Person:Harry Mason (1)

For most of his working life, Harry worked in the quarry at Redstone. The quarry shut down during WWII, and reopened for only one job after that - the Masonic Temple in Alexandria VA. While that was a famous job, my personal favorite is the pink foundation stone for "The Hatch Memorial", now much more commonly known as the Hatch Shell. As Harry told it, they cut the stone for the job and sent it down to Boston by train. When it got there, the workmen didn't know how they were supposed to reassemble it. Harry and another man were sent down by train to help them figure it out. Even when he was telling me the story many years after the fact, he was still disgusted with the workers down there - I guess they didn't understand his "Mason's Marks" (literally, no pun intended). The last time that Harry worked in a quarry was in the Albany Quarry in the late 1960s. The stone was brought up to Conway village and shipped south by rail. Later in life, he spent time working at "Heritage, NH", showing his large set of old tools (presumably, many from Horace) to interested tourists. They saw them as antiques, which they were, but he never stopped using them!

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Ancestry.com. World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. (Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005.Original data - United States, Selective Service System. World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Admini)
   Registration Location: Carroll County, New Hampshire; Roll: 1711716; Draft Board: 0.

   Name: Harry Wyman Mason
   Birth Date: 30 Aug 1898
   Birth Place:
   Residence Date:
   Residence Place: Not Stated, Carroll, New Hampshire

   http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=sse&db=ww1draft&h=23930289&ti=0&indiv=try

   http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=ww1draft&h=23930289&ti=0&indiv=try

2. ↑ ^2.0 2.1 United States. 1910 U.S. Census Population Schedule. (National Archives Microfilm Publication T624)
   Year: 1910; Census Place: Conway, Carroll, New Hampshire; Roll: T624_860; Page: 5B; Enumeration District: 18; Image: 568.

   Name: Harry W Madon
   Birth Date: abt 1899
   Birth Place: New Hampshire
   Residence Date: 1910
   Residence Place: Conway, Carroll, New Hampshire

   http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=sse&db=1910uscenindex&h=171482833&ti=0&indiv=try

   http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1910uscenindex&h=171482833&ti=0&indiv=try

3. ↑ ^3.0 3.1 United States. 1920 U.S. Census Population Schedule. (National Archives Microfilm Publication T625)
   Year: 1920; Census Place: Conway, Carroll, New Hampshire; Roll: T625_1007; Page: 14B; Enumeration District: 20; Image: 90.

   Name: Harrie W Mason
   Birth Date: abt 1899
   Birth Place: New Hampshire
   Residence Date: 1920
   Residence Place: Conway, Carroll, New Hampshire

   http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=sse&db=1920usfedcen&h=29584702&ti=0&indiv=try

   http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1920usfedcen&h=29584702&ti=0&indiv=try

4. ↑ ^4.0 4.1 Ancestry.com. Social Security Death Index. (Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2011.Original data - Social Security Administration. Social Security Death Index, Master File. Social Security Administration.Original data: Social Security Administration. Social Security D)
   Number: 001-01-3854; Issue State: New Hampshire; Issue Date: Before 1951.

   Name: Harry Mason
   Birth Date: 30 Aug 1898
   Birth Place:
   Death Date: Nov 1985
   Death Place: Center Conway, Carroll, New Hampshire, United States of America

   http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=sse&db=ssdi&h=39532379&ti=0&indiv=try

   http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=ssdi&h=39532379&ti=0&indiv=try

5. ↑ ^5.0 5.1 United States. 1900 U.S. Census Population Schedule. (National Archives Microfilm Publication T623)
   Year: 1900; Census Place: Conway, Carroll, New Hampshire; Roll: T623 944; Page: 26A; Enumeration District: 17.

   Name: Harry W Mason
   Birth Date: abt 1899
   Birth Place: New Hampshire
   Residence Date: 1900
   Residence Place: Conway, Carroll, New Hampshire

   http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=sse&db=1900usfedcen&h=65439372&ti=0&indiv=try

   http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1900usfedcen&h=65439372&ti=0&indiv=try

6. ↑ Conway Public Library. Conway, Carroll, New Hampshire, United States - Cemetary Lookup
   Mason, Harry W.

   Mason Harry W. son of Horace S. & Linnie F. Mason 30 Aug 1898 5 Nov 1985 Ctr Conway Village 1 4 Veteran

   http://www.conway.lib.nh.us/vitals/cemeteries.php

7. ↑ United States. 1930 U.S. Census Population Schedule. (National Archives Microfilm Publication T626)
   Year: 1930; Census Place: Conway, Carroll, New Hampshire; Roll: 1298; Page: 19B; Enumeration District: 5; Image: 576.0.

