Queensport
The Queensport Granite Company operated a quarry in Queensport, Guysborough County, in the early 1900s.
The quarry had two working areas. The first was 1.5 kilometres southwest of the Queensport bridge. The second quarry was 540 metres north of the first.
The company produced monuments like gravestones. According to a provincial government report, stone was quarried roughly to size and hauled to the finishing plant by a team of horses. Another source says the rocks were lowered by a cable system down the hill to the plant. It is not clear whether these two systems were used at different times, or if the two working areas each used one of them.
At the finishing plant, the men hammered and polished the blocks and carved decorations and inscriptions into them. The plant was on the brook and power was supplied by water (note the pipe on the right-hand side of the picture of the bridge below).
The quarry also produced building stone. For example, the granite foundation of Queensport’s St. Vincent de Paul Church came from the quarry. The church was built in 1897 so production from the quarry dates back to at least then.
The quarry supplied the granite front steps for Halifax’s Lord Nelson Hotel, built in 1928.
According to the Department of Mines’ 1936 annual report, the quarry was operated for a short period in 1935 by W.T. Dauphinee of Shelburne to provide stone for the Provincial Building, 1723 Hollis St. in Halifax. The report does not specify how the stone was used but the building’s granite foundation is likely from Queensport.
The Provincial Building is immediately across the street from Nova Scotia’s legislature, which was built in 1819. The Provincial Building copied the legislature’s architecture for the sake of continuity – they are both made of sandstone from Wallace and have similar features – but an important difference between them is that the Provincial Building was built with granite courses at ground level because granite does not absorb or wick water, as sandstone can. The legislature has sandstone, which is porous, at ground level, but most buildings built after 1820 used courses of non-porous stone at ground level to prevent moisture problems.
The historical picture below shows the quarry being worked in 1926 using “plug and feathers,” an old way of extracting stone that leaves it in solid, undamaged blocks. The principles of the plug and feathers method are still used today but the technology has evolved. See how it works at https://notyourgrandfathersmining.ca/plug-and-feathers
The Queensport quarry closed after 1935 and never reopened.
