Hillman W R & Sons, 230 Main St, Shelburne Falls, MA 01370, US

Ashfield Stone is a mica garnet Schist. Schist is a naturally layered stone having been folded up from ancient seabed and metamorphosed in the slow crush of continents some 400 million years ago. This wonderful and versatile stone has been used traditionally for over 300 years in it's chisel split or cleft form. All of the oldest gravestones, doorsteps, walls, walkways, patios, doorsteps and hearths in this region have been fashioned from this stone. We purchased the land in Ashfield Massachusetts in 1984 with the intention of clearing some of the woodland and building our home and barns with our own materials. We were friendly with a neighbor, Ted Howes an octogenarian who took an interest in our plans and who had a wealth of history of the area to share with us. He became a dear friend and mentor over the years. Early on he told us that his grandfather, Robert Howes, had once owned our land and had used it as a woodlot. Ted recalled a story that his grandfather had once paid a man $16 to draw out some of the wonderful flat stone from a ledge there with a team of oxen and a stone boat and deliver it for use in his barn cellar ( this was pre-cement in the late 1800's ). This fact intrigued Jerry and he explored the woods for the source of this flat stone when he wasn't cutting logs to be milled for lumber for our house and barns. When he finally found the ledge, he cleared it back of topsoil and roots, purchased some hand chisels and learned to split the stone into its silvery layers. This was in the late 80's. The country was into a recession, the construction business was slow. Johanne had given birth to their daughter and left her teaching position. Jerry had used some of the split stone in a small residential project in Old Deerfield and the clients and their neighbors were very taken with the stone. Slowly, the idea of actually quarrying the unique natural resource in our backyard took hold. In 1988 we went to the town and got our permit to open our quarry. Jerry and one employee learned to read the stone and split it along its natural layers with hammer and chisel. We sold wall stone, patio stone and doorsteps. We purchased an old dump truck and made deliveries. Soon we were hiring and training more men and subletting out the trucking. The business grew as the public's taste for natural stone in their landscapes and gardens grew. We were ( and continue to be ) the subjects of a lot of press. The story of finding and profiting from a natural resource in your own backyard makes for interesting reading. This free advertising was a boon to our business. We were written up in Yankee Magazine, local newspapers and have been featured on two television shows: Home and Garden TV and recently, The Discovery Channel's Planet Green/ Renovation Nation show with Steve Thomas from this Old House. He spent a half a day here filming our operation and emphasizing the green elements of our product and production. Right from the beginning we recognized the importance of a good relationship with our community. We strive to be good neighbors and we have had a continuing policy of stone donations to the town of Ashfield and the surrounding communities. We recently donated memorial benches to the Ashfield Plain Cemetery for the war memorial. We donated the war memorial for the Town of Charlemont. Currently we are working on a large stone slab that will have bronze plaques mounted as a war memorial for the Town of Buckland. We were invited to produce stone pavers that will be used to represent Massachusetts in a 50 state stone walkway that will wind through Phoenix Park, a memorial for the people lost from the attacks on the World Trade Center. These are just a few of the many ways we have given back to the region for their support and pride in our local stone. In 1991, Jerry wondered what else we could do with this stone besides splitting it for landscaping. He brought a block up to the granite town of Barre, Vermont and found a fabri