co. received the distinguished Army-Navy “E” Award. Green shared a copy of the awards ceremony program, dated July 18, 1943. This ceremony marked the first time the company won this award. Redfield Proctor, in a letter to Under Secretary of War Robert Patterson acknowledged the great honor and mark of distinction the award signified. He also said:

“There is a big task still facing the nation. We all realize it and I can assure you we are striving even more earnestly and patriotically, not only to maintain but to increase the flow of machines and supplies for our men at the front, wherever they may be.”

And Proctor was true to his word. By September 1944, Vermont Marble Co. had won the “E” award a total of three times for its wartime production efforts.

Green also included a copy of Marble Chips, dated January-February 1971. The publication typically honored its retiring employees with a photo and acknowledgement of their service to the company. Bruno Mayer was listed as retiring on January 29 with 47 years of service.

Also honored for their loyalty to the company in that particular issue of Marble Chips were: Frank Bartoli, patternmaker in the Drafting Department, 25 years; Herman Davis, Mill 19 and 20 filler, 24 years; Arthur Despres, channeller operator at Danby Quarry, 25 years; Arthur Duchene, veteran boxer at the Finishing Shop, 46 years; Anthony Gill, finishing shop novelty finisher, 32 years; Howard Gilmore, home office draftsman, 51 years; Cyrus Taylor, channeller operator at Danby Quarry, 45 years; William Tumielewicz, Mill 19 and 20 sawyer, 51 years; and Clayton Williams, block storage foreman at Mill 19 and 20, 46 years.

Karl Berg was an immigrant with 42 years of service. His name is carved on the Proctor Cultural Heritage Wall, and Bertha Whittemore of Rutland shares his biography:

“Karl L. Berg was born in Larvick, Norway, and came to Montreal, Canada, on a fishing ship. After hearing about work in Vermont, he left his ship and found his way to Proctor, where he was hired to work for the Vermont Marble Co. He soon adopted the American way of spelling his name to Carl.

“He had knowledge of how to rig the sails on the fishing ship and so could rig the cables on the cranes to handle the marble pieces. He was very proud to be with the crew that erected the Unknown Soldier’s monument. He also helped to put up the Vermont Marble Exhibit in the Vermont Building at the Big “E” exposition in Springfield, Mass. In 1911, he married Anilla Tillberg. They had four sons—Robert, Walter, Hjalmar, and Allen—and a daughter, Bertha. Walter was the only one to work for Vermont Marble Co. for a short time.

“Carl worked on a machine called a “rubbing bed.” He was employed by the company for 42 years and passed away at the age of 62.”

Another 42-year veteran of the company, Joseph Pokrywka’s name will appear on the West Rutland Cultural Heritage Wall this year. His family writes:

“Joseph Pokrywka was born in the U.S. in 1915 of Polish immigrants. He was the oldest son of Karl and Anna (Ptak) Pokrywka. They settled in Rutland and had a total of seven children. He attended Rutland schools and after graduating from Rutland High School went to work for the Vermont Marble Co. He married Genevieve Glodzik in 1943 and during WWII they moved to Connecticut where Joseph worked in factories making equipment and machinery for the U.S. war effort. Joseph, his wife and baby daughter, Sally, moved back to Vermont at the end of the war and he resumed working for the Vermont Marble Co. They lived in West Rutland the rest of their lives. He was a self-taught carpenter working all of his life on their home there.

“At the Vermont Marble Co., Joseph was a skilled artisan working in the novelty department making specialty marble items. He retired from the company after 42 years. A picture of Joseph at work making a marble lamp was used in one of the Vermont Marble Co. brochures.”

Cultural Heritage Walls

Former Vermont Marble Co. worker names from all years are still wanted for a second Proctor wall and the West Rutland wall. Both walls will be engraved this winter and installed in spring. Sponsor forms can be downloaded at www.dimensionsofmarble.com or call the Vermont Marble Museum, 459-2300, to be mailed a form. Cost is $250 per family name.

