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Located in Lower Cove at the Former Grindstone Quarry
Best to Park at the Beach in Lower Cove and Walk up the Shore Line to the Cache. There is a road leading down off the highway best to walk, you can drive down with a 4WD. Take Care when looking for the Cache, there is a few rocks in the grass. If you are walking on the beach looking for fossils or Grindstones be care full of falling rocks near cliff faces and mind the tide. This is the Bay of Funday and the tide rises very fast. Note that you are not permitted to remove fossil or grindstones from the beach or dig in the banks. You are more than welcome to take all the photos you wish. Also if the tide is going out the wet rocks can be slippery. Looking to the South from the Cache you can see the Joggins Fossil Cliff,@ N45 41.671 W64 26.960 is the Location of the Joggins Fossil Centre, really worth a look. There is a admitance fee but you will not be disappointed. A little to the south west on the right you are looking down the mouth of the Bay Of Funday and to the west across the water is Rock Point in New Brunswick.
Lower Cove was the site of a booming quarry and grindstone producing industry long before the early 20th century industrial boom in the more populated areas of this county. Acadians were producing grindstones on the Lower Cove beach prior to 1800, probably for their own use and not as a money making enterprise. One of the early stone traders was Joseph Read who leased a property in the area in 1810. Commencing in 1831, Amos Seaman leased the grindstone quarries from the DesBarres (Minudie Estate) holdings for 40 pounds sterling a year. Under Seaman's management, the quarrying of sandstone became a major industry employing over one hundred people at most times during productive years. The grindstones were gleaned from sandstone reefs along filled with water and scrap rock. This beach experiences some of the world's highest tides and so the reefs were only accessible for quarrying at low tide. The stone was lashed to rafts or vessels to be carried by the incoming tide. Stones from both sources, were then fashioned into grindstones and loaded onto scows for transfer to schooners, clipper or cargo ships in Minudie. Grindstones from Lower Cove were shipped mainly to New England and the Eastern seaboard.
Placed in a cradle-like holder and rotated, large grindstones were principally used as filling objects for sharpening tools and machine blades while smaller stones were used for kitchen knives, scythes, axes and other small implements. Good grindstones usually lasted a year, and were, in that time, greatly reduced in size by the wear of filing.
Basically grindstones were chunks of sandstone fashioned into a circular shape with as square hole in the centre from which the stone could be attached to a frame for use. In the early 1800's, the stones were quarried and dressed (made circular) entirely by hand. Leonard Lee, in 1991 wrote two informative articles about the Lower Cove quarry industry. In one he quotes Abraham Gesner who wrote in 1836: "After having been split into pieces of small dimensions with iron wedges, it (the sandstone) is conveyed to the stone-cutter, who, with a pair of compasses, describe the circle and with amazing facility cut the eye, and complete the whole process in the shorter space of time than would be required to form a piece of wood of similar size into the figure of a grindstone."
Grindstones were fashioned in a variety of weights and sizes. In 1875, a stone, produced in Lower Cove and shipped to Maine was seven feet in diameter and weighed 8,000 pounds.
Until the second half of the 19th century, quarrying and stone cutting was done with black powder, horses and skilled stone cutters. In 1843, Amos Seaman introduced, at Minudie, the first steam powered mill in the province. It could be assumed that after this date, steam was used to dress the stones at his quarries, although the 20th century photo accompanying this article shows a stone being dressed by hand.
Sandstone quarrying was phased out in Lower Cove in the early 1900's. More expedient methods of filing were developed and improved transportation systems in the U.S. led to exploitation of their own sandstone in the interior of that country.
Lower Cove is one of twelve locations in the Maritime provinces where sandstone was quarried for the creation of grindstones and one of three in this county alone, the others being Minudie and Ragged Reef. Production was impressive, in 1847, the number of stones shipped from Cumberland County was recorded at 33,075.
Little remains in Lower Cove today of the offices, powder shack, chimney (removed in the 1960's for safety reasons) wharf, store or the various other work buildings used to facilitate the operation of the quarries. However, two dwellings still exist in the community which was directly related to the stone quarries - one owned by Peter and Jean Flemington was the home of the Atlantic Grindstone Company manager and the present day home of Alex Burbine was built to be used as a cookhouse for the quarry workers and stone cutters.
Today a walk along the Lower Cove beach will reveal a number of dressed stones, most of them abandoned due to flaws. As well, some tools and the remains of the wharf are quite visible. Visit this area but please do not disturb these remnants of the quarrying industry. Lower Cove is a protected beach. What remains are sadly, the only monuments on site in testament to the people who and the natural resources which so early and so substantially contributed to Cumberland's economy.
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Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
lbh jvyy abg trg oheag ba guvf bar, ohg lbh jvyy unir gb ybbx