History of Duchess county, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 17

Author: Smith, James H. (James Hadden); Cale, Hume H; Roscoe, William E
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 868

USA > New York > Dutchess County > History of Duchess county, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 17

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On the route from Amenia, through the central and west parts of North East towards Pine Plains, Prof. Merrick observed masses of talcose slate firmly adhering to the limestone, but in no case penetrating it; and talcose slate a little farther west, dipping so as apparently, but not really, to plunge under the limestone. This locality is on the Worster Wheeler farm, about one and a half miles south-east of the village of North East. The limestone is grey, variegated and granular, and would make a beautiful clouded marble. About a mile north-west of Wheeler's, well characterized mica slate was observed in the hill on the east, and talco-argillaceous slate on the west side of the road. About half a mile farther west he observed

* The " City " is a small post village in the north-west part of Amenia.

a ridge of limestone dipping to the west. About one and a half miles north-west of North East vil- lage near a small stream, the talcose slate and limestone were observed to alternate twice. The actual junction, where the rocks were firmly cemented together, was observed in one place. A similar junction of the talcose slate and limestone was observed in North East, where the road crosses the outlet of Indian Pond. A few rods east and south-east of the Amenia ore bed, the slaty lime- stone is seen superposed on the talcy slate. On the summit of the mountain in North East, where the Sharon road intersects that from Amenia to Pine Plains, the rock is slightly talcy. Soon after leaving the base of the mountain, the limestone was observed to be abundant. On the east side of the mountain it alternates with the slate, which is variable in character, in some places being talcy, in others like roof slate. Nearly opposite the Episco- pal church, a half mile north of Lithgow, in Wash- ington, the sparry limestone was observed several rods in width, dipping to the east and ranging south thirty degrees west. At the "City " the rock is talco-argillaceous slate ; and about a hundred rods west of this place is an old mine hole, reputed to be a copper mine, but Prof. Cassels reported that the copper ore, if any had been obtained there, must have been in very small quantity. The exca- vation is in the talco-argillaceous slate, traversed by veins of milky quartz.

Pine Plains is situated on the quarternary, and un- derlaid by the slate rocks ; but the sparry limestone forms a ridge called Mill Hill, a little east of the village, and this is the prevailing rock, alternating, however, with slate, for three to three and a half miles towards the Salisbury ore bed. It is suc- ceeded by the slate of Winchell's Mountain, which is talco-argillaceous, and in some cases micaceous. The slate dips to the east at a high angle. Lime- stone succeeds the slate for a short distance a little east of Pulver's Corners, and alternates several times between that and the Salisbury ore bed; but the most important are at Spencer's Corners, and at the brook by the line between New York and Connecticut, on the turnpike. The slate of Winch- ell's Mountain is very fissile, talcy, micaceous and argillaceous, frequently colored, and more or less loaded with plumbago. The limestone about Pine Plains seems to divide into two branches, one of which ranges by the south end of Mt. Stissing, (where it is underlaid by the Potsdam sandstone resting on gneiss,) down Wappinger Creek to Barnegat ; the other up the valley of Shekomeko

HISTORY OF DUCHESS COUNTY.

Creek, through the west part of North East, the west part of Amenia, the east part of Washington, by Lithgow and Mabbittsville, and down the Clove, through Union Vale and Beekman into Fishkill. Another branch ranges from Stanford through Washington, to half a mile south of Verbank in Union Vale, to Poughquaick in Beekman, and thence down Fishkill Creek to Matteawan. In many places near the mica slate and gneiss of the Chestnut ridge, (which is the southern extension of Winchell's Mountain towards the Highlands, ) and especially in the low valleys, the limestone is altered to a grey and white granular limestone, more or less dolomitic, like that of the Dover and Oblong valley east of Chestnut Ridge and Winchell's Mountain. About a quarter of a mile south-east of Pulver's Corners in Pine Plains, on the east side of Winch- ell's Mountain, the junction of the slate and sparry limestone was observed. Both dipped slightly to the west, the slate being on the west side. A quarry of talco-argillaceous slate containing cubic cavities in which crystals of pyrites have been em- bedded, was seen on the east side of Winchell's Mountain, about a quarter of a mile north of Pul- ver's Corners. The rock of this quarry is used for the lining of furnaces, and when laid with the edges to the inside of the stack, resists the heat almost as well as fire bricks. Prof. Merrick observed a slaty and talcy limestone at the base of a hill a lit- tle west of the village of Separate, in Amenia. Talco-micaceous slate lies next on the east, and talco-argillaceous on the west, traversed by veins of quartz. The fragments of quartz are very much scattered over the surface. The talco-argillaceous slate becomes less talcy on the west, and forms the range of hills in the east part of Stanford. The rock is very much contorted .. A few rods west of Thompson's pond, he observed limestone which he believed would make a fine clouded marble, but only a small area of the rock was exposed.

