Groton all saw extensive granite quarrying. Another important quarry was in Roxbury (just 1,000 feet from the Roxbury Iron Mine). Probably over a hundred smaller granite quarries scattered across the Uplands have been opened at one time or another to supply local building needs. Granite from the bigger quarries has been shipped all over the country. Pieces of Connecticut may be found in the Newberry Library in Chicago, two mausoleums in Philadelphia, the abutments of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty, and the "Tombs" prison in New York City. Currently, several granite quarries continue to be worked on a commercial scale, and an occasional doorstep is pilfered from the abandoned quarries.

The marble of the Marble Valley and a small belt in Milford have also seen quarrying. The Milford marble is an unusual deposit with a beautiful green, swirling texture of the type sometimes called "verde antique ' " It was a popular stone for mantelpieces, including the mantel in the East Room of the White House. Despite its beauty, it has not been mined for nearly 150 years and is currently hidden beneath a trailer park. In the 1700s and 1800s, many quarries were opened in the Marble Valley to supply flux for iron smelting during Connecticut's iron boom. The marble flux was added to the blast furnaces along with raw limonite or siderite ore and helped to remove impurities from the ore. It was also used for building material, supplying the stone for the State Capitol in Hartford. Today, a couple of quarries are still open, producing lime for agriculture and magnesia and metallic calcium for the chemical industry.

The Rivers Power a Revolution

By the mid-1800s, the former wilderness of Connecticut was gone. Field after furrowed field covered the landscape with an agricultural checkerboard. Every exposure of bedrock had been prospected and reprospected for valuable minerals. Forests had been cut back so far in many communities that there was a serious shortage of firewood, then

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