Smith Granite Company Explained

Smith Granite Company In 1845 Orlando Smith discovered a granite outcrop on the property owned by Joshua Babcock in Westerly, Rhode Island, and a year later purchased the site from him. He established a granite quarry shortly thereafter and by the 1850s was cutting granite monuments. In 1887 the Smith Granite Company was incorporated, with family members holding all the stock.^[1]

The company's sculptors included James G. C. Hamilton, Edward Ludwig Albert Pausch, Robert D. Barr, and Stanley Edwards.

Works

The firm is best remembered for creating Civil War monuments.

• Gettysburg Battlefield, at least 57 monuments.^[2]
• Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, at least 16 monuments.^[3]
• as well as numerous other Civil War monuments including ones in:

Norfolk, Connecticut, 1870

Galena, Illinois, 1883

Danbury, Connecticut, 1894

Gardner, Massachusetts, 1885

New Haven, Connecticut, 1887

Meadville, Pennsylvania, 1891

Big Rapids, Michigan, 1892

Ypsilanti, Michigan, 1895

New London, Connecticut, 1896

Norwalk, Connecticut, 1900

Wallingford, Connecticut, 1902

Norwich, Connecticut, 1902

New Haven, Connecticut, 1905

Griswold, Connecticut, 1913

• Firemen's Monument, New London, Connecticut, 1898
• World War I monument, Templeton, Massachusetts, 1922
• the bases or granite components of many public monuments including:

General William Tecumseh Sherman Monument, Washington D.C.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Babcock Smith House Museum.
2. Web site: SIRIS - Smithsonian Institution Research Information System.
3. Web site: SIRIS - Smithsonian Institution Research Information System.