@Body tagline:Marble Minutes, a weekly column in the Rutland Herald, features historical excerpts from Vermont Marble Co. archival materials, the National Association of Marble Dealers newsletter “Through the Ages” and other publications. It is part of the Dimensions of Marble program, whose projects honors the history and artistry of the marble quarries, the workers, the communities in which they lived, and sculptors past and present, who over generations, brought prosperity to the region. For more information on Dimensions of Marble, visit www.dimensionsofmarble.org. To share your family’s story, e-mail cmiglorie@vermont-marble.com.

The town of Proctor grew up around the Vermont Marble Co., and so did the families of the marble workers. In the schools of Proctor today, students walk the same halls their great-grandparents did. They cross the same marble bridge and study at the same library. Their family names live on, and so do their memories of growing up in Proctor.

Former Proctor resident Carlene Nichols Belanger wrote to the Vermont Marble Museum, sharing four generations of her family history and describing the variety of jobs just one family held for the Vermont Marble Co.

“My great-grandfather, Bengt August Anderson, immigrated to the U.S. in 1881, arriving at Ellis Island on Oct. 4 from Vinberg, Sweden. He spent 6 months in Hammondsville, N.Y., before moving with his bride to Proctor. He and his family resided on Pleasant Street in Proctor and were charter members of St. Paul Lutheran Church.

For many years, horses and oxen were an integral part of the marble company. Teams of horses hauled slabs of stones from the depths of the quarry. Horses were used to draw sand to the mills and deliver goods from the store. Bengt Anderson “worked in the West Rutland quarry and shop. His main job was to move marble blocks from the quarry to the finishing shop on a sled-type carrier pulled by a team of horses. His job also entailed taking care of the horses each day.”

Belanger’s grandfather, Carl Anderson, Bengt’s son, worked for Vermont Marble Co. all his adult life in the drafting department in the main office building.

“He worked on many large building projects over the years of his employment. The two that I remember him telling about were the U.N. Building in New York City and the National Art Gallery in Washington, D.C. He sometimes spent several weeks in New York City while the U.N. building was going up.”

Marble Chips, in March 1939, documents the National Gallery of Art project, describing the production work done in the Proctor shops. Anderson worked with the team of drafters planning the building and many other Proctor men labored in the shops to turn the 122 massive blocks of marble into gleaming round pillars.

The stone was Italian Verde Imperial and as it arrived from overseas to Proctor, it went to the capable hands of production manager Almo Tenerani. Almo Buggiani and Ben Carney worked with him to core the raw blocks with a metal center. Next, Tony Marfuggi and Almo Baccei trimmed the corners with a diamond saw and turned the blocks over to planers operated by Alex Olsen and Carl Berg.

Long smooth strokes rounded the corners further, giving a glimpse of the eventual shape of the drum. The carborundum machine, operated by Hopper Noren, Fritz Gollstrom, Alex Anderson and Erick Oscarson ground the marble down to its desired diameter. Next came the polishing, done on different lathes by Louis Fredette and Toddy Gallipeau. Great care was taken to ensure fitting with the joints when the columns were set. The marble was then set on yet another lathe in order for a carborundum saw to make a true cut for the joint—this delicate operation was handled by Johnny Horvath and Charles Skuba. Any imperfections in the finished marble were waxed clean by Albert Hector, then the drums were inspected by Lee O’Connor before Tony Taranovich and Warner Brown carefully wrapped each drum in flannel cloth and built wooden crates around them. Each drum weighed 7 to 10 tons, measured 5-feet thick and were 6½ feet high. Projects of this magnitude, while astounding in the sheer feat of physical labor, were all in a day’s work to the hardy marble workers.

When America engaged in World War II, the marble plant in Proctor transformed a large portion of their operations for war industrial purposes. Men left for the armed services and woman began taking their places at the machines. The same planing machines that molded the massive marble sections for the National Gallery of Art and the Jefferson Memorial were now enlisted in the cause of war. Airplane parts, ship winches and weapons were manufactured alongside marble memorials in the huge monumental shop.

