BACKROADS • SEPTEMBER 2021
Page 16
Morton’s BMW Motorcycles presents Dr. Seymour O’Life’s
MYSTERIOUS AMERICA
THE WIDOW JANE MINE
CENTURY HOUSE HISTORICAL DISTRICT 668 NY-213, ROSENDALE, NY • 41.8416, -74.0988 845-658-9900 • www.centuryhouse.org What do an incredible sculpture in France, the condition called The Bends, and a link between the Hudson River and the Great Lakes have in common? On paper they all seem completely different in every way. Indeed – every way but one. This is the story of the Widow Jane Mine. In 1825 while construction was going on to build the Delaware and Hudson Canal, natural cement limestone was discovered in Rosendale, New York. This discovery put Rosendale on the map and soon Rosendale Cement was one of the most transported products to travel on the very canal it helped create. According to local resident and former Army historian Gilberto Villahermosa, whose book “Rosendale” is a must-read if you wish to dive deeper into the history of this neat little Hudson Valley town, ‘by the mid1800s, Rosendale was honeycombed with cement mines. The Widow Jane
Mine – now open to the public – once plunged 2.5 miles into the rock.’ The growth of the industry was explosive. A solitary cement plant producing 500 barrels a day
in 1836 became 16 cement works producing 600,000 barrels a day in the 1840s, according to the book. But the industry built around Rosendale Cement began to decline at the turn of the 20th century, as natural cement was replaced by Portland Cement. Natural cement, of which Rosendale Natural Cement is the most famous example, is simple to create, requiring only one base material. However, the proper limestone is hard to come by, and the finished product is slow to dry, taking days or sometimes weeks.
Portland Cement is made from several base materials extractable from all over the U.S. and is much quicker to dry, though to this day remains weaker and quicker to weather than natural cement. The Rosendale Cement industry became a busy place once again during WWII as the resilient material was used in Allied military bases. The
