At least three granite quarries were formerly worked on Rollstone Hill -- the McCauliff, Litchfield, and Godbeer quarries, with the McCauliff being the largest of these. Collectively they are now known as "Rollstone Hill Quarry." Granite was quarried here from before 1830 to the 1940's.
C. Stanfield Hitchen (1935) studied the pegmatites on Rollstone Hill and named the following types: (I.) Biotite type; (II.) Tourmaline type; (III.) Beryl type; (IV.) Titanite type; and (V.) Allanite type. In addition, rare calcite veins also occur. Only one pegmatite, a beryl type, showed significant zonation, and gem beryls were collected from the quartz core. A fine specimen of radiating "sunburst" schorl crystals is in the collection of the Harvard Mineralogical Museum.
References:
Carter, James G. and William H. Brooks (1830): A Geography of Massachusetts, Boston: Hillard, Gray, Little and Wilkens, p.146.
Hamlin, A. C. (1870): The Gems of the United States in Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Eighteenth Meeting, p. 212.
Dale (1910): Supplemental Notes on the Commercial Granites of Massachusetts (USGS Bulletin 470).
McCaskey, H. D. (1919): Mineral Resources of the United States 1916, p.891 (USGS)
Emerson, B. K. (1917): Geology of Massachusetts and Rhode Island (USGS Bulletin 597).
Lane, Alfred C. (1933): Age of Fitchburg Granite (Science 78:435).
Hitchen, C. S. (1935): The Pegmatites of Fitchburg, Massachusetts (American Mineralogist 20:1-24).
Kitson, John (1938): R. & M. A. Outing in Massachusetts. Western Branch. (Rocks & Minerals 13:245).
Palache, Charles. (1949): The Fitchburg Rollstone (Rocks & Minerals 24:347).
Gleba, Peter (1978): Massachusetts Mineral and Fossil Localities.
Sinkankas, John (1989): Emerald and Other Beryls, p. 557.
Gaines, R. V., et.al. (1997): Dana’s New Mineralogy, 8th Edition. Page 1264.