   Name: Harry W Mason
   Birth: abt 1899
   Death:

   http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=sse&db=1930usfedcen&h=7625159&ti=0&indiv=try

   http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1930usfedcen&h=7625159&ti=0&indiv=try

8.   Stewart, Chris. When Granite was King: Harry Mason Remembers The Quarry That Put Redstone On The Map
   The Moutain Ear, 6:20, 16 Oct 1981.

   "...eighty-three year-old Harry Mason still clearly remembers the way it was. Born and raised in East Conway, Harry first started working for the Maine and New Hampshire Granite Company - owners of the quarry - in 1915. He was seventeen years old. During the next twenty-eight years, Harry worked in several different jobs, starting out by carrying tools, and soon advancing to become a jackhammer operator, then derrick operator and finally the derrick foreman, a post he held for fifteen years."

9.   Hounsell, Janet McAllister. Conway, New Hampshire 1765 - 1997. (Portsmouth, Rockingham, New Hampshire, United States: Peter E Randall)
   69.

   "...The church itself was sold to Harry Mason, veteran granite worker, who planned to remodel it into a home. Finding a home close by, however, he left the old church building to decay and in time it was torn down."

10.   Hounsell, Janet McAllister. Conway, New Hampshire 1765 - 1997. (Portsmouth, Rockingham, New Hampshire, United States: Peter E Randall)
    197.

    "In 1980, Harry Mason, veteran quarryman, was eighty two and somewhat shrunken from the robust man he'd once been. However, his mind was keen and his enjoyment of life unaltered. He and his wife, Ruth, made their home in a comfortable cottage in the shadow of Rattlesnake Mountain not far from the slowing decaying school building.
    
    The quarry loomed, dark and gloomy out there, almost within reach of the Masons' neat blue painted dwelling, in which he and I sat by a fire. Harry, I learned, was born on a farm in East Conway, where his dad raised popcorn, among other things. When he was seventeen, Harry was proud to land a job as tool carrier at the bustling quarry, earning $1.50 for a full day's work. Working hard and "payin' attention," he soon got a promotion. By the time the last quarrying was being done in 1942, Harry had long been a "boss" and knew Rattlesnake Mountain like the back of his own hand."

11.   Hounsell, Janet McAllister. Conway, New Hampshire 1765 - 1997. (Portsmouth, Rockingham, New Hampshire, United States: Peter E Randall)
    198.

    "Harry recalled " the Masonic temple job." begun in February 1923 and finished in 1929. The delay came about, he said, because the organization would run out of money and have to raise more. In 1923, the local press reported, "Business is booming at Redstone as workers fulfill a contract for over $250,000." Harry remembered that the job required twenty four columns of green stone, each three feet six inches and twenty-two feet long. The plan also called for twenty four columns of pink stone. These were cut eleven feet long by five feet across, and had to be stacked one on top of another to reach the required height, because anything longer would have been too heavy to handle and ship."

12.   Hounsell, Janet McAllister. Conway, New Hampshire 1765 - 1997. (Portsmouth, Rockingham, New Hampshire, United States: Peter E Randall)
    200.

    "After the big quarrying years were over, The Pines boardinghouse figured in the World War II effort. Three crews worked in a building at the quarry with Harry Mason in charge, making shackles for submarine nets. Women workers prepared them for shipping at long tables et up in the Pines Hotel, the work continued on for a year. The shackles were made of cold-rolled steel, about one and a quarter inches wide by eighteen inches long, and shaped on special forms."

13.   Hounsell, Janet McAllister. Conway, New Hampshire 1765 - 1997. (Portsmouth, Rockingham, New Hampshire, United States: Peter E Randall)
    201.

    "As late as 1961, because of continual inquiry and popular demand for granite for fireplaces and buildings, Harry Mason owned a small compressor and worked on granite projects at the quarry. Granite fireplaces for government and stae parks were fashioned by Harry, among many other jobs. When Harry Mason left this worled he needed no memorial stone, for examples of his own stonework remain in at least two states. And, incidentally, some interesting relics of the Redstone quarry are displayed at the Maine State Mseum in Augusta."

14. ↑ Harry Wyman Mason, in Find A Grave: Center Conway Cemetery, Center Conway, Carroll County, New Hampshire
    Memorial# 57746910, Aug 26, 2010.

    Birth: Aug. 30, 1898, Conway, Carroll County, New Hampshire, USA
    Death: Nov. 6, 1985, North Conway, Carroll County, New Hampshire, USA
    Burial: Center Conway Cemetery, Center Conway, Carroll County, New Hampshire, USA
    Plot: Section 1, Block 4

15. ↑ ^{15.0 15.1 15.2}