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, a charter was granted on March 4, 1826 for the construction of a railroad to help move the granite. The "Granite Railway" was designed and built by railway pioneer Gridley Bryant and began operations on October 7, 1826.
The granite from these quarries became famous throughout the nation, and stone cutting quickly became Quincy's principal economic activity.
Read more about this topic: Quincy Quarries Reservation
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“They are a sort of post-house,where the Fates
Change horses, making history change its tune,
Then spur away o’er empires and o’er states,
Leaving at last not much besides chronology,
Excepting the post-obits of theology.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)