The granular quartz rock at the south-west end of Mount Stissing may, from its modified character, be considered as belonging to the Taconic rocks. It is nearly horizontal in position, reposing on gneiss at the base of Mount Stissing, and is overlaid by the Barnegat limestone, and that by the slate rocks of the west side of the mountain. It re- sembles gneiss at a little distance, but is a hard, closed-grained siliceous grit rock. Another mass of this rock was mentioned by Walter Reynolds, of Pine Plains, and said to cross the limestone ridge obliquely a short distance south-east of Pine Plains.

The ridge dividing Washington and Pleasant Valley has breccia and sparry limestone on its west base, and red slate a little further to the west. It ranges so into La Grange. Talcy slate was also observed by Prof. Merrick a little east of Verbank, and he considered it an extension of that observed in the south-east corner of Stanford; also sparry limestone a half mile east of Mabbittsville, and talcy slate two and a half miles east of that village. The slate in the ridges passing through the east part of Stanford, the middle and west parts of Washington, and along the line between Union Vale and La Grange, is very much traversed and intersected by veins of quartz, and is contorted. The outcropping edges are waving. Extensive excavations are said to have been made in these rocks in the north-east part of La Grange during the latter part of the eighteenth century in search of silver ; and, although there were marvelous reports of the quantities obtained, no traces of any metal were observed but pyrites.

Talcy limestone was observed in places about a quarter of a mile west of Hopewell. White lime- stone, that would make a good marble, was seen about a mile west of Poughquaick. Limestone is the most common rock seen emerging through the extensive quarternary plains of Fishkill, and in many places it assumes the aspect of what has been habitually called primitive limestone, but it is the same as that generally found in this valley, which has been traced in modified forms from a compact and sandy limestone to a white marble, from Vermont to the Highlands. About a mile and a half above Matteawan, near the creek, the lime- stone seemed to repose on granite. It was on the east side of the granite, dipping to the east, and the granite was succeeded on the west by red and green slates that seemed to pitch under it towards the east. The direction of the granite and asso- ciated rocks was parallel to the creek for some distance, forming a low ridge, which finally crosses the stream about a quarter of a mile from the bridge. The strike is north fifty degrees east. The red and green slates are red and green in the same continuous layers, and the colors are probably due to the different degrees of oxidation of iron in the different parts of the rock. Near Matteawan, also, the granite, and red, green and black shales were observed. About a inile east of Stormville, the limestone of the Fishkill valley is succeeded by the granite and gneissoid rocks of the Highlands. Patches of limestone, however, like that of the valley, were occasionally seen on the mountains

METAMORPHIC ROCKS.

farther east. The dip of the primary rocks was sixty to eighty degrees eastwardly, and the strike north forty-five to sixty degrees east.

Metamorphic rocks include such as present evi- dence which renders it highly probable that they were originally sedimentary, but have been altered in their character, so as to change them into such as have usually been called primary. In those of this portion of the first district, the limestones are granular, dolomitized and stratified ; the slates are talco-argillaceous, talcose, chloritic, or micaceous, the latter predominating, and the sandstones are changed to granular quartz rock, eurite and gneiss. The intrusive rocks bear but a small proportion to the altered rocks, and are mostly quartz and granite. These rocks range from Bennington and Shaftsbury in Vermont, in a direction about south, through the west part of Massachusetts and Con- necticut and the east part of New York, in the counties of Duchess, Putnam, Westchester and New York, to Long Island Sound and Hudson River. Between the Taconic rocks and the Metamorphic rocks to the east of them, no well-marked line of distinction can be drawn, as they blend into each other by insensible shades of difference. The strata of the metamorphic rocks are very much broken, so that no stratum has been traced con- tinuously for more than a few miles.

