Bald Hill Granite – Paton Legacy -Part III

*George Paton with children, Wally & Doris at Bald Hill Granite Quarry, circa 1929*

In the winter of 2019, I received an email from Professor Kiel Moe of the Harvard School of Architecture. For over a year we’d been sharing a common interest – the Bald Hill Granite Quarry in Wells, Maine and the granite used to construct the famous plaza at the Seagram Building in New York City.

“If you have photos of the Paton’s in and around the Quarry I would really like to include them if you are comfortable with that. I think it really helps readers to see these sites of production and the people involved. Otherwise I am afraid that our histories get abstracted into ‘great men and great events’ only. I am keen to show that very important work is done by everyday people and that these people and places deserve our attention. At the very least, it helps us understand much more about architecture when all of its places and people are part of the narrative of a building like the Seagram Building. I am happy that I might be able to include a more human dimension of a very impressive, but very abstract building.”(email from Professor Kiel Moe, Chair, Architecture Department, McGill University, former Associate Professor of Architecture and Energy, Harvard Graduate School of Design)

At the time, Professor Moe was writing an article about the construction of the Seagram Building. He had recently contacted Richard Bois, the new owner of Bald Hill – now Millennium Granite. Fortunately, the new owner shared a keen interest in the history of his Quarry, having grown up roaming the fields of the then abandoned property, and was happy to assist the Professor. Coincidentally, I had written to Mr. Bois myself, anxious to know what I could about the place my grandfather, George Paton, worked during the Great Depression and where my Dad, Wally Paton and his sister Doris, grew up. A family trip to Wells was planned for the following summer. We were interested in searching family roots. The Professor was interested in researching the technical aspects of the quarrying business, however, he was also looking for stories of the men who had worked there, a glimpse into life around the quarry, the working conditions – anything to add “a more human dimension.” My Nana’s diary offered the perfect narrative and her photos taken of our family while living at Bald Hill captured both the work and the family life of the Paton’s during their Depression years at the quarry.

“Thank you for sharing these emails and stories. I find the stories very touching, a very genuine glimpse of life around the quarry at that time. It is really striking how amazing that depression era WWII generation was, how they lived and what all they accomplished. These stories are a fine glimpse into that. I am finding such rich information that I think I will turn the project from an article into a book.” ( Professor Kiel Moe, email to Bonnie Paton Moon)

Edith, Doris and Wally Paton at Bald Hill Quarry circa 1930

I was happy to share all that I had. I didn’t expect that they would end up anywhere – just provide insight into a family that once lived and worked at the Quarry. Once Professor Moe realized the rich history surrounding the Seagram Building, the article morphed into a 250 page book that has recently been published – “Unless: The Seagram Building Construction Ecology” (July 2021)

I hadn’t thought about the Professor in a while. A couple years had passed since our last email. I assumed he was off writing a book or perhaps had changed his course. But a few weeks ago, just by accident, I attended a virtual book talk hosted by the Skyscraper Museum in NYC about the Seagram Building. I didn’t realize until half way through the talk that the author speaking was Professor Kiel Moe and the book he was discussing was the one he had intended to write a few years ago.

About 25 minutes into his speech, Professor Moe began talking about the pink granite used in the construction of the Seagram Building’s famous plaza, specifically about the Quarry that it came from and a family that had once lived there. He does not mention the family by name. But I am thinking, at this moment, that this is the guy I had contact with in 2018 – this is the Professor – could he possibly be talking about the Paton’s – George and Edith Paton and their children, Wally and Doris?

So I ordered the book on Amazon. Upon its arrival I leafed through it and, sure enough, there it is near the end of the book, the last chapter called “Getting Stone,“ pages 259-272 – a detailed description of my family, my grandparents, George and Edith Paton and their children Wally & Doris at Bald Hill complete with 6 family photos from my Nana’s collection. Included were quotes from my Dad shared from my own book Journey Home: How a Simple Act of Kindness Led to the Creation of a Living Legacy, about growing up at Bald Hill. I was amazed, a bit overwhelmed, and honored to see my family’s simple story about working during the Depression on a granite quarry in the pages of a very technical and detailed book about the construction of one of the most beautiful buildings in New York City – the Seagram Building.

