Rosendale cement

[2] The Rosendale region of southeastern New York State is widely recognized as the source of the highest quality natural cement in North America.

A combination of blasting and hand tools, such as sledge hammers, were used at the height of production to extract the dolomite, which was transported to the surface via steam hoists, and then to nearby kilns by narrow gauge rail for calcination.

[8] Natural cement is produced in a process that begins with the calcination of crushed dolomite in large brick kilns, fired initially by wood and then by coal transported to Rosendale by the D&H canal.

Historically, this natural cement product was packaged in paper-lined wooden barrels weighing 300 lbs, or in heavy canvas bags.

[1] In Rosendale, cement rock was discovered in the summer of 1825 by Canvass White or an assistant engineer for the Delaware and Hudson Canal James McEntee.

Another notable cement plant was located in Binnewater, a hamlet of Rosendale, run by F. O. Norton, in about 1868, and another by A. J. Snyder on his own lands in Lawrenceville in 1850.

[13] According to Dietrich Werner, the former president of the Century House Historical Society, the proximity of the Rosendale region to the Delaware and Hudson Canal enabled the production and shipment of the natural cement.

[2] Various writers, including Uriah Cummings, appear to support the anecdotal evidence that Rosendale cement was highly durable, and with tensile strength equal to or greater than Portland, however the decline in the industry was unstoppable.

[20] This product has been used in the restoration of Fort Jefferson National Monument in Florida and the High Bridge in New York City, both of which were originally built using natural cement.

[21] Unlike the exhausted or inaccessible sources elsewhere, the mines in Rosendale, New York, still hold countless accessible tons of the highest quality natural cement rock, capable of supplying long-term future needs.