These rocks enter the State in the north-east corner of this county from the south end of Mt. Washington, the mica slate from which crosses the valley of Oblong Creek very obliquely ; also the mountain called Chestnut Ridge, south of Amenia, and Winchell's Mountain north of that place. The inica slate occupies about half the breadth of . the mountain west of Amenia, on the turnpike from that place to Poughkeepsie, and it forms most of the same mountain to the Highlands, as the west boundary of the Oblong and Dover valleys. On the east of this range of mica slate, (which merges on the west into talcy and talco-argillaceous slate,) the rocks are almost entirely of mica slate, crystalline, white and grey dolomitic limestones, and quartz rock, eastward to the gneiss rocks near the Housatonic.

In some places garnets and crystals of staurotide are found in the mica slate, but they are not com- mon, and more frequently it shows a talco-argilla- ceous character in New York, indicative of its origin, except in the Highlands and farther south. Near the line between North East and Salisbury, the talco-micaceous slate and whitish limestone were observed, and a little farther east the mica slate was

well characterized and contained garnets and some crystals of staurotide. The rocks dipped rapidly to the eastward. At the Indian Pond ore bed, white and grey limestone apparently underlies, and mica slate overlies the ore. These rocks dip sixty to seventy degrees to the eastward. The moun- tain near and south-west of Leedsville is composed of mica slate and limestone, and both dip to the east at a high angle. Nearly all the rock seen in place between that mountain and Amenia was lime- stone, always highly inclined to the east, and some- times almost vertical. It is generally white or grey and granular. At the Amenia ore bed, white lime- stone was seen in place a few rods to the west, and talco-micaceous slate on the east, the latter over- laid by bluish and sandy limestone. At the Deep- Hollow furnace, two and a half miles south of Amenia, the rock is mica slate, somewhat talcy. Limestone succeeds the mica slate on the east side of the valley opposite the furnace, and this is suc- ceeded farther east by mica slate. These rocks form the mountain which here terminates on the south, and extends northward to a little west of Leedsville, becoming very low to the north-east of Amenia Seminary. The limestone is quarried a little east of the furnace and used as a flux in smelting the ore. The rock is white and lies in nearly vertical strata. Between the Deep-Hollow furnace and the steel works farther to the south- east, the rock is mica slate, and is succeeded on the east by white and grey granular limestone. The limestone was seen in place from near Kline's Corners, in the south-east part of Amenia, and thence at frequent intervals to Leedsville. Much of it is very white and massive. There seems to be main ranges of the white limestone in the valley east of the Chestnut ridge. One ranges down the west branch of the valley from North East by Amenia Seminary and Deep-Hollow furnace ; thence south to two miles north of Dover Plains ; thence by Dover Plains, cropping out at intervals in low ridges and hummocks through the quarter- nary of the Dover valley. The other ranges down the Oblong valley in Sharon and Amenia by Leeds- ville, Hitchcock's Corners, Kline's Corners, and the hills a little east of Dover, where it crops out also in low ridges through the quarternary.

The mountains west of the steel works, which seem to terminate abruptly to the south, and are a part of the Chestnut ridge, are of mica slate, and garnets are not uncommon in it. At the "Stone Church," half of a mile south-west of Dover Plains, mica slate may be seen well exposed. Garnets and

HISTORY OF DUCHESS COUNTY.

a single crystal of staurotide were observed here. Fine specimens of the mica slate containing gar- nets may be obtained at the falls of Wassaic Creek, above the furnace in Amenia. Near the "City," the mica slate passes into the talcose slate. On the road from Amenia north-east to the Chalk Pond ore bed, the limestone, mica slate and talc slate were all seen in a position nearly horizontal. They may be better examined between the Chalk Pond ore bed and Perry's Corners. Limestone of very white color may be seen three-fourths of a mile north-east of Amenia Seminary. The mica slate is sometimes loaded with iron pyrites. One locality, called the alum rock, is in the south part of Amenia, not far south-east of the furnace ; another is the mountain two miles south-west of Amenia, in contorted, talcy, micaceous slate. It is sometimes carbonaceous. It dips ten to forty degrees to the west. Garnets are stated to be abundant in the mica slate between Beekman and the south-west part of Dover, by Prof. Cassels. White limestone skirts the east base of the Chest- nut ridge in Dover and into Pawling. The lime- stone at some of the marble quarries near Dover Plains is in nearly vertical strata. Generally, all the strata of rocks in this region dip to the east- south-east at high angles. Professors Cassels and Merrick explored the Dover valley south into Paw- ling, almost to Putnam county, and found it skirted nearly the whole distance on the west by white limestone in nearly vertical strata, dipping seventy- five to eighty degrees to the east. The strike was almost north and south.