“Another quarryman, George Paton, lived on the site of the Bald Hill Quarry with wife Edith and son Wallace. According to communication with Bonnie Moon, granddaughter of George Paton, family records indicate that George was originally from Vermont and married his wife Edith in New Hampshire in 1918, where Wally was born. The Paton family, including daughter Doris, moved to Maine in 1929 in search of work during the Great Depression. As one indication of both the relative benevolence of the Swenson Granite Works owners and manager of the Bald Hill Quarry, but also the dire financial circumstances of the time, the Paton Family lived in a house on the property of the quarry known as the Whitman house. They were the only family to live at the quarry, an indication that George was perhaps a valued employee.

Despite this feeling of luck (at having a job), the quarry jobs were nonetheless dangerous. Edith Paton’s diary includes notes about quarry-related injuries. Both George and his friend Jake Holshouser, the quarry foreman, required back surgeries. Falls were common. Deaths occurred. Yet records and narrative accounts of working conditions at the Bald Hill Quarry lack complaint and only register a fondness for the years spent at the quarry.

‘He had a job where he made, I think, about $12 per week running the pumps, because the water would come into his excavation. His hole, where they were actively working, was over 100 feet deep, so the water would get in there, and in order to keep working they’d have to pump it out. So he had a – you wouldn’t say a good job-but it was a reasonably good job for those days.’”-Wally Paton (Excerpts from Unless, the Seagram Building Construction Ecology, pp. 259-272 by Kiel Moe)

The Paton family story at Bald Hill lives on now through their work at the Seagram Building and Professor Kiel Moe’s latest book, Unless, the Seagram Building Construction Ecology.

*Bonnie Paton Moon at the Seagram Building Plaza, New York City*

*“And Swenson (Bald Hill) Pink Granite for the Plaza*“

Connecting with the past at the Seagram Building, New York City

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The Seagram Building – 375 Park Avenue, New York, NY

On my way to Rockefeller Center this past December, I decided to take a short detour over to Park Avenue. I wanted to see the Seagram Building. I’ve seen it before − walked by it many times and even hung out on the famous plaza, but I never gave it much thought − until recently. It has been described as one of the most beautiful buildings in New York City. The design has been copied so often since it was completed in 1958, that today it seems commonplace. However, architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s statement “God is in the details,” aptly describes this sleek and modern skyscraper. Only the finest materials were used − marble, bronze, travertine, and granite − and they were used with exquisite detail.

I hadn’t noticed the plaque on the front of the building before. Even if I had and taken the time to read it, I would not have connected anything it said to me. Until recently, the sentence on the plaque ending in “and Swenson pink granite for the Plaza” would not have held my attention. But after a trip to Maine last summer I have felt a personal connection to the Seagram Building and the granite spoken of here − the granite that makes up the beautiful plaza − the granite taken from the former Bald Hill Quarry in Wells, Maine where my Dad, Wally Paton, grew up and his father, George Paton, worked.

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Plaque on the Seagram Building – “and Swenson Pink Granite for the Plaza”

“Bald Hill Quarry was owned by a conglomerate known as Swenson Pink Granite of Concord, New Hampshire. … Although the use of granite for steps or building foundations was common among the early settlers, the first granite quarry business wasn’t established until the late 1800’s in Concord, New Hampshire. … Under John Swenson’s leadership, the company continued to flourish and eventually added regional quarries like Bald Hill in Wells, Maine, where my grandfather worked. … eventually, Swenson would carry over 18 different colors, the pink stone coming from the quarries in Maine.” Excerpt from Journey Home: How a Simple Act of Kindness Led to the Creation of a Living Legacy by Bonnie Paton Moon

At the time of the Seagram Buildings completion, it was the most expensive skyscraper ever built. CEO of the Seagram Liquor Company, Samuel Bronfman, spared no expense in the construction of his company’s world headquarters. Over the years, it has received many awards. In 1960, the Plaza was declared “a source of inspiration” for its innovative, privately-owned public space, − “an open, urban plaza set back from the street creating the groundbreaking concept of pedestrian space.” The public plaza was a revolutionary idea and led to a landmark planning study called Social Life of Small Urban Spaces in which daily patterns of people socializing around the plaza were recorded.

In 1976 the exterior and in 1990 the interior, were designated New York City landmarks. In 1999, the New York Times declared it “the Millennium’s most important building” − important because Mies van der Rohe’s design ushered in a new era of skyscraper − one which showcased the building materials rather than covering them up with brick and mortar and ornamentation.

