Page 24. MAINE COASTAL NEWS April 2018 HISTORY FROM THE PAST - Maine Industry Journal - 1881


25 November Page 326. Captain Jonathan G. Riley, a gentleman


1881


prominently associated with the mining interests of the country, died recently at the Sturtevant House, New York City.


Page 329-330. AN IMPORTANT MAINE BUSINESS The Lime Business – Its History and its Sta- tistics – Extent of the Industry – Probabilities as to the Future


Correspondence of the Boston Journal Rockland November 11, 1881 Most of the cities and large towns


of Maine have their specialties-Bath, shipbuilding; Bangor, lumber; Hallowell, granite; Lewiston, cotton manufacturing; Auburn, boots and shoes; and this city, lime. Rockland enjoys the distinction of being the largest lime-producing city of New England, if not of the United States, but the adjourning town of Thomaston enjoys the distinction of being the oldest town of Maine engaged in this business.


History of the Industry Thomaston originally embraced the


territory now comprising the towns of Thomaston, South Thomaston and the city of Rockland, and was part of the original Waldo patent or grant made by the English government to Samuel Waldo about 1730. General Waldo, in selling land to settlers, reserved mill sites and lime quarries. He commenced the burning of lime at Thomas- ton near the present site of the State Prison in 1735, Robert McIntire, an emigrant from Ireland, having charge of the business. In 1763 lime burning was carried on more extensively for General Waldo by a fi rm styled Wheaton, Briggs & Whipple, who monopolized the business. Lime was at this time shipped to Boston in empty molasses hogshead and rum puncheons and later in large casks holding 100 gallons. At the close of the Revolutionary War General Henry Knox succeeded by inheritance of his wife, who was a grand daughter of General Waldo, and by purchase of other heirs to the Waldo estates in Maine, built a $50,000 mansion at Thomaston and immediately began extensive improvements and carried on lumbering, burning brick and lime, and farming on a grand scale. From obtainable data a fair estimate of the lime produced by him in 1804 was an amount equal to about 25,000 to 30,000 of the present sized casks. In 1784 the fi rst manufacture by citizens other than by the authority of the proprietors commenced, but operations were at fi rst very small. In some cases farmers would burn a kiln or two, keeping the business along with their agricultural operations, cutting kiln wood and making casks during the long winter.


Thomaston, incorporated in 1777, with


a population of 175, was for a long time the important town and port of Maine east of the Kennebec River. The present village at the confl uence of Georges and Mill Rivers, a fi ne harbor, was the base of operations of the proprietors of the Waldo patent for many years. The State Prison was located here in 1824, the decisive reason for locating ap- pearing to be the lime quarry, which it was supposed could be advantageously worked by the prisoners. Quarrying rock and burn- ing lime was the principle business done for some years. In 1840 the burning of lime was abandoned and in 1863 all work in the quarry was suspended and it is now fl ooded with water. Rockland was set off from Tho- maston in 1848 and incorporated as a town called East Thomaston. The named was changed to Rockland in 1850 and the place


was chartered as a city in 1853, with a pop- ulation of 5,052. In 1804 the fi rst lime shed was erected in what is now Rockland City. In 1808 30 kilns were in operation, and in 1828 the number had increased to 160 in the town of Thomaston. These kilns were nothing like the kilns of today or the output would have been enormous. In 1845 the annual manufacture amounted to 663,600 casks, valued at 85 cents per cask, employing 100 quarrymen, 150 kiln tenders, 50 teamsters, with wages computed at $73,800 per annum. In 1861 the amount manufactured at Rock- land and Thomaston was reported by the inspector to be 1,000,000 casks, but 25,000 of that amount at the latter place. The lime business was brisk during the war and after the war until 1873, when it fell off more than fi fty percent and business was remarkably dull at the Lime Rock City. Prior to this the annual product varied from 1,000,000 to 1,300,000 casks. Since 1875 the business, in sympathy with the lumber business, has been gradually picking up and this year is probably above the ante-bellum fi gures. The output of the kilns last year was in round numbers 1,000,000 casks with a prospect of 1,100,000 to 1,200,000 casks for this year. The Process of Manufacturing There are now about forty patent kilns


