Sandstone Workings

At the Mouth of Seneca Creek

Seneca Stone Cutting Mill Photos Summer 2005

Sandstone Workings - MHS Paper

Seneca Creek Quarry - History of its Operations

Seneca Stone Cutting Mill

National Register of Historic Places Inventory

Seneca Stone Cutting Mill Photos

The settlement at the mouth of Seneca Creek has a history older than Montgomery County or the Union itself. In days before roads were common, the creek provided a route of transport from the rich farmlands for several miles up its course. The small falls just down the Potomac River from the mouth of the creek were an impediment to river traffic, which at times of low water required a portage. Seneca Falls was one of the places addressed by the improvements of the Potomac Company, which was perhaps more illustrious for its association with George Washington, than for the actual amount of cargo carried through its locks. By 1792 the locks around Seneca Falls were in operation. The locks could handle "keel" boats, sharp at either end, with keel and stem posts. Their greatest length was 70 feet, their average width 10 feet, their freightage being from 100 to 125 barrels of flour. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal came through the area in the early 1830's making Rushville, as the town at the mouth of the creek was called, a boomtown. The red Triassic sandstone of the area was used lavishly in building the canal. It was worked out of quarries that had already been in use for more than fifty years.

The area is one of great natural beauty and of historic association. The Montgomery County Committee of the Maryland Historic Trust and The Montgomery County Historical Society have proposed a modest program of restoration and interpretation in the area of the stone workings as Montgomery County's Project for the celebration of the National Bicentennial.

This proposal was brought to us by Christopher Owens, whom we wish to acknowledge as the progenitor of this idea. The concept won our support and has been enthusiastically received by both those involved in the history of technology and in recreation. The area is very deserving of bicentennial attention because it is unique to Montgomery County and is of national importance in view of the product - red seneca stone - being used in a number of landmark buildings in the Federal City. The Seneca quarries are included in the National Register of Historic Places, one of only a few Montgomery County sites so designated. The others include Clara Barton House, the National Park Seminary, and Beall-Dawson House -home of the Montgomery County Historical Society.

There are four points of interest in the area: The Seneca Sandstone quarries from whence the stone was cut, the Quarry Master's House, the stone cutting facility where the stone was reduced into building blocks, and the loading basin in the canal from which the mill obtained a supply of water and where barges were loaded with stone blocks for shipment to Georgetown.

The land was granted to Richard Brightwell in 1690 and patented as Brightwell"s Hunting Quarter. In the 1780's Robert Peter, the mayor of Georgetown, bought it and, at that time, there was a quarry on the site. The property was inherited by John Parke Custis Peter who built Montevideo Mansion from seneca stone. In 1967 the Potomac Red Sand Stone Company incorporated to operate the quarries, which it did with success until the interests were sold to the Seneca Stone Company, which worked the quarries until the early 1900's when the quality of the stone became poor.

The rock was quarried by hand drilling holes an inch and a quarter * in diameter and 12 inches deep, a foot apart along the rock. Typically three men with sledgehammers would strike alternate blows on a drill held by a man sitting before them, who turned the bit after each blow. Then, wedges were driven into the holes to split out the block. The rock was roughly shaped with hammers on the spot, and carried by mule-powered railcars to the mill for shaping.

The Quarry is only a short distance from the towpath but is so overgrown as to be generally unrecognizable. We suggest grubbing out the underbrush and restoring the quarry to its 19th Century appearance. Interpretative exhibits in the quarry area should show how the rock was removed. The line of the small railroad should be re-established to the site of the stone mill. Some of the old rail is still to be found on the site.

At the lip of the quarry, thirty eight hundred feet from River Road, is the Quarry Master's house. The property between the road and the quarry is owned by the State of Maryland, and would be the logical place for parking and "necessary" facilities. The house is a "double house" built in the 1830's and is one of the most horribly vandalized structures we have seen. The Park Ranger responsible for the property has attempted to secure the structure repeatedly, but has every time been frustrated. The building is on our "Montgomery County Index of Noteworthy Buildings" which was published by the Park and Planning Commission in 1969, and was placed on the National Register along with the stone cutting facility and the quarry itself. It might be noted that Montevideo Mansion, one of the earliest Seneca stone buildings, is soon to be placed on the Register.

Of added importance to this area is a Seneca Stone schoolhouse on the same side of River Road, twelve hundred feet west of the lane to the Quarry Master's House. A committee of Poolesville residents has cleaned out the building, which is also located in Seneca Park and prepared architectural drawings. These will be presented to the Maryland Department of Forests and Parks with plans to restore the building. The building dates from the late 1860's.

The third point is the stone mill. The building was erected in the 1830's, probably with a breast wheel for power. This was later replaced with a water turbine. The prime mover operated gangs of toothless steel saws, which moved back and forth with a sort of oscillating motion across the stone blocks, sawing them to the sizes needed. Perforated pipes over the saws constantly dropped water on them to carry abrasive sand under the blades. There were also large steel laps for grinding extra smooth faces on the stones. We suggest cleaning up this site, stabilizing the ruin, possibly reconstructing the mill races, and providing interpretative material so that the visitors can understand first, the development of the place as an industrial site through the 19th Century, and second, the importance of the site as a source of building material from its first use on George Washington's Potomac Canal, through its use on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, the Smithsonian Institution Building, and the red Seneca' stone residences of the latter 19th Century in the District of Columbia.

The area could be accessible to visitors from the towpath, but we would hope that most people would enter from the less biotically fragile area at the top of the cliff.

Last, we would recommend exploring the advantages and disadvantages of clearing the loading basin. Good argument could be made against this, we realize, and we are willing to debate the subject, but in the loading basin there is the unique opportunity to address the idea of precisely what the canal was about. The canal was a commercial waterway. Its purpose was to carry stone and wheat from Montgomery and Frederick Counties, wood and coal from Western Maryland to the markets and wharves of Georgetown. The basin is wide and dockage could be provided to exhibit barges and canal paraphernalia in a way that is not possible on the Canal itself.

To recapitulate, we propose that our Bicentennial Project be the clearing of the Quarries, the restoration of the Quarry Master's House, the stabilization of the mill ruins, the provision of first rate interpretative displays there, and the exploration of the advantages of seeking the cooperation of the National Park Service in re-watering the loading basin and the mill races. We suggest that parking and major egress to the site be provided from River Road rather than those roads paralleling Seneca Creek. We anticipate that if this project is undertaken as a major bicentennial project, we could look to the industrial sector for supplementary financial aid, both from our national quarry interests and the explosives industry, which shared its infancy with the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.

We perceive the benefits to be these: *We would be preserving a site of national importance, unique to Montgomery County, a site that, in the spirit of the bicentennial, was in use by 1789 ~- the neonatal days of our democracy --a site that has already been recognized by placement in the National Register of Historic Places and inclusion in the Historic American Buildings Survey. A step away from the all too common domestic restorations, it is a very early industrial site. It is most amenable to interpretation since the raw material is clearly there in situ, as is the finished product. The inherent natural beauty of the area makes it possible to show the visitor that in the earliest days of the industrial revolution in America, industrialization did not always rape the natural world but lived in harmony with it. And last, the costs are, we believe, reasonable.

[Editor's Note: This information is from the archives at the Montgomery County Historical Society Library and used with their very kind permission.]
 

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