Not only were the original granite slabs making up the Plaza taken from Bald Hill, but when Aby Rosen, the new owner, embarked on a major renovation project in the year 2002, the 110 pink granite replacement slabs came from there as well.

“Perhaps the most remarkable rehabilitation project is underfoot. At a cost of $1 million, about 110 large granite paving slabs have been replaced. Close inspection reveals that the new and old stone looks identical – specks of salmon and gray, threaded with subtle veins of red and orange.

‘They are identical,’ said Sal Aiello of Concept National in Carlstadt, New Jersey, the contractor on the job.

“He knows because he tracked down the quarry himself, beginning with a dive into the book ‘Building Seagram.’ There, he learned that the original slabs were made of Swenson pink granite from Maine.” Excerpt from nytimes.com/2016/07/19 − What Stays as the Seagram Building Loses the Four Seasons.

I tracked down the Bald Hill Quarry myself this past summer, along with a few of the Paton family joining in the fun of connecting to my Dad’s childhood home. The house is gone, replaced by the Quarry’s office building, but much still looks like it did when my grandfather worked here during the Great Depression. The fields where my Dad roamed and the woods where he hunted as a child are untouched by development.

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Millennium Granite (former Bald Hill Quarry) – 2018 (Photo by George Paton)

Discarded equipment and piles of stone now liter the land close to the Quarry, where wildflowers compete to reclaim their space. It is comforting to know that much is unchanged at the old Bald Hill (now thriving under the name Millennium Granite) making it easier to connect to my family history − a history that includes beautiful pink stone that traveled from Maine to New York, gracing one of the most beautiful buildings in that city.

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Bonnie Paton Moon hanging out on the Seagram Building’s famous plaza – pink granite slabs from the former Bald Hill Quarry, Wells, Maine – 2018

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George Paton (back row center) at Bald Hill, Wells, Maine – 1939

01-11 George Paton with Wally & Doris at Quarry

My grandfather, George Paton with children, Doris and Wally Paton, posing on granite – 1929

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Wally Paton’s childhood home – Bald Hill Quarry, Wells, Maine – 1934

Bald Hill Granite Quarry Visit- Paton Legacy – Part II

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Edith with her children, Doris and Wally Paton at Bald Hill Quarry, 1929 – ©Paton Family

Many of the photos taken of my Dad as a kid have a back drop that includes Quarry equipment or the family surrounded by giant pieces of granite. He spent the better part of his childhood on a granite quarry in Wells, Maine called the Bald Hill Quarry. In a small house on land owned by Swenson’s Granite, he and his sister Doris and his parents George and Edith Paton lived. They moved there in 1929, when my Grandpa George got a job there. It was the height of the Great Depression and people often took to the road in search of a job.

There is no doubt that the years living on the Quarry were formative ones . Food was scarce and there was little money for anything other than the bare necessities. But here on these 40 acres of land that surrounded their little quarry home there was great bounty.

They planted a huge garden, gathered wild nuts and fruit, raised chickens and goats, fished and hunted deer, grouse and rabbit. They heated their small house with two wood stoves from wood cut from the surrounding forest. In addition to his many chores, my Dad worked throughout his childhood here, getting up at 3:00 in the morning to walk over a mile to milk the neighbors’ cows before getting the school bus and in the summer he worked on a local lobster boat.

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Wally Paton heading out for a day of fishing, Wells, Maine – ©Paton family

Lately, I’d been thinking a lot about the place where my Dad grew up, so one night I googled “Bald Hill Granite Quarry” to see if there was any historical information. The last time I had visited the Quarry, which was many years ago, it was dormant and looked like it had been that way for quite some time.

“The Bald Hill Quarry has been closed for decades but the farmhouse still stands, surrounded by fields overgrown with weeds and wildflowers. Giant pieces of abandoned granite litter the fields as a reminder of what once was. I imagine my dad growing up here on these acres of fertile soil, playing in the dirt with his toy hoe, exploring the miles of wilderness that surround the Quarry. It is here I am sure that his love and appreciation for the land evolved.” – Excerpt from Journey Home – How a Simple Act of Kindness Led to the Creation of a Living Legacy.

To my surprise I discovered a website. The Bald Hill Quarry had re-opened under new management, and was now called Millennium Granite. Pictures on the website showed some of its former glory – days when the train tracks led down to the quarry, days when hundreds of quarries thrived in New England. I wrote to the new owner, Richard Bois, to tell him my Dad’s story and share a few of the historical photos I thought he might enjoy seeing of his Quarry during its heyday. I wasn’t really expecting to hear anything back.

