It is located along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal on the north bank of the Potomac River, just west of Seneca Creek.

Peter, a great-grandson of Martha Washington, made the quarry into a commercial success by utilizing the C&O and winning the bid to supply red sandstone for the Smithsonian Castle, constructed 1847-1855.

Montgomery C. Meigs purchased the Government Quarry nearby for the Washington Aqueduct project in the 1850s, and that quarry provided stone for the parapet of the Union Arch Bridge, better known as the "Cabin John Bridge," the Washington Aqueduct Dam at Great Falls, McClellan Gate at Arlington National Cemetery, as well as the mile-long boundary wall that surrounds the cemetery.

In 1883, the Potomac Red Sandstone Company reopened the quarry but only operated until 1889, when the Great Flood of 1889 knocked out the C&O Canal for two years.

Located in Poolesville, Maryland, it provides tours to schoolchildren so that they can experience a typical school day as it would have been on March 13, 1880.

[8] Seneca Quarry is now overgrown with sycamore trees, tulip poplars, and dense brush such as wild rose, such that it is impenetrable much of the year.