Kitledge Quarry

Back in November I was helping my father install a granite sign and some posts for a company in Milford New Hampshire. This was at the base of the old Kitledge quarry that was once owned by Barretto Granite Co. My father started working there in the early 70s’, he started as a low man on the pole in the quarry swinging a hammer pounding in 18′s(short for 18″pins and wedges used for splitting large blocks of granite from the ledge).

"My father"

My father only spoke french at the time and and was traveling back and forth from Sherbrooke Canada to Manchester, NH were his apartment was. this was a 4 hour trip that he made every weekend. My father learned to drive a stick shit on the company jeep and after awhile bought himself a brand new ’71 GTO judge, my fathers’ first and most favorite car he ever owned. He later earned the nickname crash as he ended up getting in an accident with the car every weekend mostly due to sleep deprivation.  The stories he would tell me make me wonder how I was ever born to begin with.

Back in the early ’90s’ Barretto Granite declared bankruptcy and was sold to Fletcher Granite co out of Westford MA. Not much changed at first for may dad as Fletchers still kept mostly everyone and by then my father was very valuable due to his range of skill sets and knowledge of the quarry. What a lot of people don’t realize is that the quarries are just as different to each other as the granite colors are to each other. What I mean by that is how you pull the stone from the ground is a different technique then one you would use at another quarry.  Obviously in every non blasting quarries you all use cranes, pins and wedges and saws.  The nuances are what can make a big difference in your production, If you can’t read the grain of the stone in a quarry it can make it very difficult also dealing with ground pressure and distances between the beds of the stone.

Around 2000 my dad got me a job at Fletcher Granite working at the Kitledge quarry for a man by the name of Tim Hall.  Tim worked for Barrettos’ along side my father for along time. My father took him under his wing and trained him to be a quarry man. My job at the quarry was to be the wood bitch, not an official title but I was there to just grab the wood under the stones when my boss moved them with the forklift. eventually he trained me to cut stone. after  while i began to surpass him in skill and speed due to I think was my innate artistic skills( I’ve always been into drawing and sculpting).  I worked there for a few years until I took over the Westford sales department and eventually changed jobs.

So back to Nov, 2009  we were close to the old quarry so after we installed the sign we stopped up at the hole and i took a few pictures of the place, I need to find my old college film strips as I took a photo trip up at the top of the hole way back in 2001 which I will post on here when I get the chance.

The quarry is a sad place to me now as I feel a deep connection and nostalgia to it.  I think a lot of it has to be from my father telling me stories of the place when I was growing up there and then eventually working there my self. Now to see it looking like a ghost town when it was once a vibrant place. there has been some good times and some tragedies from people getting killed in accidents(including my father’s best friend)to one of the Barrettos daughters committing suicide. I don’t think I’m alone I think any one that worked there would wish to still go back.

“My father and the granite sign that we installed”

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