This summer, Vinalhaven’s “Four Fossils” took their show to the village.
They built a 135-foot-long retaining wall out of granite, as part of a town sidewalk project.
The Four Fossils are Fred Granger, Ted Johanson, Hugh Martin and Wes Reed, each with an interest in doing something to “utilize Vinalhaven’s historic resource,” according to an article by Karen Jackson (“Boys with toys and vision,” Working Waterfront, July 2008). The men lease a site in the last productive granite quarry on Vinalhaven, dormant for over 40 years.
The Four Fossils took part in a sidewalk improvement job subcontracted to Granite Valley Construction by Atlantic Mechanical, Inc.
The Four Fossils’ part of the project was to build a 135-foot long retaining wall consisting of sixteen slabs of four- to five-ton pieces of granite to border the sidewalk. A major challenge of the job was to customize each stone, because of the sloping grade of the sidewalk. A further complication was to cut and install granite steps for the two homes that faced the sidewalk. In fact, fitting the granite steps together was perhaps the most exacting part of the whole job.
Town manager Marjorie Stratton says the town’s sidewalk committee had been talking for the past seven years about improving the stretch of sidewalk on East Main Street that runs the 200 yards from Pleasant Street to East Clayter Hill Road, “I’ve been hearing it since I arrived,” Stratton said recently. “We were afraid children and old people would slip and fall especially in the winter. We tried putting in a railing, but that didn’t help.”
Meanwhile the town set aside a reserve fund for the project. When Marjorie heard about the ‘safe routes to school’ grants, the town applied for one and received $130,000 in federal funds, which were channeled through state. Part of the $61,000 reserve fund saved by the town went to pay for engineering fees.
According to Martin, a retired insurance executive from Hartford, Connecticut, after the town received a sidewalk grant in the fall of 2008, the four men looked at plans and saw that the initial specifications were for a cement block wall to hold earth back. “We told them we could provide a granite wall instead”, Hugh said. “What could be more appropriate than to use Vinalhaven granite?” Martin remembers when the new school was constructed a few years ago granite was imported for the curbing around the driveways. “People groused then because it wasn’t Vinalhaven granite. Now we’ll use it.”
The Four Fossils talked to the engineers and got them to provide an alternative design to the cement retaining wall. The Fossils then put in a bid for a granite wall which would be more aesthetically pleasing, and surprisingly, only a little more expensive than the plan to use concrete. The contractor got two other bids for a wall that would use Maine granite, but the Four Fossils’ bid was accepted. Hugh thinks they got the job as sub-contractors because they had the skill and enterprise do something with island granite. “It is something we can take pride in looking at for the rest of our lives,” Martin said.
Public reaction during the construction period was mixed. Some people were grumpy. The feeling was not only was the job too expensive, but that it should have been finished by mid-June. And there was the frequent disruption of traffic on a major island roadway. According to another critic, “people are in a bad mood. The fishing is poor fishing, there are no tourists and money is tight.” To this the Fossils response was, “wait until you see the finished product.”
It is interesting that folks living near the project were among the most patient. Erma and Fred Lowd’s house borders on the sidewalk. Erma’s reaction was, “The job is long overdue. It was dangerous before. The underpinning had given way and the sidewalk was not safe to walk on.”
Although she agreed, “progress has been slow”, Erma Lowd is a patient woman. She said the noise hasn’t bothered her. “It has been fascinating to watch the work. It is progress, and we’ll get a nice set of stairs.”
Randy Farnum is a heavy equipment operator on the island and is particularly impressed with the difficulty of granite work. “Stone work is expensive,” he said. “Each block takes hours of sawing and sometimes you find flaws in the stone. And then every stone has to fit together perfectly. It is real precision work. You simply can’t do something like this in a week,” (the original time estimate).
The job got off to a slow start this spring due to bad weather, which continued to slow construction throughout the summer. Another problem was hitting a ledge just below the old sidewalk, which many people feel should have been anticipated. Then in June, Brian Piontkowski, president and construction boss of Granite Valley was hospitalized for two weeks.
Fred Granger tells an amusing story on himself about when the boom truck he was operating carrying a huge piece of granite, tipped over in the middle of the road. Unfortunately this happened on the Saturday afternoon of high school graduation, which meant that the 500 people who had driven past the project on their way out to the school could see what happened as they were detoured around the site on their way back. Fortunately no one was hurt, but the road was closed for four hours. Even Fred admitted, “it was embarrassing.”
One evening in late July, I walked over to the site and found Fred Granger and Wes Reed trimming the wall and setting the steps in front of the Lowd’s’ house. As I was admiring their work Hugh Martin appeared. “I guess this will get you some more business,” I told him. A tired Martin responded, “I’m not sure as we want any more projects like this.” With the construction of this very impressive wall, however, the Four Fossils have indeed returned the granite business to Vinalhaven.