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.
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. Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, at least 16 monuments. 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.
References