Transportation by Team & Wagon

This image shows a work crew and a team of horses at the Downing-Bremner quarries east of Monroe Sideroad (now Oxford County Road 6).

Records from early quarries in Beachville indicate that horseshoes and harnesses needed regular maintenance or replacement. Misters Cole and Hacker spent $17.17 on shoes and harnesses for their teams at John McDonald’s general blacksmith shop between January and June of 1898. They also noted that horse medicine was purchased to improve their teams’ health.

The cost of transporting lime extended beyond the costs of maintaining teams of horses, as tolls were charged for using roads that connected the quarry to its buyers. Cole & Hacker, for example, note that $1.25 was paid for hauling lime and $2.10 for tolls in May of 1886. They also account for “freight” expenses in the late 1880s that range from $1.80 to $39.15.