Granite Hill Plantation, Quarry No. 4, South side of State Route 16, 1.3 miles northeast east of Sparta, Sparta

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER GA-156-D. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Granite Hill Plantation historically consisted of acres amassed by Andrew Jackson Lane, a wealthy Hancock County planter. The plantation was one of the largest in the county, and is associated with both the antebellum agricultural reform movement and early granite quarrying. This quarry is one of four on the former Granite Hill Plantation site that were put into use as early as to provide building materials throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and these early quarrying techniques are evident at the site. Description: Of the four quarries documented at Granite Hill, Quarry No. 4 exhibits the most intensive use. The quarry pit is approximately in length, and 35' in width, oriented east west.

The quarry pit and located at the south end of a granite outcrop measuring about in each direction. The deeper areas of the pit are filled with water, and the quarry face tapers from approximately 6' at its highest point at the eastern end to 2' at the western end. Large granite blocks are scattered around the site, with several piled in the middle of the pool. Several 2" bore holes are located on the quarry wall. Scattered granite rubble and gravel is found on the northern half of the outcrop, and work areas for dressing stone are clearly evident. A 5' long dressed lentil is located in this area, although it is broken in two pieces.

Chisel shaped metal bits can be found thought-out the site, while a scatter of slag on the quarry wall suggests the site of a forge for sharpening or making metal tools. History: As evidenced by Granite Hill and numerous other residences in the vicinity, Sparta granite deposits were used locally to construct foundations and chimneys throughout the nineteenth century. After the Civil War, small local quarries were established to provide crushed gravel for construction of the rail bed for the Macon and Augusta Railroad. When the Macon and Augusta was completed in the railroad, in turn, allowed quarried granite to be more readily and economically transported to other markets. In W. B.

Lee assumed management of one of the local Sparta quarries; he later supervised construction of a granite cotton gin near the Granite Hill railroad station. In Lee purchased acres of the old Granite Hill plantation from the Middle Georgia Land and Immigration Company to establish a commercial quarry. Lee subsequently leased the property to the Georgia Quincy Granite Company in On a visit that same year to the Granite Hill quarry, the State geologists from the Geological Survey of Georgia noted that the property had eight acres of granite outcrops. They further noted that the quarry extended over about three acres and that the "first raise" was being undertaken during the writer's visit.

A large working force was observed, with most of the stone being worked into Belgian blocks and curbing for GRANITE HILL PLANTATION, Quarry No. 4 HAER No. GA-156-D (page 2) street use. A half mile railroad spur, or "side-track" was built from the quarry to the Macon and Augusta line. The granite curbing and paving stone was principally shipped to both Macon, Georgia and Tampa, Florida.