Maine Memory Network

Skilled stone carvers from Italy came to Hallowell and other Maine granite and marble quarries to carve statues, monuments, and columns for important Federal and public building projects, carrying on the long carving tradition of their home country. Carvers were the elite workers at a quarry.

Statuary cutter Joseph Archie stood on a 36-foot sculpture, part of a project commissioned by the National Monument to the Forefathers in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Italian immigrant Protasio Neri supervised the carving of the project’s base statues.