“My grandmother Agnes Anderson, Carl’s wife, also worked for Vermont Marble Co. during WWII,” Belanger writes. “Because many of the men were off fighting in the war, the company hired women to fill vacant jobs and she worked in the Mica Plant. My mother and I were living with my grandparents as my Dad was in the service also and my mother took care of me and the house while my grandparents were at work. When my Dad, Charlie Nichols, returned in November 1945, he worked for Vermont Marble Co. for a year in the purchasing department under the G.I. Bill.

“Carl and Agnes Anderson’s daughter, Evie Anderson LaFrance, worked for the company in the Main Office following her high school graduation until her marriage in 1957. Prior to her marriage in l957, she worked in the design department and then moved to the building estimating department. She left in 1958 when her first child was born and returned in 1974 to work in the personnel department with Toge Erickson and finally worked as executive assistant to Robert Condon until her retirement.

“In the 1950s, my mother, Helen Anderson Nichols, worked at the marble exhibit in the spring and fall. The company hired college students to work there in the summer and local women worked during the months when the students were in school. She also helped in the collating and mailing of the company newsletter called ‘The Vermont Marble Company Chips.’

“Our family employment ended with my parent’s generation. I graduated from the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Radiology School and I am still employed part-time in that profession. My sister Johanna graduated from UVM and went from teaching to a master’s in human resources, to a master’s in theology; however, our days of growing up in Proctor are sweet memories and I still visit family and friends there on my return trips each year.”

Cultural Heritage Walls

Former Vermont Marble Co. worker names from all years are still wanted for a second Proctor wall and the West Rutland wall. Both walls will be engraved this winter and installed in spring. Sponsor forms can be downloaded at www.dimensionsofmarble.com or call the Vermont Marble Museum, 459-2300, to be mailed a form. Cost is $250 per family name.

Quarry owners quickly saw that the old, labor-intensive methods of stone extraction cut deeply into the profits of the growing industry. In 1863, a Rutland man invented what was to become the most widely used of all quarrying equipment- the channeling machine.

The Vermont Marble Museum recently heard the story of George Jeffards Wardwell, inventor of the channeling machine, from his relative, Andrew Savage. Savage writes:

“My great great grandmother’s great grandfather was George Jeffards Wardwell, who in Rutland in the mid-1800s invented and had the patent for the first marble cutting machine.

“From what I’ve read about it, he could be arguably credited with transforming the marble industry in a way that ultimately led to the boom in Rutland and the region and even to marble countertops in today’s homes by dropping the price of marble so it was first used in private homes. The machine started in Vermont and then became used in nearly all quarries in the country. He won a silver medal at the Paris exposition in 1876 and had to petition Congress, where I now work, over the patent. In his records, he documents all the attributes of the machine and even the $7 million (1860’s dollars) it benefited the industry in the short span.”

Wardwell, an intrepid inventor, spent time in the West Rutland quarries in the 1850’s, fascinated by the old, hand method of stone extraction. He dreamed of a day when a machine would replace this method, and began work on several versions of a machine. In 1859, he constructed a small working model and secured his first patent. While not perfect, he discovered the correct principle, and further improvements on the device quickly followed.

The Civil War began and business slowed at the Vermont marble quarries. The country suffered a great depression. Wardwell was advised by the West Rutland quarry manager to cease his efforts for the time being.

In the spring of 1863, business in the quarries revived. Wardwell received a letter from H.P. Robert, manager of the Sutherland Falls quarry in Proctor, urging his return to work on the invention. Wardwell then brought his latest version of the channeling machine to the Vermont quarries. This version had cutters on the outside of the rails of the machine, allowing it to move closer to the quarry walls and cut the stone more economically.

With the success of this machine established, Wardwell entered into an arrangement with the Hon. E.M. Madden, the then-president of the Sutherland Falls Marble Company. A larger machine, based on the new principle, was to be built.

The terms of the agreement said the expense of constructing the machine was to be borne by the Sutherland Falls Marble Co. Wardwell received $2.50 per day for supervising its construction and testing the machine’s suitability in the Proctor quarry. In documents provided by Mr. Savage, Wardwell said of the arrangement: “The conditions under which this machine was to be constructed and used was—that should it prove a success after a fair trial on the quarry, and should a patent issue on an application which I was to make therefore, I was to give the Sutherland Falls Marble Company the right to said machine, and any number of similar machines, together with such improvements as I might subsequently add thereto.”

