Dear Canal People: I am new to the list. I am trying to test a theory to understand the connection of Mountsorrel's (Leicestershire) quarry people with remote quarries. Linda Baum Webster, one of your subscribers, wrote a wonderful article entitled LEICESTERSHIRE QUARRYMEN IN WALES, Leicestershire and Rutland, FS Winter Dec 1993, Newsletter # 74 p 34-36. In that article she said: "It would be interesting to know how the Mountsorrel quarrymen got to hear about other quarries in such far away places as Scotland and North Wales. One line of inquiry would be whether the quarries were owned by the same companies." My supposition is that the common denominator between these locations is water, but I would like to find more proof. I am seeing the family of Samuel & Mary A. Clarke spread out from Mountsorrel possibly to Derbyshire (1835) and possibly to Middleton (near Manchester) (1881) and to Missouri, Massachusetts and Maine in the USA. At first it made little sense to me that they would jump that way. However, I have discovered that there is a canal linking Middleton with Manchester. Then the Manchester Ship Canal links that inland city with Liverpool and, of course the ocean. Today, I have learned that there is a canal that connects the Manchester area to the Peak District of Derbyshire where limestone was quarried. I do not know if Derbyshire is connected by canal to the canal that goes through Mountsorrel. If so, it would make sense that the workers would then follow the waterways and canals to the quarry that offered employment. Once they became used to travel on the water I suppose they could follow it to all points with impunity. At first blush Linda's people in Wales do not seem conform to this idea, since her Walter Simmons says he walked from Mountsorrel to Llithfaen, Wales where he found work in a quarry. However, she also noted that some of the members of his family were boatmen and that other people from Mountsorrel worked in Llithfaen. Walter may have had the legs for such a walk, but I'll wager the less hardy exercised their sea legs. They probably took passage on the same boats that the stone was shipped on. Linda discovered that the owner of the quarry near the south coast of Wales was a company from Liverpool. I wonder if an inland water route could be found from Liverpool to Mountsorrel? Linda has shown me a connection between her family and mine via a granite quarry in Dummerston, VT owned by James Clark. His 2nd wife, Eliza Baum, was born in Mountsorrel. My grandfather, Thomas Hunt, was working at the Clark's quarry in 1907. I am almost certain that James Clark was his uncle (his mother was Sarah Clark, b. ca. 1849 in Mountsorrel). Thomas and his father, William Hunt, were both born in Mountsorrel, and both worked in what was called the "Tips" Quarry in that town. Uncle James Clark and Eliza Baum, came to the U.S. before 1882. Their first son was born in Graniteville, MO and subsequently another son was born in 1891 in Gloucester, Mass. After 1891 they went to Dummerston, VT and purchased a granite quarry there. It is said that William Hunt (above) worked for James Clark in the USA about 1891. Indeed, he is absent from his family in Mountsorrel according to the 1891 census. Samuel Holbery Hawkins, a quarryman by trade and patriarch of the Hawkins clan in America, came to the U.S. in 1870. He was born September 14, 1843 in Mountsorrel, Leicester, England, son of John Hawkins and Elizabeth Noon, and died January 28, 1913 in Long Cove, St. George, ME. He sailed from Liverpool on the SS Tripoli and arrived in Boston on April 25, 1870. On arrival in the US, Samuel stayed at the home of Thomas Geary in Gloucester, Essex County, Massachusetts. He and various members of his family resided in Gloucester, Massachusetts until 1879. Samuel worked for awhile in the quarries of Vinalhaven, Maine. The family returned to England in 1878/1879. In 1881 they moved to Long Cove, Maine again working in the stone quarries. By 1883, all of Samuel's family was living in Long Cove. Samuel H. Hawkins married Rebecca Preston Hunt, July 13, 1863 in Christ Church, Mountsorrel. She was born August 14, 1845 in Rothley, Leicester, daughter of Henry (WILLIAM1) Hunt and Elizabeth Preston and died January 12, 1922 in Long Cove, Maine. ~I think if we could understand the commercial connections that bound these people together, we would be well on our way to discovering all of their lost family connections--breaking down granite walls, as it were! ~Do you know of any sources of canal information that might answer these questions? ~Is there a canal route inland from Mountsorrel to Manchester? ~Is so, when would the canal segments that establish that route have been constructed? Yours truly, Roger Lamson No. Sutton, New Hampshire, USA Yours truly, Roger Lamson