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In 1884 Charles
E. Fish, a local Miramichi businessman, opened a sandstone quarry at French Fort Cove. The quarry specialized in dimension
stone which is any stone cut to a given size and shape to be used in construction. Through his silent partner, Henry
Read, Fish obtained, in 1885, the contract to provide the dimension stone for the Langevin Block of the Parliament Buildings
in Ottawa. This sandstone structure today contains the office of the Prime Minister.
Two local buildings
made from the quarry's dimension stone are Harkins Elementary School (Miramichi West) and St. Patrick's Church (Nelson).
Other products from the quarry included grindstones, railway stones and pulpstones. Pulpstones grind wood so it can
be processed at a pulp mill and Fish won a bronze medal at the 1900 Paris Universal Exhibition for the excellence of the pulpstone
from the quarry.
Two factors led to the demise of the French Fort Cove Quarry. In 1896, the federal
government greatly reduced the tariff on sandstone from the United States. Fish's main market had been Quebec and
Ontario. Fish learned, as did the coal and textile industries, that Sir John A. MacDonald's National policy was
for the benefit of Central Canada and to the detriment of the Maritimes.
To complicate matters, Fish
proved to be neither a good businessman nor quarryman. His personal correspondence is filled with reprimands from impatient
creditors and dissatisfied customers. Only the work of silent partner Read and the high quality of the sandstone kept
orders coming in, but Read was no longer involved by 1902. The quarry struggled on, but did not reopen in the spring
of 1905. You can still find many remnants of the quarrying on the eastern hillside of the Fish Quarry Trail.
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