in operation in Rockland, seven in Rock- port and Camden, and fi ve in Thomaston. These kilns have an average capacity, when running of 100 casks in twenty-four hours, and can be run continuously day and night except when closed for repairs. It requires the work of ten men and four horses to keep each kiln running. The rock is fi rst blasted with giant powder in the quarry, then broken in pieces small enough for a man to handle easily, then loaded upon teams and drawn one mile to the kilns, located at the wharves, unloaded at the mouths of the kilns, broken with hammers into pieces about the size of a half-peck measure, and fed into the kiln as it is needed. It takes from eighteen to twenty tons of rock daily to furnish each kiln and it is drawn from the quarries by teams consisting of four heavy horses each. Each kiln uses from fi ve and a half to six cords of dry softwood every twenty-four hours. The wood is mostly brought from the coast and islands east and west of Rockland in small ‘coasters’ and costs now about $5 per cord having advanced from $3 early in the season. The lime is drawn out from the kiln three times in twenty-four hours, spread out upon a broad hearth 25 feet square, where it cools, is broken into the right sized lumps and put in casks. The whitest and purest lumps are sported out and put in casks, and branded “white lump” for fi nishing purposes; the balance is branded “No. 1” and is the lime used in all except the nicest work. The Cost of Production Lime has advanced since early in the


season from 65 cents to 90 cents per cask, nearly 40 percent, labor 20 percent and wood nearly 75 percent. The casks, holding 2½ bushels are made in shops near the kilns and in shops outside and in adjoining towns and drawn in with teams in large racks built expressly for the business, or shipped by boat or vessel. The casks this year cost 22 cents each and are an important item in the cost, being above one-third of the value of a cask of lime early this season and nearly one- forth of the present price. To manufacture lime successfully the investment of quite a large capital is required. A good quarry is necessary and this commands a high price now. The quarry must be kept from fl ood- ing by a pump run by steam. Kilns are now constructed with extensive sheds and con- venient wharves, teams, tools, etc. require a large outlay of money to advantageously prosecute the business. Small operators can-


not compete with larger ones; the business must be done on an extensive scale, in such a manner as to take every possible advantage in order to be made profi table. The business has been conducted by business fi rms. The Cobb Lime Company, a corporation formed of a number of men and fi rms already in the business, was incorporated by a special act of the Legislature in 1871, but the act meet- ing with strong opposition, was repealed at the same session of the legislature, and the corporation was organized under the general law in April of the same year. This corporation owns several quarries and forty kilns with sheds and wharves and has the facilities for doing an immense business. Twenty-three of its kilns are in operation this season. Scarcity of wood, the supply of which has not kept pace with the increased demand of lime burners, has prevented this corporation from running more kilns this year. Hon. Francis Cobb is President of this corporation and Hezekiah W. Wight is the business manager. These gentlemen, as well as the directors, are thoroughly famil- iar with the lime business and have ample facilities for putting lie upon the market at as low fi gures as any other concern or party. Among the other lime manufacturers who appear to be doing a thriving business are A. F. Crockett & Company, Ferrand & Spear, White and Case and R. & C. Shearer. A. F. Crockett & Company, next to the Cobb Lime Company are the largest manufacturers this season. Owning their quarries, teams, kilns, sheds, wharves and a large supply store, they have the facilities and ability to do a fi ne business. They have grown up in it and know it thoroughly. It is readily seen that it takes a large


amount of labor to produce 1,000,000 casks of lime. There are 400 men in the quarries and at the kilns. The making of 1,000,000 casks, the cutting, hauling, shipping and handling of at least 60,000 cords of wood, besides loading and shipping the lime, take a small army of men, horses, etc. The market for lime is the Atlantic


States, principally. Formerly large quantities were sent further south, but southern manu- facturers are now supplying the Gulf States largely and the West is not now dependent upon Maine as formerly. The Knox and Lincoln Railroad has handled 70,000 casks this season and the balance has been shipped by water.