On June 23, 1863, the first channeling machine was put to work and kept at work nearly every day until cold weather struck and the quarry shut down. The machine was designed to be driven by a portable engine attached to the rear of the machine by a link and moving with the machine on tracks. It cut in one direction only and returned to the starting point by a reversal of the feed mechanism. In practical application it was successful, doing the work of fifteen men and cutting channels three to four feet deep. This first machine ultimately had a working life of seventeen years in the Sutherland Falls Quarry.

“Through the Ages” in a July 1923 story describes Wardwell’s early machine: “The first steam channel was a clumsy affair. Its mechanism was fairly simple. The chisels, which prior to that time had been run singly by manpower, were clamped together, a limited number in each frame, and made to attack the marble by steam power. Each outfit had its own boiler, and, as it moved to and fro over the floor of the quarry on a movable track, it kept up a ceaseless hammering, and set a pace which no line of human channelers could ever hope to equal.”

Inspired by his success, Wardwell continued improving this machine. With improvements came the realization of how integral his invention could become to the quarrying industry. The stage was set for an attempt to revise his original agreement with the Sutherland Falls Marble Co.

Share your family’s story! Write it down and email or mail it to Cathy Miglorie, The Vermont Marble Museum, 52 Main St., Proctor, VT 057675 cmiglorie@vermont-marble.com Marble Minutes, a weekly column in the Rutland Herald, features historical excerpts from the Vermont Marble Company’s archival materials, the National Association of Marble Dealers newsletters “Through the Ages”, and other publications.

Two men and a channeling machine replaced a gang of fifteen men, who previously used hand chisels to release marble blocks from the quarry walls.

He tramps through the darkened walls of the quarry– past the long stretch of derrick rope and by the massive marble pillars supporting the weight of the mountain of marble. He climbs down 294 steps, more than two hundred feet deep into the quarry, on this 1923 summer day.

Once at the bottom he buttons his jacket against the dank chill. Craning his neck upward, he glimpses a small patch of summer sky. Then he turns and enters the vast underground cavern lying beneath the West Rutland mountainside.

This is the Covered Quarry. In reality, it is a mine made of a series of quarries merged into one. The combined stretch of tunnel covers a distance of about 2,000 feet. One side reaches 400 feet back into the mountain; the other side has eaten its way 300 feet under the railway track. Its greatest depth was approximately 300 feet.

At first glance, chaos and confusion seem to reign. Here there is a string of electric block cars moving away in the gloom, which is lit intermittently by a glimmer of electric light. The shouts of the quarrymen compete with the rattle of drills and channeling machines boring into the massive marble walls as they struggle to release their load. In the distance, there is the rumble of blasting as a new floor of marble is exposed.

Actually, there is very little confusion in that covered quarry. Every man has his job. He knows what he is expected to do and he does it in a familiar and well-choreographed routine.

Scattered through the different floors are fifty channeling machines and thirty drills, each operated by a gang of men. Another gang of men separates the waste marble from the desirable slabs as they work on the electric road, which has pushed its way through 800 feet of the tunnel. More men load the inclined cable track. The block cars will climb 500 feet to the top of the quarry with their heavy loads.

All in all, an army of five hundred men toil in the gloom of the quarry. “Through the Ages” in November 1923 says it was “if the entire population of one of the smaller Vermont villages should clamber down the quarry stairway every workday morning and troop out again every night. It is almost like being placed in another world, and yet is far from being a bad world.”

The men relied on channeling machines, the workhorse of the quarries, to release the blocks of marble from their stone fortress. The machine was a modern marvel when invented in 1863. It took the drills out of the hands of the workmen and set them into frames, using steam power to move them up and down through the layers of rock.

