Thread: Chapel Hill N.C. ?

https://randolphhistory.wordpress.co...tstone-quarry/

Found this is anyone lives near there.

Originally Posted by rideon66

https://randolphhistory.wordpress.co...tstone-quarry/

Found this is anyone lives near there.

It's quite a drive for me, being in Knoxville, but I'd like to try it sometime. As soon as the leaves fall (soon) but before it gets winter would be a good time to go.

Cheers, Steve

It would be cool only I think it would probably be a wild goose chase. So it turns out Roy went to school there and I am sure being who he was and going there had a friend who got him a better idea of where to look. Plus it is not what it was back then so I would think either it is gone and developed or the clues like the old road are gone. I looked long and hard online and came up with nothing but his article and stuff related to it or other quarries. Based on him having a hard time finding it with all the info he had. I don't think I would have much luck. He had an old map with the quarry listed on it with a road near by. I don't think that road is there anymore. So with this article being as old as it is and no one else ever finding it since then and writing about it, I would guess the chances are slim of actually locating and being able to access it.

Plus it sounds like an oil stone. I don't like using oil stones much. I also don't have a way of grinding it down which would take a lot of work.

I was wrong. I did find this. Which is in this. http://tradingpath.org/pickard.pdf

On a spring day in April of 2006, I was stan
ding in my driveway when an SUV with
UNC decals rolled up. Two students got out,
indicating that they were looking for the
McCauley whetstone quarry. It
seems that one of their fathers is a collector of antique
tools and had a copy of a 1983 article in
Mother Earth News
which described an amazing
whetstone quarry outside of Chapel Hill. They had a fragment of the 1891 Tate map of
Orange County which indicated that the qua
rry was nearby, most likely on the hillside
above Dairyland Road near my private road.
I sent the students on to my best guess at
the location. I knew nothing about a quarry
but eventually found the article which
contained the reproduction of the map, and disc
overed that it was an excerpt from a book
written by Roy Underhill. He is the famous
craftsman with red suspenders who shows
weekly on PBS as the host of the “The Woodw
right’s Shop.” Roy spoke of a “tattered
map” on the wall of his shop, his attempt to
find locals who might know of it, and his
locating a report published in the
American Journal of Science
for 1828. That report on
the geology of North Carolina by a UNC profe
ssor spoke of this quarry as “the most
valuable bed that I have met with,” and pr
ovided specific landmarks. Roy eventually
found the quarry, and wrote that it produced
“as good a stone as I had ever used” for
sharpening and honing
tools and blades.
10
I contacted Tom Magnuson who became interest
ed, and with his cartographic skills,
pinpointed the probable location of the quarry
on a topographic map. He and I stumbled
around on the overgrown ridges, ev
entually finding the greasy
blue stone likely to be
excellent for honing, as well as a worked “co
re” or arrowhead, and
probable deposits of
rhyolite. The latter is a
stone favored by Native American
s for points and tools. Tom
noted the coincidence of rhyol
ite in the near vicinity (one-half mile) of the Lower
Trading Path (on my property), a pattern wh
ich has been noted elsewhere and suggests
the historic presence of Native Americans.
Matthew McCauley, presumably associated
with the quarry, was one of the very early
settlers in the ar
ea (1750s), became a
prominent citizen, and was an officer in the
local militia during the Revolutionary War.
He “established a large holding on Morgan’s Cr
eek, where he had a mill and a blacksmith
shop” (
Orange County—1752-1952
by Lefler and Wager). One suspects that
McCauley’s mill was actually considerably further downstream on the creek.
In 2001, Bill Burlingame placed a cons
ervation easement with Triangle Land
Conservancy on these 26 acres. The easement
protects the property in perpetuity from
subdivision and development and ensures that
most of the acreage will remain “forever
wild.” Over the past few years a number of
properties in the Pickard’s Mountain Natural
Heritage Site have been protected with c
onservation easements. The mountain is now
essentially ringed with protected properti
es—although there are se
veral critical pieces
which are not yet conserved. The current c
onservators include Tim Toben (Pickard’s
Mountain itself), Bob and Chris Nutter of Ma
ple View Farm (extensive adjacent forests
and Morgan Creek), Everett and Lewis Cheek
(a lengthy portion of Morgan Creek), Bill
Burlingame (Morgan Creek), Nicholo and Caro
lyn Sartor (property
adjoining Pickard’s
Mountain), and Dr. Charles Ke
ith (an arboretum and the southern approaches to
Pickard’s Mountain). It was to accompa
ny the documentation of my conservation
easement that this brief and incomplete history was originally drafted.

Oh and here is the map. https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3903o.la000590/

Has anyone tried Google Earth? Maybe we can see it before we go?

Cheers, Steve

Ok so it still makes no sense. Pickard's mountain is on the wrong side of hillsborough road in the new map campared to the old map and the rivers are off too. This is not a simple compare maps type of thing.

My giess would be the road has been rerouted? They do that onece in a while.

Cheers, Steve

I thought that too, but Morgans creek is also on the wrong side of it vs the old map.

Originally Posted by Steve56

My giess would be the road has been rerouted? They do that onece in a while.

Cheers, Steve

Ok So I think I located the property, but it is still some 26 acres and up a private road on private property. If this is correct. Looks like even the newer article is off on road names and such. I guess things keep changing. It puts me on the correct side of the creek though.

I was also concerned that the site was not accessible/on private property. And if you did visit the site, there's no guarantee you could find a good stone without some additional research and testing.

Other than a local curiosity, it would probably be better to visit the Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas. I think those deposits are much larger and likely more accessible. I've thought about that too just for hoots.

Cheers, Steve