[4] With the Holden-Leonard & Company running smoothly, in July 1896 John S. Holden, Charles W. Leonard and George H. Bickford purchased the undeveloped Woodbury Granite Company in Woodbury, Vermont, and supplied numerous government buildings with Woodbury Grey that included Chicago City Hall, Cook County Courthouse in Chicago, the Pennsylvania State Capitol, the Providence, Minneapolis and Grand Rapids Post Offices, as well as the state capitol buildings in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Iowa and Idaho.

The stock of the railroad was floated partly by popular subscription, but mainly by the backing of John S. Holden and his associates.

Monday through Saturday the train left Hardwick at 6:15 a.m. and returned from the quarries at 5 p.m.[3] At the death of John S. Holden on March 23, 1907, Mr. Leonard then became president.

Optimistic about their prospects, the Fishers expanded the mill complex, adding more machinery and constructing an expansive one story brick addition.

By 1880, the firm had some 400 employees operating 144 looms and approximately 12,000 spindles to produce over one-half million yards of heavy overcoating annually.

Woolen products were shipped south to New York and Philadelphia, giving the company and the regional industry a huge boost.

It carried about everything they might need: groceries, dry goods, boots and shoes, fruit, confectionery, cigars and tobacco, mill remnants, wall paper and window shades.

Holden-Leonard also provided tenement housing for its employees and with a large number of children in the workforce found itself in the crosshairs of the Child Labor Reform movement at the turn of the 20th century.

In June 1939 the Holden-Leonard Co. Inc. sold the entire mill complex and related employees' housing to Joseph Benn Textiles, Inc. of North Providence, Rhode Island.