Hummelstown Brownstone Quarries, Hummelstown, Dauphin County

Happy New Year! This post was meant to go up much sooner, but the year has been off to a bit of a wonky start for multiple reasons, including my husband being sick and me struggling with pain issues due to the polar vortex temperatures. (Danged arthritis and sinus headaches.) But I made it through another holiday season in retail with my sanity mostly intact and my hair only a little more gray than it already was, so I'm taking the wins where I can find them. And given how truly awful January has already been for some parts of the country and the world, that's really all any of us can do. 

Meanwhile, we've still got plenty of Pennsylvania history to uncover in the coming year, so we might as well get started. As you may remember, I had a marvelous day exploring in Dauphin County last summer with my college friend AmyBeth, and this is the second of the two Hummelstown markers. Besides, it's so bitterly cold and windy here lately that it does me a bit of good to remember that hot July afternoon.

The marker stands in front of 
104 East Main Street, Hummelstown

The story of Hummelstown brownstone begins with an immigrant named Peter Berst. He was born in Germany in October 1722. According to signage maintained by the Derry Township Historical Society, he immigrated to the United States, where, in 1765, he and his family acquired land in what today is southern Derry Township, Dauphin County. They established a farm, but more importantly for our purposes here, Peter became the first settler in the region to quarry brownstone.

Over the next century and a quarter, the land changed hands a number of times, as the Bersts allowed others to purchase interest in their quarries and form the Pennsylvania Brownstone Company. We'll be here all day if I list all the sales of the land, so I'll skip ahead. By the 1880s, the Pennsylvania Brownstone Company had been purchased by a Philadelphia man named Allen Walton, and so had the quarries which had been part of the Berst property. Out of these purchases he created the Hummelstown Brownstone Company, whose quarries, offices, and other structures spanned more than a thousand acres of land.

So, you might be thinking, what is brownstone? As is so often the case, the simplest answer is the right one - it's stone and it's brown. More specifically, it's a form of sandstone which happens to have a dark brown color. Brownstone is found and has been quarried throughout much of the eastern seaboard, as it's rather abundant near the Appalachian Mountains. The brownstone found in the Hummelstown region was, in the quarry's heyday, considered exceptional. It's a dense medium-grain sandstone, and was valued for its durability and strength. In the early 20th century, the chemistry lab at Pennsylvania State College performed an analysis of Hummelstown brownstone and confirmed that it's made chiefly of silica, with (in descending order of presence) alumina, ferric oxide, ferrous oxide, lime, magnesia, soda, potash, and just a little bit of water. The stone is extremely fine and even, which allows it to be carved with considerable detail. It's also a very pretty stone; the brown is tinged with hues of red and purple. Perhaps best of all, it's unusually resistant to heat, meaning that buildings made of Hummelstown brownstone are not going to burn to the ground. The quality of the stone and its attractive coloration made it desirable as a building material, and structures faced with Hummelstown brownstone can be found all over the eastern side of the country.

Aided by his sons, Allen Jr. and Robert, Allen Walton grew himself a little empire. The part of Dauphin County which he owned became known as Waltonville. In 1886 he added a railroad to the company's holdings, enabling his product to be shipped faster by creating a connection to the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. Demand for Hummelstown brownstone seemed to be increasing constantly; it helped that anyone who visited Hummelstown or Waltonville had ready access to some prime examples of the stone's quality and durability. The Berst family home was constructed entirely of the brownstone, and although it was torn down in the 1950s, I've shared an old photo of it here. The Berst family burial ground is fenced in brownstone and contains centuries-old headstones made of the same material, so if you click on the link, you can read about my own visit to the cemetery and see pictures of the stones. Their survival for more than 250 years is proof of just how well the brownstone endures.

Like I said, there are buildings all over the eastern states made of Hummelstown brownstone, including - naturally - many within Hummelstown itself. This actually includes buildings I've encountered while researching other blog posts, although I didn't know it at the time! The administration building of Harrisburg State Hospital (which, sadly, is slated to be torn down as of this writing) is one such example. Another, which I'm sharing here, is the original building of what today is Gettysburg College. I took the picture when Kevin and I were there a few years ago, just thinking that it was a beautiful building, but here it turns out to be relevant to the current quest. Other examples found throughout Pennsylvania include Wilkes-Barre's city hall, the original (no longer standing) high school in Altoona, and the North American Building in Philadelphia. Beyond Pennsylvania, it was used to construct the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington D.C., the National Exchange Bank in Baltimore, and the Arcade Building in Cleveland, to name just a few. It was also used decoratively on many buildings, being the stone of choice for steps, caps, windowsills, and other trimmings.

But all good things must come to an end, and this is true of the Hummelstown Brownstone Company. Business began to dwindle during the Panic of 1893, due to the economic downturn, but after the Panic subsided in 1897 it revived for another decade. As the 20th century dawned, other companies were improving the quality of construction materials like clay bricks, concrete blocks, and steel over iron; furthermore, the dark coloration of Hummelstown brownstone was out of fashion, as people were drawn to lighter colored stones like limestone. The Waltons attempted to get in on the new action by establishing a brick plant at the quarry, but after twenty years they shut it down since they weren't able to turn a profit. The arrival of the Great Depression in 1929 delivered the death blow, and on December 3rd of that year, Allen Walton Jr. formally dissolved the Hummelstown Brownstone Company. In 2003, as seen on the marker here, the quarries were added to the National Register of Historic Places. They are no longer accessible; fences and overgrown vegetation block them off.

Fittingly, given the prized durability of the stuff, Hummelstown brownstone has long outlived the company which quarried it. A simple walk through Hummelstown itself is proof enough of that, with churches and storefronts still standing made of the brownstone which put the community on the map. A visit to the main cemetery is also worth making, since many of the monuments there are - like the ones on the old Berst grounds - made from brownstone. This includes the Walton family stone and the spectacular memorial seen here, honoring the local young men who served the Union in the American Civil War. Their legacy, like that of the brownstone, endures.

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Sources and Further Reading:

Official website of the Dauphin County Historical Society

Olena, Ben F. The Hummelstown Brownstone Industry: A Community Heritage. Self-published, 2016.

Author unidentified; J. Horace McFarland, photographer. "Hummelstown Brownstone Company, Waltonville, Pennsylvania." Mount Pleasant Press, Harrisburg, 1910. Reproduced and made available as a PDF through QuarriesAndBeyond.org.

Author unidentified. "Pennsylvania Brownstone Company Timeline." From the archives of the Hummelstown Historical Society, kindly provided by Geneva Reeder.

Hummelstown Brownstone Quarries at the Historical Marker Database 

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Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.