Granite Railway

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The Incline section of the Granite Railway, 1934, in Quincy, MA.

A three-car, horse-drawn train on the Granite Railway at East Milton Square, MA, about 1855. Another source, Robert E. Scholes, gives the photo date as about 1840. Later, motive power on the railroad would be steam locomotives.

The switch frog of the Granite Railway that was displayed at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. It is now on public view in East Milton.

The Granite Railway was one of the first railroads in the United States, built to convey granite from Quincy, Massachusetts to a dock on the Neponset River in Milton, Massachusetts. From there boats carried the heavy stone to Charlestown for construction of the Bunker Hill Monument. The Granite Railway is popularly termed the first commercial railroad in the United States, as it was the first chartered railway to evolve into a common carrier without an intervening closure. The last active quarry closed in 1963; in 1985, Boston's Metropolitan District Commission purchased 22 acres, including Granite Railway Quarry, as the Quincy Quarries Reservation.

[edit] History

In 1825, after an exhaustive search throughout New England, Solomon Willard selected the Quincy site as the source of stone for the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown. After many delays and much obstruction, the railway itself was granted a charter on March 4, 1826, with right of eminent domain to establish its right-of-way. Businessman and state legislator Thomas Handasyd Perkins organized the financing of the new Granite Railway Company, owning a majority of its shares, and he was designated its president. The railroad was designed and built by railway pioneer Gridley Bryant and began operations on October 7, 1826. Mr. Bryant utilized developments that had already been in use on the railroads in England, but he modified his design to allow for heavier, more concentrated loads and a three-foot frost line.

The railway ran three miles (4.8 km) from quarries to the Neponset River. Its wagons had wheels 6 feet (1.8 m) in diameter and were pulled by horses, although power supplied by steam locomotive had been in operation in England for two decades. The wooden rails were plated with iron and were laid 5 feet (1,524 mm) apart.

In 1830, a new section of the railway called the Incline was added to haul granite from the Pine Ledge Quarry to the railway level 84 feet (25.6 m) below. Wagons moved up and down the 315 foot (96 m) long Incline in an endless conveyor belt. The Incline continued in operation until the 1940s.

The railway introduced several important inventions, including railway switches or frogs, the turntable, and double-truck railroad cars. Gridley Bryant never patented his inventions, believing they should be for the benefit of all.

The novelty of the new railroad attracted tourists who journeyed out from Boston to witness the revolutionary technology in person. Notable visitors such as statesman Daniel Webster and English actress Fanny Kemble were early witnesses to the new railway. Mrs. Kemble described her 1833 visit in her journal.^[1]

The Granite Railway was the site of one of the first fatal railway accidents in the United States, on July 25, 1832, when the wagon containing Thomas B. Achuas, of Cuba, derailed as he and three other tourists were taking a tour. The accident occurred while the wagon -- empty of stone but now carrying the four passengers -- was ascending the Incline on its return trip and a cable broke. The occupants of the car were thrown over a cliff, approximately 30 to 40 feet (12 m) in distance. Mr. Achuas was killed and the three other passengers were badly injured.

In 1871 the Old Colony and Newport Railroad took over the original right-of-way of the Granite Railway, and steam trains then took granite from the quarries directly to Boston without need of barges from the Neponset River any longer. This portion of the Old Colony Railroad through Quincy and Milton was later absorbed into the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and later closed.

During the early Twentieth Century, metal channels were laid over the old granite rails on the Incline and motor trucks were hauled up and down on a cable.

[edit] Preservation

The railway's Incline was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 19, 1973, and the railway itself was added on October 15, 1973.

A centennial historic plaque from 1926, an original switch frog, a piece of train track, and a section of superstructure from the Granite Railway can be found in the gardens on top of the Southeast Expressway (Interstate 93) as it passes under East Milton Square. The frog had been displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893. The commemorative display is at the approximate site of the railroad's right-of-way as it went through Milton on its way to the Neponset River.

In Quincy visitors can walk along several parkland trails that reveal vestiges of the original railway trestle and the Incline. These trails connect to the quarries themselves, most of which are now filled for safety purposes with dirt from the massive Big Dig highway project in Boston. In years past, many persons had been injured -- and some killed -- while diving into the abandoned quarries from great heights for the purpose of swimming.

The Massachusetts state government's Department of Conservation and Recreation maintains the Quincy Quarries Reservation. In addition to rock-climbing activities, the reservation has trails connecting the remains of the Granite Railway.

The 2.5-mile (4.0 km) section from Central Avenue in Milton/Adams ending on Taylor Avenue near the I-93 overpass in Quincy is an official Rails-To-Trails multi-use path for bicycles and pedestrians. It will eventually be 8.5 miles (13.7 km) long and connect to the already finished end trail near Castle Island in Boston Harbor. At a grade level street crossing is a granite block with a history marker, depicting a quick history of the Granite Railway with its years of operation.