In the late 1800’s, the scene in the Covered Quarry was described in Through the Ages as: “In visiting the quarry pits, the traveler who is sufficiently inquisitive is led down a steep ladder some 100 – 200 feet to the bottom of the quarry, or to a hole in the side of the hill into which it is difficult to see more than a few feet on account of the steam. In this atmosphere, the electric arc lights are merely an aggravation of the gloom. One is told that in this quarry there are about twelve channelers, but he could not believe it except for the deafening roar which he knows must come from the blows of the steel and the exhaust. Nothing short of a photographic flashlight will reveal the busy machines and their operators until the visitor is almost near enough to feel them as well as see them.”

Disaster struck the Covered Quarry on February 10, 1893. A large mass of stone, breaking loose and falling into the depths of the mine, buried a gang of men who were working the channeling machines. Seven men were killed and many others injured. The New York Times on February 11, 1893 noted that the quarry “with which Senator Proctor is connected” had suffered the worst accident in the history of marble quarrying and said that “at soon as the accident happened, the electric danger signal was rung in at the company office and work everywhere was stopped at once.”

The magnitude of the accident shook the industry. The marble bosses intensified their efforts to improve working conditions using modern technology. Changes were made to quarry operations. Most importantly, the steam pipes were removed and electricity was installed. This improvement took away much of the gloom and dampness and brought working conditions to a safer and more comfortable level.

Through the Ages concluded: “thus have the men been given a better place in which to work—which is only another way of saying that they have been given a chance to do better work. This improved service has in turn raised the standard of production and increased the efficiency of the entire system. In short, it has contributed to the general welfare of both wage-earner and employer.”

Deep below the earth a quarry worker uses a steam-powered channeling machine to release marble from its stone bed.

Share your family’s story! Write it down and email or mail it to Cathy Miglorie, The Vermont Marble Museum, 52 Main St., Proctor, VT 057675 cmiglorie@vermont-marble.com Marble Minutes, a weekly column in the Rutland Herald, features historical excerpts from the Vermont Marble Company’s archival materials, the National Association of Marble Dealers newsletters “Through the Ages”, and other publications. It is part of the Dimensions of Marble program, whose projects honors the history and artistry of the marble quarries, the workers, the communities in which they lived, and sculptors past and present, who over generations, brought prosperity to the region. For more information on Dimensions of Marble, visit www.dimensionsofmarble.org or email Megan Smith, Executive Director at info@dimensionsofmarble.org.

The marble industry thrived under the capable hands of the Proctor family. Modern equipment–pneumatic tools, carborundum machines, saws–were installed in the machine shops of Proctor, West Rutland and Center Rutland. The shop yards were equipped with locomotive cranes. The company employed an astounding number of workers in the quarries, the shops, the offices, and in the forces of traveling salesman. At any given time, the number of employees ranged from 3,000 – 4,000 across the United States.

Workers dug ever deeper into the earth as the quarries yielded their rich ore. The work was physical and dangerous. Men endured their share of accidents and tragedies, including the deaths of men who were in the wrong place at the wrong time or who were careless for a moment. Facing danger on a daily basis was simply part of the job. Falling marble slabs, equipment failures, and electric shock were among the most common causes of accidents in the industry.

The Memory Stone in February 1943 acknowledged the hazards of the marble business, while also noting that it was all part of the day’s work.

“The quarrying of marble is sometimes carried out under difficult conditions. At one opening in Pittsford the positions and angles of the quarry walls are such that stairways cannot be constructed. The only mode of descent and ascent is by a quarry waste box operated from the derrick.

“The departure of workmen from the depths below is pictured on our cover. To them it is obviously part of the day’s routine. They show hardly any interest in what to most of us would seem like a hazardous and exciting adventure. Below them are 200 feet of space to the quarry floor. As the load descends, it slowly spins around, affording the passenger a panorama of quarry views. The quarryman, however, is chiefly interested in getting back to the job. To him the trip means a livelihood; to the rest of us it means a continued supply of high grade marble for fine memorials.”

The hydroelectric stations on the bank of the Otter Creek generated a force of nearly 12,000 horsepower for the company’s machinery. A reliable source of electricity was vital to the marble industry’s operations, and the surrounding towns also used Vermont Marble power to light their homes, schools and businesses.

