Cement Manufacture, Leading Industry in Southern Ulster. Part 2 of 2

"Cement Manufacture, Leading Industry in Southern Ulster" by Will Plank. Published August 14, 1969 in Perspective section of "Southern Ulster Pioneer" newspaper.

1875 Ulster County Atlas.

Cement Manufacture, Leading Industry in Southern Ulster by Will Plank. Perspective, Southern Ulster Pioneer, August 14, 1969 part 2 of 2.
The New York and Rosendale Cement Company, one of the later firms engaged in the industry, had its plants erected in 1873 in the north part of Rosendale Village. Its quarries were reached by tunneling into the rocky spur which supports the northern end of the picturesque steel trestle of the Wallkill Valley Railroad. The plant had every facility for producing cement at its steam mills and six kilns at minimum expense, and was able to produce 600 barrels of the finished product with but one hundred men. The cement produced here was of superior grade, as proved in many tests before it was chosen for construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.

After the D & H Canal started providing plenty of anthracite at a low price coal supplanted wood for burning cement rock and larger kilns were built capable of producing 550 to 600 barrels. Government contracts were obtained for the superior type "light cement" and the plant was greatly enlarged and improved at heavy cost. Unfortunately, a national panic followed and the firm of Lawrence and Company went out of business. Nothing daunted this pioneer who had faith in the future of the cement business. He secured new capital, bought more land, a grist mill and a fulling mill nearby and had four medium sized "draw-kilns" built. A railroad track for horse-drawn cars was built high over the main road and canal to carry the stone to the grist mill which had been converted into a cement mill and by 1856, he was back in business on a larger scale. Lawrence became famous as the director of two companies that followed until financial difficulties resulted in the organization of the Lawrenceville Cement Company in 1862. At the outset the plant produced 4000 to 5000 barrels of cement each season, but as the demand increased, the company built three more kilns, changed from waterpower to a 225 h.p. steam engine and made other improvements which gave it a capacity of 700 barrels a day. The Lawrenceville plant was a hive of industry for many years but now exists only in memory. (1969).

Another and larger enterprise was the Newark and Rosendale Lime and Cement Company, which in 1847 bought the three Hugh White cement mills at Greenkill, Whiteport and Hickory Bush, together with cooper shops for making barrels, cement quarries, kilns, and "tenement houses". Several tracts of land bearing cement-rock deposits were also acquired, together with wharves and storehouses on Rondout Creek near Eddyville in order to handle their product which at first was finished and sold in Newark, New Jersey. When fire destroyed its plants in Jersey, the company concentrated its business at Whiteport in 1852 and introduced steam engines as well as waterpower to grind cement. Two years before the company joined the Lawrenceville Cement Company, which had nearby quarries, in building a plank road to tidewater 3 ½ miles away on Rondout Creek. This project which cost $14,000 made a great saving to both companies over the previous cost of transportation on existing country roads.

As the business grew a horse railroad was established in 1859 on or alongside the plank road. With its sidings, spurs and branches, this railroad covered ten miles and resulted in a 60% transportation saving over the former method. The Newark company had 19 perpetual kilns for roasting and calcining cement rock. Each had a capacity of 70 barrels per day. Twelve pairs of millstones driven by two steam engines and a waterwheel had a capacity for grinding a thousand barrels of cement a day. The company made its own barrels at its cooperage, using staves shipped from forests in Maine and hoops and heads produced locally. The cooper was geared to turn out 1000 barrels daily.

The firm had hard sledding at first, for it was necessary to replace so many of the buildings originally purchased and to add twenty more "tenements" housing four families each, for use of additional employees. Many other improvements were made so that when business began booming in 1862 the plants had increased their production from 400 to 1000 barrels of cement a day, and they employed 275 men and boys. Their product was of a superior grade and was used in the construction of the Croton Aqueduct, Brooklyn Water Works, Cochicuate and Sudbury River conduits for supplying Boston's water supply, the Georgetown aqueduct for supplying Washington, D.C., and various federal projects such as fortifications, seawalls, lighthouse foundations and other projects.

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