Robbie Harold
On a recent cool, cloudy morning on the Millstone Hill trails in Barre, a couple of dozen people gather around our history hike leader, Scott McLaughlin.
We are standing, he tells us, on the Barre Pluton, an “igneous intrusion” from the Devonian era (380 million years ago, give or take) that is four miles long, two miles wide, and ten miles deep. That bedrock of Barre Gray, the premier sculpture-and-monument-grade granite in the world, is the reason for Barre’s existence as we know it today.
McLaughlin, who holds a doctorate in archaeology from Binghamton University (SUNY), is the executive director of the Vermont Granite Museum, which was founded 30 years ago and is located in the old Jones Brothers granite shed at the north end of Barre City.
Intrigued by his encyclopedic knowledge of Barre history and pre-history on our hike, I asked to meet with him at the museum and learn more about its work. I came away with enough material for several articles, so I’ll start with the museum’s history and evolution.
Its stated mission is to preserve, honor, and showcase Vermont’s granite heritage and industry, which operates throughout the state. But the museum has also become a vital partner in Barre’s economic development efforts: encouraging tourism and resettlement and hosting hands-on and classroom training in the stone arts and related fields via its Stone Arts School.
The museum is one of many community-driven efforts to preserve and reinvigorate elements of Barre’s rich historical identity. Efforts began with the rebirth of the Barre Opera House in the early 1980s through the 1990s; continued with the museum’s founding in 1995; the opening of Studio Place Arts in the old Nichols Block and the reopening of the Old Labor Hall on Granite Street in the year 2000; and proceeded with the creation of the Millstone Hill Trails in the mid-2000s and the 2010 restoration of the old Spaulding High School as the headquarters of the Vermont Historical Society. Local volunteers made all of these happen.
A community meeting in 1994 at the Barre Opera House kicked off the museum’s story. Attendees were long-time residents dismayed by the decline in social cohesion in the city, including the loss of once-vibrant affinity groups such as the Clan Gordon and El Club Español, a hotbed of anti-fascist fundraising during the Spanish Civil War, founded by stonecutters from Santander in northern Spain. (Who knew?)
Though many think of Barre’s ethnic heritage as primarily Italian, McLaughlin notes that the 40% of Barre residents who were foreign-born as of 1920 came to the quarries and sheds from stone centers all over Europe (Germany, Finland, Poland, Scotland, Spain, Sweden), from French, English, and Irish Canada, as well as from the stone-cutting centers of northern Italy such as Carrara and Viggiù.
Mostly young men in their 20s, the stone workers sought to make new lives and livelihoods in Barre that they couldn’t find in their home countries. Some who began as quarrymen and stonecutters ended up as quarry owners. As many as 65 separate quarry companies operated on Millstone Hill at one time.
The museum’s many displays of photos and artifacts bear witness to the immigrant energy and talent that, McLaughlin asserts, was responsible for the vibrancy and prosperity of Barre’s heyday in the early twentieth century — indeed, for the growth of the nation. It also forged links between Barre and the larger world. Going forward, the museum plans to shine a stronger light on Barre’s immigration story through upgraded exhibits.
With a collection of some 5,000 objects, only a small portion of which are on display, and 1,000 boxes of records from the firms that went through consolidation over the last half-century, that process will require a Herculean effort.
McLaughlin took us to a partitioned-off area in the cavernous museum space where boxes and file cabinets are spilling over with drawings and blueprints for monuments and sculptures as well as operating records of the granite companies.
It’s a precious trove of Vermont history, but if you think organizing your home office is a chore, you’ll sympathize with McLaughlin and his volunteers as they tackle the task of turning this teeming material into a useful resource for scholars, historians, and community members.
In my next columns, I’ll talk about the museum as a visual and performing arts venue and destination where tourists can watch today’s granite artists at work, about its support for more than 50 community partners, and about Scott McLaughlin’s fascinating personal journey from his days as a junior Indiana Jones in Jericho to his 10-year stewardship of the museum.