Hydraulic Cement The Cobb Lime Company in connec-


tion with the lime business has established the manufacture of Portland hydraulic ce- ment, which appears to be of superior quality and is meeting with very satisfactory sale. The average tensile strength of this cement is warranted to be about 250 pounds to the square inch when seven days old, and it frequently stands the test of 400 pounds. The material of which this cement is made is ready at hand and costs nothing but the drawing from the quarries and the digging of the clay from a bank close to the works. The lime rock used is the mass of lime chips that accumulate in quarries, to small to be burned into lime, and but for this new use would be worthless. These lime chips are carted to the works, crushed and ground into powder, thoroughly mixed in water with the required amount of clay, dried in a huge oven and then placed in kilns between alternate lay- ers of coke and burned. It is then taken and again pulverized by powerful machinery, packed in 400-pound casks and is ready for market. These works were erected in 1880, have three kilns and produce 200 barrels per week. The company has sold everything it has made and contemplates increasing its business by adding four new kilns, which, by putting in a suffi ciently powerful engine


will treble the capacity of the works. Mr. A. W. Shaw, the manager and a large owner, served his time at this business in England. There is no other manufactory of this kind in the United States and it is diffi cult to see why the enterprise may not prove to be a very successful one. The location certainly is most advantageous for it. The Future of the Business The question naturally arises whether


the supply of lime rock will hold out. There have been new quarries opened of late. The belt of land seems to be narrow in which the rock appears near the surface, but the quarries appear to be thus far inexhaustible in depth. There is at least no preset prospect of exhaustion, but if worked much deeper machinery will have to be employed to hoist the rock to the surface instead of the present method of drawing out with teams on heavy grades. But one quarry as yet employs ma- chinery for hoisting the rock to the surface. There is no apparent reason why the lime business may not be successfully prosecuted in Rockland for a generation at least unless the supply of lumber for casks and kiln wood gives out, and if it ever does there will be something found by the inventive genius of some Rockland Yankee to supply the defi - ciency.


2 December Page 343. George W. Green, High Sheriff of San


Mateo county, California, who formerly belonged to Belfast, Maine, recently met his death by drowning at the junction of Redwood Creek and San Francisco Bay. He was out in a sailboat in company with his family and a trusted prisoner. Both he and the convict were drowned by upsetting of the boat in a squall, but the family were rescued.


Page 350. The steamer MAY FIELD this week


commenced running three trips per week each way between Bucksport and Rockland. She leaves Rockland on Mondays, Wednes- days and Fridays at 9:30 AM, and Bucksport on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. * * * * *


The Rockland Lime shipments for


the past week have been light owing to a scarcity of vessels. The demand for lime in New York has been good at $1.20 the fi rst of the week and going up to $1.25 where it remains today with lump at $1.40. Freights have risen from twenty-three to thirty cents, the latter rate having been off ered in New York yesterday. In the local market, lime has brought 95 cents and $1, at which price there has been a fair demand. It is believed in New York that the demand will fall off within a few weeks and that prices will take a drop. The following are the shipments of lime by water and land during the past week. Cobb Lime Company, water 5,000 Rail 800


A. F. Crockett,


A. C. Gay & Company Farrand & Spear Joseph Abbott Perry Brothers George Wiggin Total


[Courier]


9 December Page 357. George Reilly of Portland is said to be with one exception the only survivor of the famous Kane Arctic expedition. Page 364. The Portland and Machias Steam- boat Line have secured the steamer NEW


water 4,300 Rail 200


1,336 2,450 2,625 1,450 600


18,761


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