In the early 1980s I was working at the Morse-Libby Mansion (aka Victoria
Mansion) in Portland, Maine. We knew the sandstone source was the Portland
(Conn.) quarries, but no one was extracting stone from them at that time.
An elderly gentleman watched us from the sidewalk all morning as we worked
on exterior woodwork maintenane. At lunch time he teetered over to talk
with us and commented that the stones in the mansion looked looked
familiar. He rubbed his hand across the stone surface while a distant look
crossed his face. He thought aloud that the stone was from the west face of
Quarry Three, part way up. Turns out he was a cutter and supervisor there
in the 1920s.

There is a current project at Morse-Libby to restore much of the weathered
stone work in the front tower. I helped write the grant proposal to the
Getty, although I'm not involved in the stone work. I'm supervising other
maintenance around the property, as usual. Some of you may have seen the
Morse-Libby since a few of the APT conference events were held there last
October.


John Leeke,
American Preservationeer

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