A story recently shared with the Vermont Marble Museum by Mrs. Grace Rizzico of Rutland details an accident suffered by her father in 1943. The man was Alfred Deletoso, a Sicilian immigrant, a fifty-year veteran of the Vermont Marble Co., and a lifelong Rutland resident. Mrs. Rizzico writes:

“On a stormy night in 1943, Alfred was home with his wife, Rose, and his daughter Grace, when he received a call from his boss, Charlie LaRoux, the foreman of the electrical department at Vermont Marble. The violent weather had caused the town of Florence to lose power, and, as an electrician, Alfred was asked to travel the fifteen miles to fix the problem. With three other men, Charlie Skuba, Manuel “Man” Rocci, and Paul Ciric, Alfred braved the thunder and lightning. As they were traveling, someone from Vermont Marble called their business partners at Central Vermont Light and Power Company to tell them that their men would be working on the power lines and that the power needed to be turned off. Unfortunately for Alfred, this directive never got carried out.

“Once in Florence, Alfred readied his equipment. He forgot to harness his safety belt, but this turned out to be a fated oversight. He began climbing, and upon reaching the top and beginning work, 40,000 volts went through him, throwing him back onto the ground. Luckily, the absence of a safety belt allowed Alfred to be thrown from the pole and into a group of boulders below. The other men said he looked like a “ball of fire” as he flew back to the earth, and they quickly radioed for an ambulance. During the ride to the hospital in Proctor, Alfred was unable to speak or move, but he could hear his friends saying ‘He’s gone.’

“The doctor told his wife that he would not survive his injuries. Though he had somehow not broken a bone, he was burned on every part of his body except his face. Slowly, however, Alfred was moved off the ‘danger list’ in the ICU and into the hospital’s general recovery ward, where he remained for nine long moths. Though he remained out of work for several more months after he was released from the hospital, he eventually returned to Vermont Marble for the duration of his 50-year career.

“Nine months after the accident, the electrician finally walked out of the hospital, accompanied by his wife and fifteen-year-old daughter. He told them he would “never climb a pole again” but they always knew the truth. After all, he continued working for Vermont Marble for forty more years, and that was a long time to go without climbing poles.”

Share your family’s story! Write it down and email or mail it to Cathy Miglorie, The Vermont Marble Museum, 52 Main St., Proctor, VT 057675 cmiglorie@vermont-marble.com Marble Minutes, a weekly column in the Rutland Herald, features historical excerpts from the Vermont Marble Company’s archival materials, the National Association of Marble Dealers newsletters “Through the Ages”, and other publications. It is part of the Dimensions of Marble program, whose projects honors the history and artistry of the marble quarries, the workers, the communities in which they lived, and sculptors past and present, who over generations, brought prosperity to the region. For more information on Dimensions of Marble, visit www.dimensionsofmarble.org or email Megan Smith, Executive Director at info@dimensionsofmarble.org.

Marble workers in a swinging bucket travel deep into the quarry for their day’s work.

Demand for this versatile stone grew. As marble became prized, the demand spawned many quarries and workshops along the Vermont marble belt, which runs from Manchester to Middlebury.

During the 1840’s the industry flourished, growing from these small businesses into integrated marble companies which quarried, cut, polished, distributed and promoted the stone. Early entrepreneurs formed the Sutherland Falls Marble Co, the Rutland Marble Company, the North River Mining Co. and others. These companies became the basis for the Vermont Marble Company when a financial panic hit the country, forcing these smaller companies into receivership.

Col. Redfield Proctor became receiver for the Vermont Marble Company in 1869. Proctor, a highly ambitious man, was often seen loading marble on railcars. He reinvested the profits and bought holdings across America, from Vermont to Alaska. Offices were established in major cities, like San Fransisco and Dallas.

The patriarchs of one family, the Proctors, and their business associates built the Vermont Marble Company into the largest in the world. With salesman that traveled countrywide, the company built public monuments as well as personal tributes which immortalized the everyday man.

Follow their story on Marble Minutes. It’s the quintessential story of the making of America–the triumphs and struggles of corporate bosses, immigrant workers, and the industrious settlers whose lives shaped not only Vermont but our nation.