The " Stone Church " is a place of some noto- riety as a natural curiosity. It is a deep chasm in the mica slate rock, worn out much larger by the wearing action of a stream of water, It is very irregular in its dimensions, broader at bottom than at top, with large masses of rock in the bottom, over which it is necessary for the visitor to clam- ber to explore its more remote parts. Segments of pot-holes have been worn in the rocks by the action of pebbles and the rapid flow of water.

The Duchess county marble varies somewhat in its character. It is almost always dolomitic,* or composed of the carbonates of lime and magnesia in variable proportions. Sometimes it is large grained and quite compact; at others it is fine grained, and so loose in its texture as to be unfit for a building material. A specimen of this marble from Dover, which was of snow-white color, had a

granular texture, and was as friable as loaf sugar, gave upon analysis the following results in one hun- dred parts, viz : carbonate of lime, 60. 50; carbon- ate of magnesia, 39. 50 .*

About one and a half miles east of Kline's Cor- ners, near the line between Kent, Amenia and Do- ver, heavy beds of close-grained granular quartz were observed. This rock seems to form also a portion of the mountain ranging southwardly, called Elbow Mountain, and that ranging northwardly, called Peaked Mountain in the reports .; The east side of Elbow Mountain trends nearly south, and the west nearly in a south-west direction. The north end presents a sharp summit, but opposite Dover it is three or four miles wide. The quartz rock may be easily examined on the road from Kline's Corners to Kent, in a field on the north side of the road. It contains some small black crystals in some places, which are probably horn- blende or black tourmaline. This quartz rock is believed to be the same as the Potsdam sandstone, only altered by its proximity to granitic and in- trusive rocks.

The granular limestone of Duchess county is very extensive, and does not yield to any other mineral deposit in the county in prospective value. Marble quarries are extensively wrought in some parts of its range, which extends through the great- er part of the length of the county, and crops out with variable breadth from a few hundred yards to several miles. It varies much in texture and color. It is granular and compact, white, grey, clouded, striped, and nearly black. In some localities it is strong and difficult to break ; in others it is dolo- mitic and very friable, and crumbles to sand by exposure to the weather. The limestone beds of this range are interstratified with talcose and mica- ceous slate. They dip to the east and east-south- east from twenty to ninety degrees. It is rarely used, except as a wall stone. Lime has been made from it in Amenia and some other places. It makes a good strong lime.

The calcareous sand, caused by the disintegra- tion near the surface of many of the beds of dolo- mitic limestone, may probably be used with advan- tage on the soil as a substitute for marl. It is found by experience that the lime of these dolo- mites does not injure vegetation, like that of Euro- pean magnesian limestones ; and the rock here is pulverulent, and ready to act on vegetation in the same manner as marl.

* Dolomite derives its name from the French geologist Dolomieu. When pure, it consists of 54.3 per cent. of carbonate of lime and 45.7 per cent. of carbonate of magnesia.

* Prof. Beck's Fourth Geological Report, 61, 62.

t Vide Second Annual Geological Report of New York, 1838, p 172.

MARBLE-STEATITE-IRON ORE.

The principal marble quarries in the county are in the town of Dover, near the village of Dover Plains, Preston's and Ketcham's quarries being the principal openings. Two stone saw-mills reduce the huge blocks to marketable slabs, and are abundantly supplied from the quarries with sharp, gritty sand, without which the saws would be pow- erless. The marble works easily and is susceptible of a fine polish. It is almost a pure white, fine- grained, dolomitic limestone, and is mostly used for tomb-stones.

Near Kline's and Hitchcock's Corners are exten- sive beds of limestone which do not crumble by the action of the weather, and would make a good marble. In Beekman, near Doughty's mills, fine marble, in beds of a few feet in thickness, were ob- served, as also in several places in East Fishkill, near Stormville and Hopewell. Clouded marbles were observed by Mr. Merrick on the Worster Wheeler and E. Merritt farms in North East, and was quarried in the latter place in the early part of the present century. Other quarries have been worked in several places, though the demand for the particular kinds was not sufficient to make them profitable. Beds of marble as good as that so well known in Egremont and Stockbridge, undoubtedly exist in North East, Amenia, Dover, Pawling, Beekman and Fishkill. The resources of Duchess county in valuable marbles are inexhaustible.

