Ives House on Leetes Island
Date1912
MediumPhotography; nitrate negative and printed photograph
Dimensions(a) Primary Dimensions (overall height x width of negative): 4 15/16 × 4 1/16in. (12.5 × 10.3cm)
(b) Primary Dimensions (overall height x width of photograph): 5 × 4in. (12.7 × 10.2cm)
(b) Primary Dimensions (overall height x width of photograph): 5 × 4in. (12.7 × 10.2cm)
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineBequest from the Estate of Elizabeth Beattie
DescriptionBlack and white photographic (a) negative and (b) photograph, view of the old Ives House on Leetes Island, 1912. The house has two floors and a center chimney, there is snow on the ground and an electric utility pole in the foreground.
Object number2023.17.80a-b
CopyrightPublic Domain
Inscribed(.80a-b) Typed on envelope: “Quarry Picture / This was the old Ives House, the / house on the land when Grandfather / bought it. This picture shows it about 1912. When the Kelsey Point Break- / water Job started, the old house was / cleaned up, the cellar cleaned and a / light concrete floor installed, the / interior of the house replastered and a / new roof put on. / I was learning to shingle on this / roof when World War #1 news broke in / Leete Island. I recall we all went down off the roof to read the headlines etc. / of NY Herald when Father came from the / Post Office with the morning mail. / The brass horsehead / 3-piece candle- / stick I found while digging out the floor / preparatory to making the concrete floor / of this house. / The house was used as the quarry office / and spare & reserve parts for quarry / equipment were kept upstairs.”(.80b) Handwritten in black ink on reverse: “1912 / The old Ives House / moved across the road / when the 3 story house was built. / This picture shows it after / it fell into disuse after the / quarry closed in 1918”NotesSubject Note: John Beattie's granite quarry, situated in Guilford on the Long Island Sound, was well-positioned to distribute granite via a fleet of schooners to locations in Connecticut and New York. Notably, granite from Beattie's quarry was used in the pedestal at the base of the Statue of Liberty.
The quarry operated from 1869, when Scottish immigrant Beattie purchased 400 acres of land on Leetes Island, until about 1918, when Beattie's sons closed up shop 20 years after his death. At its height, the quarry employed 700 people, many of them immigrants from Scotland, Ireland, England, Finland, Sweden, and Italy.
On View
Not on view
1890-1918
1890-1905
1890-1905
March 1905
1890-1905
Ives Hardware