But I did.

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Coincidentally, Mr. Bois had also grown up in these parts and felt a strong connection to this land. He too had roamed these fields of abandoned granite as a kid and that was what inspired him to buy it. Mr. Bois hadn’t really intended to re-open the Quarry, at least not at first. The price of the Quarry was “right” he said and it included acres of land. He figured on selling off parcels as building lots someday – that is , until he got a phone call from a guy by the name of Mr. Aiello.

In the year 2000, Aby J. Rosen, the new owner of the Seagram Building at 375 Park Avenue in New York City, embarked on an extensive maintenance and renovation project. Part of that project included $1 million to replace 110 of the pink granite slabs that make up the famous Plaza. Sal Aiello, the contractor hired for the project soon embarked on his own mission – to find the exact same granite used in the original building project. He drove to New Hampshire to Swenson’s Granite Quarry only to find that the quarry had been closed for years. So he started calling around to various other quarries and by chance found himself in a conversation with the new owner of the Bald Hill Quarry, Richard Bois. A partnership evolved and the quest to find the granite that was used in the original building of the Seagram plaza began. Mr. Bois knew that the pink granite at the Seagram Building had come from his Quarry – they just had to find the exact spot.

And so they did. Bald Hill Quarry was in business once again.

Eighteen years later, Millennium Granite is a thriving business as I discovered during a recent visit to reconnect with my dad’s childhood home.

This past July, my brother, George Paton, my cousin, Bruce Garfield, Bruce’s daughter, Kim Henry, my husband Richard, my Grandson Matthew and I met at the Bald Hill Quarry. We came equipped with cameras and old pictures to share. Unlike my visit years ago when we only found abandoned fields littered with boulders, on this visit we had to make an appointment to tour this now busy site. Mr. Bois and his office assistant, Sue Penney graciously spent several hours with us showing us around and sharing interesting stories.

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Richard Bois (far right) leads the group around the Quarry, Bruce Garfield, Bonnie Paton Moon, Kim Henry and George Paton – July 2018

We too were on a mission of sorts. From the historic family photos we hoped to find some of the landmarks of my dad’s early years here. The old farmhouse where he grew up is gone now, but we determined after much detective work that Mr. Bois’ office was the sight of the former house. We wanted to find the dirt road in the picture of my dad and the family arriving at the Quarry in 1929, and we concluded it was the dirt path that remained in front of Mr. Bois’ office.

01-1 Paton family arriving at Bald Hill Quarry

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We determined this to be the dirt path passing by the former homestead – 2018

Then, we happened upon an old piece of equipment that had obviously laid dormant in a field for decades. We decided that it could have been used by my Grandfather George to pump the water out of the Quarry. That was his job – to keep the water out of the hole so drilling could continue.

“He had a job where he made, I think, about $12 a week running the pumps, because the water would come into his excavation. His hole, where they were actively working, was over 100 feet deep, so the water would get in there, and in order to keep working they’d have to pump it out. So he had a – you wouldn’t say a good job – but it was a reasonably good job for those days.” – Wally Paton quote from Journey Home – How a Simple Act of Kindness Led to the Creation of a Living Legacy.

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Abandoned equipment from a by-gone era at the former Bald Hill Quarry, 2018 (photo by George Paton)

We were as excited about our discoveries that July day as Mr. Aiello must have been when he heard Richard Bois on the other end of the phone back in 2000 saying “you dialed the person who owns that Quarry now.”

In a New York Times article, dated July 18, 2016 about the Seagram Building, Mr. Aiello talks about his quest to find the original granite for the plaza.

“’I was on a mission,’ he said. ‘I love the Seagram Building. It will always be in my heart.’ He explained that his father, a mason who had immigrated from Sicily, helped set the kitchen tiles at the Four Seasons.” – the restaurant that once occupied the Seagram Building. Likewise, our mission was accomplished with a great sense of pride and satisfaction and the new Millennium Quarry will always be in our hearts as well, thanks to Richard Bois.

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Sharing old photos at Millennium Granite with Sue Penney (far right) are Bonnie Paton Moon, Kim Henry, Bruce Garfield and George Paton

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Kim (Garfield) Henry, Bruce Garfield, George Paton, Bonnie Paton Moon, Richard and Matthew Moon at Millennium Granite – 2018

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