A Typical Bluestone Quarry

Bluestone History

It has been said that the first bluestone quarry in Sullivan County was discovered by accident sometime around 1830. According to no less an authority than the New York Times, “Uncle Steve” Griffin, a local rattlesnake hunter of some renown, was exploring a den near Westbrookville when he inadvertently exposed a large deposit of the valuable stone.

“He had found unmistakable indications of a rattlesnake den and with his crowbar was prying in a fissure to make room for inserting his material for making smoke,” the Times recounted in an article on January 17, 1872. “While thus engaged, he was astonished by the splitting of a thin, smooth, slab, several feet in dimension. He did not attach any importance to his discovery, merely remarking when he returned home that he had ‘killed more’n a thousan’ rattlesnakes, and had buried ’em under a patent grave-stone he’d found up there.’ He subsequently exhibited his ‘patent grave-stone’ to others, who at once pronounced it a bluestone quarry.”

Waters immediately purchased the tract of land upon which the bluestone deposit was located and set up an operation with John F. Kilgour. The partnership with Waters was the beginning of a profitable career in the industry for Kilgour, who amassed an immense fortune over the next few years. Six boat loads of stone were shipped to market on the Delaware & Hudson Canal that initial season, the first stone ever sent from Sullivan County, but a mere pittance compared to what the county would produce over the next few years.

By 1868, Waters and Kilgour had quarried the Westbrookville property clean and had sold the business. They purchased 3,500 acres near Pond Eddy and with some difficulty began working that land. Although Waters and Kilgour were convinced the area would yield a profitable deposit of bluestone, others were not so sure. They had to pay higher wages than customary in order to convince laborers to come to work for them in such a risky venture, but by the spring of 1869 they had managed to employ a few men. By the following June, more than 80 men were working the land, and they had only begun to scratch the surface of the bluestone there.

Kilgour bought out Waters’ interest in the quarry and became such a prominent businessman in the area that the post office at Pond Eddy, New York officially changed its name in 1871 to Kilgour. By that time, Kilgour’s bluestone companies on both sides of the Delaware River employed more than 600 men in the summer season and about 400 in the winter. The enterprise provided work to many others involved in the shipping and handling of the product.

Typical bluestone wall used to divide properties

“It ships most of its stone by the Erie (Railroad) of course,” the Times reported.of Kilgour’s concern, “although the past season about 800 tons were sent down the canal. The railroad shipments are immense. During the year 1871, the Company shipped 3,700,000 square feet of stone to market over the Erie, returning a revenue for freight to the railway company of over $100,000.”

Kilgour eventually bought out a number of smaller quarries, eventually owning over 30 operations along the Erie Railroad and the D&H Canal. and expanded his holdings into fields other than bluestone, as well, purchasing the Shohola Glen excursion resort, among other businesses. But like so many before him who had built their fortunes on bluestone, his was not to last.

By1886, Kilgour had begun experiencing serious financial troubles. His bluestone company failed in July of that year, with the Port Jervis National Bank foreclosing on a $25,000 mortgage it held. A year later, Kilgour had managed to retain control of the property and was doing business on an even larger scale than before. Then on the morning of March 3, 1891, he took an early morning train to New York City, bounced a $500 check at a saloon he frequented there, and disappeared.

His finances were found to be in disarray, and the Port Jervis National Bank immediately moved again to foreclose on a $60,000 mortgage, seizing control of his properties, his machinery, and Shohola Glen. Creditors estimated that Kilgour’s companies were more than $100,000 in debt, but the worth of his holdings far exceeded that. One of his companies was in the process of completing a $40,000 order from the city of Brooklyn, for instance.

About three weeks later, Kilgour sent a telegram to his family from some small village near Montreal, Canada. One of his sons, A.S. Kilgour, promptly went north to find his father, but was unable to locate him. Locals at Riviere du Loup told the son that Kilgour had stayed there a few days, spent money lavishly, and talked extravagantly of buying up all of the asbestos mines in the area. After a few days of trying to pick up his father’s trail, the younger Kilgour returned home alone.

A mad scramble ensued to obtain Kilgour’s seized holdings. The Union bluestone Company of Ulster County, which had built a virtual monopoly in the industry, tried desperately to purchase from the bank Kilgour’s Pennsylvania quarries, but a pair of Port Jervis businessmen got their first, preventing the monopoly from being extended.

John F. Kilgour was never heard from again, but perhaps he had disappeared at an opportune time, since the bluestone industry in Sullivan County had long since passed its peak.

RETROSPECT — Bluestone by John Conway, October 8, 2004.