Brainerd Quarries, Haddam Neck, Haddam, Middlesex Co., Connecticut, USA

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Deacon Ezra Brainerd started the first "granite" quarries in the town of Haddam when in 1762 he opened quarries on what was then called Quarry Hill in the Haddam Neck section of town on the NE side of the Connecticut River. Like the later Arnold Quarry on Great Hill in Haddam, the Brainerd Quarries became very extensive and worked the same vertically layered biotite and amphibole gneiss. A complex of abandoned workings extends along the steep slopes NE of Injun Hollow Road from opposite the (much later) Gillette Quarry 1.5 km SE to the bluffs above the former Connecticut Yankee atomic power plant. The map reference coordinates give the approximate mid-point of these quarries.

As at Long Hill and Great Hill along strike a few km south, numerous small pegmatite dikes cross-cut the gneiss. At least one was quarried for feldspar in the mid-1800s by Alfred Brainerd, Jr. Altamura (1987) and Williams (1899) place this quarry at the northern end of the quarry complex, across the road from the Gillette Quarry. These small pegmatites are typically zoned with pure quartz cores and yield aquamarine, "well-terminated" schorl, almandine (based on XRF analyses of one garnet), and rarely pocket crystals.

Williams (circa 1945) says that "Beryl crystals occur in a Feldspar vein in gneiss on the hill above the Brainerd quarry on Haddam Neck. Doubly terminated, often with the terminations for a twelfth of an inch, transparent with an emerald green color." His description was an illusion to the original description by Johnston (1841) of Wesleyan, who called them "milky mountain green", noting the clear terminal portions up to 1/4-inch thick. They were found in 1837-8 at the feldspar quarry near the northern end of the complex. While the color may be an exaggeration, these beryl crystals are on display at Wesleyan University (as are large euhedral schorls) and the Peabody Museum in New Haven (two!). Davis (1901) provides additional details on the find:

"The locality was discovered by the late Nathaniel Cook, who worked in the quarries and later made his living by mining minerals exclusively. It has been said that hunters would often come across rocks covered with tallow where he had secretly worked nights. One day this same party was at work cleaning out a well near one of the quarries, and at the bottom was a fissure extending some ways into the rock, and in running a stick up this crevice to clean it out, he knocked out several magnificent beryls of the aquamarine type, perfectly terminated hexagonal crystals of a beautiful green color, with the exception of a cap at one end, of a milky white color, extending into the crystal about, one-eighth of an inch. The late Pliny Jewell, of Hartford, brother of Marshall Jewell, ex-postmaster-general of the United States, secured many of these specimens and afterwards did considerable work at this locality."

Generally, specific mineral localities here are mostly very localized, old (pre-GPS) and poorly documented and too numerous to differentiate in the heavily forested area.

Mineral List

Albite Almandine Bertrandite Beryl

Beryl var: Aquamarine 'Columbite' Cookeite Elbaite

Fluorapatite Microcline Molybdenite Muscovite

Quartz var: Smoky Quartz Schorl 'Tourmaline var: Indicolite'

15 entries listed. 11 valid minerals.

References