East of Poughquaick in Beekman, the granular quartz rock was seen, having almost the characters of gneiss, and the slate was changed to a mica slate. South of Shenandoah the granular quartz was seen again, and there it was compact and homogeneous like eurite, but retained its strata planes. The associated limestones are very grey and white. The dip was in some places almost vertical to the south-east.

Steatite (soap-stone) was seen near Peckville. It is there intermixed with serpentine, and al- though abundant, and quarried in large blocks, it was found difficult to saw it well in consequence of the different degrees of hardness of the steatite and serpentine. It is beautifully spotted and clouded, and as steatite indurates by heat, it is possible that it may at some future time be wrought as an ornamental stone. Some of the masses of steatite are very pure, soft and easily wrought. In some parts of the bed the rock is granular, or scaly talc, either pure, or traversed in every direc- tion by crystals of actynolite.

The iron ore of Duchess County is very abun- dant, and makes iron of the best quality. The

mines are numerous, and, generally, are easily worked and free from water. The ore consists principally of limonite, (sometimes called brown hematite,) which varies in its state of aggregation from a yellow pulverulent mass to a compact brown iron-stone. It is mammillary, botryoidal, spongi- form, and with stalactitic forms, some of which have hemispherical, and others acicular termina- tions ; others are like bunches of pendant moss. The solid stalactitic forms are fibrous, with diverging radii from the center. The specimens are beautiful and highly ornamental as curiosities and as minerals. In 1843, there were said to be ten furnaces within twelve miles of Amenia, which made in the aggregate about 10,000 tons of iron per annum, and afforded employment to about 1,000 men as ore-diggers, coal-men, teamsters, smelters, limestone-diggers, etc. Some of these were in Connecticut, near the line; but the furnace at Hopewell was not included in the number. In 1880 the production of iron in the county had in- creased to more than six times that quantity -- 61,637 tons, exceeding the production of any pre- ceding year. The malleable iron from the furnaces in this county is highly valued for its toughness and softness, and has been extensively employed in making anchors, musket and pistol barrels, wire, etc. The ore makes the finest car-wheels and can- non, and it is said by experts to be peculiarly adapted to making the best steel. The geological situation of the ore-beds is very constant, and mostly at the junction of mica or talcose slate with the grey and white limestones. The limestone generally crops out on the west side of the ore beds, and the mica and talc slate on the east, and both dip at an angle of from twenty to sixty degrees to the east-south-east.

The ore bed in East Fishkill is thus described by Dr. Beck in the Geological Report of 1837 :-

" This is the ore bed belonging to the Fishkill Iron Company. It is situated about three miles north-east of the village of Hopewell. The hill in which it occurs presents no peculiarity that I could discover, except that its surface is made up of coarse gravel, and has a rounded form in various places. The ore is covered by a stiff whitish clay, and is intermixed with the same substance, called fuller's earth by the miners. Quartz is also one of the accompanying minerals, and a sort of slate is also found in the center of the inass of ore, which causes some inconvenience to the smelter. The whole bed is made up of nodules of ore of various sizes and forms, but unusually rounded, which are covered, and apparently cemented together with a yellowish brown clayey ochre. These nodules are often hollow; and when this is

HISTORY OF DUCHESS COUNTY.

the case, the inner surface is highly polished, and has the appearance of having been fused. Some- times also beautiful stalactites, of various sizes and forms, are found in these balls ; and occasionally there is observed a thin lining of a black powdery nature, resembling plumbago, which is believed to be oxide of manganese. The structure of the ore is fibrous, and its color brown. This bed is worked by levels or burrows carried in various directions through the hill in which it is situated. These ex- cavations have already extended to the distance of ninety or a hundred feet from the entrance. The roof of these burrows is from twelve to thirty feet above the floor, and is supported by pillars of ore, from five to ten feet in thickness. The ore alter- nates with the clay and slate, and from what I sub- sequently observed, I infer that the bed rests upon mica slate, although I did not find that rock in the immediate vicinity."

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History of Duchess county, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 17

Author: Smith, James H. (James Hadden); Cale, Hume H; Roscoe, William E Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co. Number of Pages: 868

Author: Smith, James H. (James Hadden); Cale, Hume H; Roscoe, William E
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 868