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March 13, 2017
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Quoddy quarry rock cut for Titanic headstones
by Edward French

 

     A nearly 20-year search for the source of the black granite headstones that mark the graves in a Halifax cemetery of 149 victims of the sinking of the Titanic has led a retired geology professor, with the help of a local prospector, to find the quarry for the rock just outside St. Andrews. The 106th anniversary of the sinking, considered the most well-known of maritime disasters, in which 1,503 died during the night of April 14-15, 1912, is this weekend.
     Barrie Clarke, who taught at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, says his 18-year search for the source of the granite became an obsession for him. He relates that the search began in the late 1990s when city officials in Halifax who wanted to replace a broken headstone for a victim of the disaster could not find any records or other evidence of where the stones had come from. He notes that after the blockbuster movie Titanic came out in 1997, the officials had realized they "had a major tourist attraction on their hands."
     Clarke says he had seen black granite rocks similar to the Titanic headstones in Scotland, and the estimated age of 460 million years fit perfectly with the Scottish rocks. "I did a lot of searching in Scotland and Ireland," he says of the initial years of his quest, but when he got a more reliable dating of the rock, at 421 million years, "it ruled out Scotland and ruled in Maine and New Brunswick."
     He then looked at different cemeteries in Maine, noting that "it's easier to find cemeteries than quarries." Since headstones were not shipped great distances at that time, he says, "Cemeteries are proxies for the local geology." However, he could find nothing that matched the Titanic headstones until he got to Calais, where he saw similar textures, and then he found even better matches in St. Stephen. When he got to St. George the black granite "was everywhere," with "Titanic-style texture, the way the minerals fit together." Knowing that the quarries had to be nearby, he found old documents that indicated there were 16 black granite quarries in the vicinity.
     Clarke then connected with a local Bocabec prospector, David Stevens, who helped him with the search. Stevens says the rock in some of the nearby quarries fit with the Titanic headstones but there was not enough consistency. Clarke asked Stevens if he could locate the abandoned Charles Hanson quarry that was located in Bocabec, but no one knew where it was. Stevens, though, says the mother of a local family told him that "our kids played in it when they were young," and her husband took him to the site. "I took five samples of rock and sent that to Barrie," Stevens says. "He was quite excited. He took it from there and did the technical research into it."
     "The right one was the last one we located," Clarke says of the search of the St. George area quarries. "When we finally found the 16th one, we both said this is it. It all fell into line perfectly."      The quarry, which is west of the Bocabec River, between Route 127 and Highway #1, was worked by Henry McGrattan and Sons, which was one of the St. George granite companies.
     While the two men located the quarry in 2014, it took a couple of years to get the analytical work done and to publish their paper about the source quarry, which came out in 2017.

Preponderance of evidence
     Clarke notes, though, that even with a perfect match of the rock, it could be the wrong quarry. "You're never 100% sure."
     He says the determination is based on the cumulative evidence, including that the composition of the rock from the quarry and the Titanic headstones is statistically identical. The forensic evidence includes matching the geologic age, the minerals in the rock, the texture of how the minerals grew together and the chemical composition.
     There was also the circumstantial evidence, with the quarrying history from the St. George area. From around 1870 to 1940 St. George was known as "the granite town," with as many as six companies cutting stone and as many as 50 quarries in the area. St. George was not the only area town known for its granite, though, and Stevens notes a cross-border connection between St. George and Red Beach in Calais, as many St. George stoneworkers went over to Red Beach in the 1800s to finish off the stones, as a tariff had been placed on finished stones being exported from New Brunswick. "Quite a number of them moved there permanently," he notes.
     Another bit of circumstantial evidence is that in 1913, the year after the sinking of the Titanic, John McGrattan, who was the operator of the Charles Hanson quarry, donated a marker inscribed as H. McGrattan & Sons to the New Brunswick Museum. Clarke guesses the stone possibly may have been donated as a sample of the Titanic headstones.
     "As best as we can in science we have proven" that the quarry was the source of the rock for the headstones, Clarke says. "This hypothesis is strongly supported by the evidence," he points out, adding that while he's "pretty confident," it's possible that there could be another quarry that fits even better.
     Stevens notes that solid written evidence, such as a newspaper clipping, has not been found, and he observes that the St. George Granite Town News had stopped being archived shortly before the Titanic sank. "With no paper trail, he [Clarke] had to resort to investigative sleuthing, or as he'd say forensic geology."
     According to Stevens, a statistician has pronounced that the Hanson quarry is the source quarry, but he says, "There's always a grain of doubt in the back of your mind, maybe .1%, that you wish you had a piece of paper that said that was it."
     Publicity about the discovery might trigger someone to look in an old trunk for a newspaper clipping or a photograph of McGrattan with the headstones, which would be "the evidence that really nails it," Clarke says.

Public recognition of site
     As for recognition of the Bocabec quarry, Stevens says, "There are long-term plans to turn it into a place people can visit." He notes that the quarry is located on Irving-owned land, and the company may eventually open it to the public. Both Clarke and Stevens believe there should be a marker at the site. Clarke suggests taking a block from the quarry, polishing it like one of the Titanic headstones, and placing it next to the nearby road, with information about the quarry and the Titanic.
     Another possibility would be to have one of the black granite rocks with the information placed at a public space in St. George, and Clarke has spoken with the town's mayor about that suggestion.
     As Stevens notes, "It's a big piece of history, and it's a local connection to a big piece of history."

 

 

 

 

 

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