Tuckahoe marble

Tuckahoe marble
Tuckahoe marble
Stratigraphic range: Late Cambrian, Early Ordovician
	The Federal Hall National Memorial in Manhattan, constructed using Tuckahoe marble.
Lithology
Primary	marble
Location
Region	Westchester County & Inwood,; New York
Type section
Named for	Tuckahoe, New York ; (or Inwood and Westchester, New York)

Last updated November 06, 2023

Tuckahoe marble (also known as Inwood and Westchester marble) is a type of marble found in southern New York state and western Connecticut. Part of the Inwood Formation of the Manhattan Prong, it dates from the Late Cambrian to the Early Ordovician ages (~484 ma ago). It was first quarried on a large scale commercially in the village of Tuckahoe, New York. Deposits are also found in the Inwood area of Manhattan, New York City, in Eastchester, New York, and extending southward to parts of the Bronx, such as Kingsbridge, Mott Haven, Melrose and Tremont and Marble Hill. Other locations in Westchester County include Ossining, Hastings, and Thornwood.

Description and geology

Tuckahoe marble is a high quality marble first quarried on a large commercial scale in 1822 in the village of Tuckahoe in Westchester County. The marble is from the larger Inwood Formation or deposit, which stretches northeasterly from mid-Manhattan through southern Westchester and into western Connecticut.^[1] The marble is characterized scientifically as a dolomitic marble and varies in color from a light gray to light green, to a bluish white or brilliant white. A distinctive characteristic is the medium-to-coarse size of the calcite and dolomite particles that primarily compose the stone, which often contains minor amounts of hematite and pyrite. Oxidation of these iron-bearing minerals causes certain varieties of the marble to turn orange-brown when the stone is exposed to weather.^[2]

History

The vast majority of the early residential and commercial buildings in New York City were constructed with wood while government and institutional buildings and mansions of the wealthy were often built of brick or stone. Locally quarried Manhattan schist and sandstone from the lower Hudson Valley were typically used before marble became more popular. By the late 18th century, marble was being produced by a number of quarries in northern Manhattan and along the Hudson River in Westchester. The most well-known quarry that supplied stone from the deposit was in the area now known as Tuckahoe. This "Tuckahoe marble" was nearly pure white in color and considered by many to be of the highest grade.

Many federal buildings destroyed by the British during the War of 1812 were rebuilt with Tuckahoe marble. The commercial marble industry first developed along the Bronx River. In 1818 the Tuckahoe Marble Quarry opened and eventually became a major producer of marble for the world. These local marble quarries were the main reason that the state government of New York chose Sing Sing as the site of a new prison in 1825.^[3]

From 1865 to 1871, hundreds of Scottish and Irish laborers blasted huge quantities of marble from the quarry at Hastings-on-Hudson. An inclined railroad carried it down to the quarry wharf on the Hudson River where it was dressed by skilled stonecutters and loaded onto ships and barges bound for New York City and beyond, as far as Charleston, South Carolina.^{[ citation needed ]} By the 1880s, Hastings Pavement was producing the paving blocks used extensively in Central Park and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Between 1895 and 1900, Hastings Pavement produced 10 million such blocks and shipped them throughout the U.S. and to cities in Canada, Brazil and England.

White Tuckahoe marble supplied the early United States with a building material suitable for the neoclassical architecture popular in America's early public buildings. Tuckahoe Marble was the single most important white marble deposit in the country until the latter part of the 1800s, when development of the railroad made the extensive, high quality marble deposits of southwestern Vermont more available. Quarrying of Tuckahoe marble ceased in 1930.^{[ where? ]}

Buildings and structures

Local

Local structures constructed of Inwood marble include:

New York Marble Cemetery (1830) burial vaults, aboveground walls, and engraved tablets
New York City Marble Cemetery (1831) burial vaults and aboveground walls
Colonnade Row/LaGrange Terrace (1832), Manhattan
Marble Schoolhouse (1835), Eastchester, New York
Federal Hall National Memorial (1842), Manhattan
A.T. Stewart Company Store (also known as the Sun Building; the "Marble Palace") (1845–46), Manhattan
Grace Episcopal Church (1846), Manhattan
Brooklyn Borough Hall (1849)
Marble Collegiate Church, Manhattan (1851-54)
Seaman-Drake Arch. Manhattan (1855)
St. Patrick's Cathedral (1858–78), Manhattan
Tweed Courthouse (1861–72), Manhattan
Washington Square Arch (1891), Manhattan
Union Baptist Church (1904), New Rochelle
Immaculate Conception Church (1911), Eastchester

Distant

Prominent uses of Tuckahoe marble beyond the New York City metropolitan area include:

General Post Office (now the Hotel Monaco) (1842), Washington, D.C.
Washington Monument (1848), Washington, D.C.
Marble House (1888–92), Newport, Rhode Island
Gallier Hall (1853), New Orleans, Louisiana

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Tuckahoe is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. One-and-a-half miles long and three-fourths of a mile wide, with the Bronx River serving as its western boundary, the Village of Tuckahoe is approximately sixteen miles north of midtown Manhattan in Southern Westchester County. As of the 2010 census, the village's population was 6,486.

Inwood is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, at the northern tip of Manhattan Island, in the U.S. state of New York. It is bounded by the Hudson River to the west, Spuyten Duyvil Creek and Marble Hill to the north, the Harlem River to the east, and Washington Heights to the south.

Marble Hill is the northernmost neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Although once part of Manhattan Island, it is now one of the few areas of the borough that are off-island. Attached to the mainland in the early 20th century, it is bordered by The Bronx. The area of Marble Hill was established as a Dutch colonial settlement in 1646, and gained its current name in 1891 from the Tuckahoe marble deposits discovered underneath the neighborhood.

Eastchester is a town in southern Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was over 34,641 at the 2020 United States census over 32,363 at the 2010 census. There are two villages within the town: Bronxville and Tuckahoe. The town contains a census-designated place also named Eastchester, which is the whole town of Eastchester excluding Bronxville and Tuckahoe.

The Bronx River, is a river that is approximately 24 miles (39 km) long, and flows through southeastern New York in the United States and drains an area of 38.4 square miles (99 km²). It is named after colonial settler Jonas Bronck. Besides the Hutchinson River, the Bronx River is the only fresh water river in New York City.

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The Marble Schoolhouse is a Greek Revival style schoolhouse in Eastchester, New York that was built in 1835. The stone of its facade was quarried in nearby Tuckahoe, New York. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

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The Seaman-Drake Arch, also known as the Inwood Arch, is a remnant of a hilltop estate built in 1855 in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City by the Seaman family. Located at 5065 Broadway at West 216th Street, the arch was built from Inwood marble quarried nearby. It is 35 feet (10.67 m) tall, 20 feet (6.10 m) deep, and 40 feet (12.19 m) wide, and was once the gateway to the estate.

The Church of the Immaculate Conception is a Catholic parish church of the Archdiocese of New York located in Tuckahoe, New York. Founded in 1853, the parish is dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Following a merger, the parish was reorganized as the parish of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Our Lady, including the respective two churches.

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References

↑ Tuckahoe Marble
↑ Diane S. Kaese and Michael F. Lynch (2008). "Marble in (and Around) the City Its Origins and Use in Historic New York Buildings" (PDF). Common Bond. 22 (2 (Autumn 2008)): 7.
↑ Crime Library profile of Sing Sing Prison "All about Sing Sing Prison, by Mark Gado - the Crime library". Archived from the original on 2007-05-27. Retrieved 2018-06-28.

Tuckahoe marble

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