News & Views--Slate Quarry

In a small town, a history lesson can be found in unexpected places. In Delta you can learn about the old quarry in a local furniture store.


Slate Quarry Furniture Store features history center
HARFORD BUSINESS LEDGER - SEPTEMBER 2009 http://www.harfordledger.com/archives/HBL_0909.pdf



Slate Quarry Fine Furniture (www.slatequarryfurniture.com) has added a small museum to its 22,000 sq. ft. showroom on the main street of Delta, PA, commemorating the lore and history of the slate quarry industry that made the region famous in the 1800s.
In a news release about the history center, store owner Donna Whiteford said she and her husband Nick and brother-in-law Pete Whiteford developed the idea to have a place in the store to show how the green marble and Peach Bottom slate quarries, and the miners who worked them, helped the Delta region thrive in the 19th century.
Peach Bottom Slate exists in a narrow 12-mile long ridge extending from Lancaster and York counties in Pennsylvania to northern Harford County in Maryland. The slate was named for the old community of Peach Bottom, submerged in 1926 under the lake that was formed when the Conowingo Dam was built across the Susquehanna River between Harford and Cecil counties.
“People would come in and ask us about the town and our store name,” said Donna Whiteford.“My husband Nick thought a history center would be of interest to our customers since so many people ask questions and seem to enjoy the history of the town and surrounding area. Over the years our family had collected artifacts from the quarries and local businesses that had flourished in its heyday.
She said the center is meant to complement a display of slate quarry artifacts displayed at Delta’s Old Line Museum, open Sunday afternoons from May through September. Denny Miller and Claudia Harkins, the
store’s in-house designer built the history center as well as sunroom featuring patio furniture and outdoor accessories.
According to the Maryland Historical Society, Peach Bottom Slate, first used in 1734, is the oldest mined slate in America. Welsh immigrants made the first commercial cut in 1785. At the London Crystal Palace Exposition in 1850, Peach Bottom Slate was judged the best in the world for its durability and color.The Geological Society of America said that at one time there were more than 20 slate quarries operating the Maryland-Pennsylvania Line. The last slate quarry closed in the early 1940's.