About Pickens County progress. (Jasper, Ga.) 1899-current | View Entire Issue (April 27, 2006)
THURSDAY. APRIL 27. 2006 PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS PAGE 9B Last Humanities lecture honors local marble carvers By Jeff Warren Local historian, Mimi Jo Butler, presented a lecture on Pickens County marble carvers at 7 p.m. on April 11 at the Pickens County Library. Butler's lecture was the final history-based presentation funded by a grant from the Georgia Humanities Council. Marble working existed in Pickens County prior to the Civil War but only on a small scale. Following the war, the industry resumed but at a simi lar pace. "In 1880, there was only one man in the census in Pickens County that said he was involved in the marble industry in any way," Butler said. But that was just before the railroad reached the county and boomed the industry wide open. Rails to Atlanta provided a thoroughfare. Over it, heavy marble blocks could move to finishing plants, and finished projects could ship to construc tion points. Growth of the mar ble industry followed the rail road with finishing plants springing up along the rail line. The town of Nelson had no marble quarry, but one of the largest local finishing opera tions. The Blue Ridge Marble Works grew up in the heart of town beside the railroad. Butler said multiple finish ing plants operated in Pickens County: one at Tate; one at Nelson; two at Marble Hill. Originally separate enterprises, plants were later absorbed into Georgia Marble Company. Under Georgia Marble Company control, "Tate was known as the monument divi sion," Butler said. The Tate plant produced monuments and mausoleums. "At Nelson, the big sculpturing projects were done and many of the big building projects," she said. In the early 1960s, on a huge lathe in the Nelson plant, work men turned massive marble columns for restoration of the United States Capitol. During the Capitol renovation project, an original column from the building came south to Pickens County from Washington D. C.. It was eventually turned into souvenir book-ends, Butler said. In the early days, marble carving was hand work. A carv er chiseled with hand tools, driven with a hammer or a maul (a weighty wooden mallet with a head like a round cheese). And prior to 1900, Butler said, carvers always wore aprons. Aproned and cov ered in a white flour of marble dust, carvers could pass for bakers in old photographs, except for the hand tools they brandish. By 1930, the local marble industry hit its heyday, Butler said, just before the Great Depression came down hard. The 1930 census listed 173 Tate residents as marble work ers. "Only one was listed as an apprentice," Butler said. "All the rest thought they already knew it, and they probably did." By then, air-powered chisels eased the manual work of a stone carver's job. But carving still required an artist's skill. Georgia Marble Company modernized local plants in the 1920s with electricity and air compressors. Old steam der ricks at the Tate pit gave way to a new electric derrick that lifted massive blocks from the quarry floor. Long blocks for the Capitol columns came up from the pit via the electric derrick. Today, rubber-tired, front-end loaders haul blocks from the pit by road. In the boom times of the early 1900s, many Georgia Marble Company employees lived in company housing. Others commuted, Butler said. Some caught the train in Talking Rock, she said, and rode down to work in the mar ble mills. Butler said one man hiked daily from near Sharptop on a woods trail that connected with Tate. Alongside sculpting carvers, gangsaw workmen cut blocks of marble into slabs. Multi blade gangsaws looked like a host of lumberjack's, two-man crosscut saws, arranged side by side. Overhead shafts and mas sive flywheels drew the blades. Other workmen operated rubbing beds that smoothed marble slabs to prescribed thickness with grit and water. Twelve-foot diameter wheels, turning at 35 revolutions per minute, rubbed the grit (sand or steel shot) that smoothed the stone. Butler said, in 1950, Georgia Marble Company operated 28 rubbing beds. Carborundum machines shaped and ground the edges of a stone before it went to the carvers. These machines used smaller, carborundum-gritted wheels, spinning at 1200 turns per minute. Butler said the Nelson plant ran the largest local carborun dum machine. It edged build ing-sized construction slabs and was 48-feet long with possible extension to 60 feet. Two one hundred horsepower electric motors powered it. Plants also included sand blasters. Workmen sand-blasted lettering on to monuments and headstones. In glory days