Prince's Soapstone Quarry, Lafayette, Philadelphia Co., Pennsylvania, USA

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A soapstone quarry located ¼ mile S of Lafayette Station, P. & R. Railway, on the Schuylkill River. Meta-periodot, meta-pyroxenite, meta-gabbro, Wissahickon gneiss and pegmatite. Locality also includes a Pennsylvania Railroad cut, exposures in woods (vicinity of the quarry) and rock in adjacent woods, E of the quarry (debris from older excavations).

Soapstone quarry purportedly operating as early as the 18th Century, on observation of local soapstone headstones of early German-American district landowners found in the graveyard of St. Peter's Lutheran church (1761) on Church Road in Whitemarsh township, Just North of the district. The Soapstone quarry was recorded in operation by at least 1848, under the ownership of prominent Montgomery County attorney John Freedley. Purchased and operated in 1853 by wealthy Philadelphia marble merchant, Samuel Prince, the soapstone quarry became part of his country estate, aptly named "Rockdale." The quarry was listed as idle by the time of Gordon's publication (1922).

Mineral List

Actinolite Albite var: Oligoclase Almandine Ankerite Antigorite 'Apatite' Bornite

'Chlorite Group' Chrysocolla Clinochlore 'Deweylite' Dolomite Enstatite 'Hornblende' Ilmenite

'Limonite' Magnesite var: Breunnerite Magnetite Malachite Millerite 'Olivine' Pyrite Pyrrhotite

Rutile 'Serpentine Group' Staurolite Talc var: Steatite Tremolite

30 entries listed. 20 valid minerals.

References