of the Georgia Marble Company, machinery stayed busy, working a steady stream of production. "There were projects leaving by train every day," Butler said. With all the equipment going, noise was a problem. "Every man that worked the gang saws and some of the other machinery probably ended up deaf," Butler specu lated. Working conditions were rugged. "In my childhood," Butler said, "only in the sand blasting department did any body wear any kind of protec tive gear." The silicon sand used in sand-blasting could cause lung damage. Butler's father worked at the Tate plant, and she grew up SHEET METAL MANUFACTURER TAKING APPLICATIONS FOR MACHINE OPERATORS, SPOT WELDERS & ASSEMBLERS Safe, Clean, Air Conditioned Factory Full Time, Day or Night Shift. Start up to $10.75+/hr. depending on position and your experience. Full Fringe Benefits Package Health & Life Insurance Vacation Pension H.S. Diploma or GED Required. Apply in person 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. MORRISON PRODUCTS, INC. 169 Etowah Industrial Court Canton, GA 30114 NO PHONE CALLS, PLEASE. E.O.E. around the marble industry. She said, when she was a child, it was not unusual for children of workmen to visit friends and kinsmen inside the working plant. Retired marble carver, Hugh Bozeman, and Polycor employ ee, Michael Jarrett, spoke after Butler. Butler introduced the men as the last two local carvers. Former marble worker, Henry Loveless, also spoke. A lecture listener asked Bozeman about long-term effects of breathing ground marble dust. "It made us the men we are today," Bozemen quipped. The dust, he said, was 98.9 percent pure calcium. Historically, marble compa ny pay wasn't much. "It wasn't top wages," Butler said. But there was no caste system, she added, no segregation by wage rate. "Water boys lived next door to the vice president," she said. Hugh Bozeman said entry- level pay was five to ten cents above minimum wage. Top pay for carvers in 1971 was $2.50 an hour, he said. Near the end of the program, Butler flashed an image of Bill Cartwright on a wall screen. Just deceased, Cartwright retired as a carver. College edu cated, he carved marble roses as his life's work. Cartwright's image left one question unan swered: facing low pay and hard working conditions, what motivated local men to work the marble? Early on, some probably worked the stone because mar ble mills presented a source of income substantially better than cotton farming. For a workman, then and later, there was also the draw of joining his labor to something bigger than himself alone. Call it the pride of team accomplishment. "Everybody felt a sense of ownership in the finished prod uct," Butler said. For carvers, there was prob ably something more. Daily they applied the skill in their hands to bring beauty from the stone in finished objects bound to outlast them. Their's was important work, hand fashion ing objects designed to present honor and remembrance. In her lecture, Butler quoted John Ruskin: "I feel like remov ing my hat when I am in the presence of a marble carver," the Victorian philosopher said. Even in an era of power tools, carvers were artists still—Renaissance souls, inspired by more than money. Like sculptors of the old school, they were masters of the art. Their use of power chisels took nothing from their skill. "If Michelangelo had had an air compressor, I believe he'd have used it," Hugh Bozeman said. At times, local carvers resorted to hand tools again. Bozeman said the eyes of stat ues always required a hand chisel. Michael Jarrett apprenticed under Bozeman at Georgia Marble Company and in time became a carver in his own right. Jarrett works for Polycor today, no longer as a carver. But when the Oglethorpe Monument was restored for placement on Jasper's Main Street, Jarrett carved the round ed cap for the top. The work of a carver is meant to last. For as long as the white monument stands near the wood bridge, Jarrett's rounded orb will mark its top. "That's what it is, just a rounded-off piece of rock," Jarrett said. "It was done by hand." Retired carver, Hugh Bozeman, answers ques tions from the audience dur ing a lecture on Pickens County marble carvers, pre sented by local historian Mimi Jo Butler (left). Grandview Fire S Rescue Will be having a fund-raising yard sale on May 27, 2006 at the station on Cove Road. We will pick up your left overs from your yard sale. We will also be accepting any and all donations. For more information please contact Lynn Dean @ 706-253-1949 jp Every Little Piece Helps! WHEN: MAY 12TH 2006.6:30 PM WHERE: APPALACHIAN TECHNICAL COLLEGE CONFERENCE (ENTER TICKET) $10 PER PERSON
