Babson Farm Quarry

The Babson Farm Quarry is the flooded granite pit in Halibut Point State Park in Rockport. It was worked for close to a hundred years and abandoned in 1929, then filled with water from rain, runoff and springs in its floor. DCR's Babson Farm Quarry Trail circles it in an easy 0.7-mile loop from the Gott Avenue lot, with ten numbered stops explained in a self-guided brochure. Swimming in the quarry, or entering it at all, is prohibited.

Can You Swim in the Quarry?

No. DCR's rule is short: no swimming or entering the quarry for any reason. The Trustees post the same rule. If you want to swim, Rockport's town beaches are the place for it.

The Quarry Loop

DCR lists the Babson Farm Quarry Trail as its introductory hike at Halibut Point: a 0.7-mile loop, rated easy, starting from the parking lot on Gott Avenue. DCR's guided quarry walk describes wide gravel trails and about a mile around the quarry.

Download the self-guided tour brochure from DCR before you go. It has ten numbered stops. The trail map page lists the other official maps.

What the Ten Stops Show

1. The quarry itself, abandoned in 1929. Quarrymen kept it dry by hand and bucket, by oxen and winch, and by the 1860s mostly with steam engines running day and night.
2. Hoisting machines. Derricks lifted the stone; around 1910 four were working here, one able to lift 40 tons, and a 107-foot mast went up in 1912.
3. Dog holes: holes in the stone that hold the derrick's giant hooks.
4. Dead men: the anchors for the cables that held a derrick. It took at least six per derrick.
5. A motion: the quarrymen's word for a small quarry, usually worked by two men cutting paving blocks.
6. Splitting the stone: from about 1840, round drills replaced chisels, and half-round shims replaced flat shims.
7. The grout pile. From the top you might see the Sandy Bay Breakwater off Rockport Harbor. Do not climb its sides; DCR warns the stones are unstable.
8. Steam drills, invented in the 1880s.
9. Granite bollards. Cape Ann granite built bridges, tunnels, government buildings, warehouses and monuments, and paved thousands of city streets.
10. The decline. The Rockport Granite Company went out of business within a year of the 1929 closing.

A Short History of the Granite

DCR's brochure dates the rock at about 450 million years old. Pawtucket people used this part of Cape Ann as a summer home long before colonial settlers arrived in the 1690s, but nobody cut the granite into blocks until the 1800s. Local men opened a quarry here around the middle of that century. Cape Ann granite weighs 168 pounds per cubic foot,.

In 1910 the Rockport Granite Company bought a train engine, christened the Nella, to haul granite from the quarry to the pier at Folly's Cove. Much of the stone from Halibut Point went into the Sandy Bay Breakwater, which the federal government began in 1885 and stopped in 1915. The Trustees list streets, bridges, tunnels, monuments and Boston's Custom House Tower among the things built from granite cut here.

Brown seam-faced granite gets its color from iron oxide. In the 1800s it was undesirable. After 1900 it came into fashion as a veneer for buildings, polished to a high gloss.

Guided Quarry Walks

DCR runs free public programs here. In fall 2026 its Saturday walk, When Granite Was King, met at the park entrance from 10 to 11 am on four September dates and covered about a mile of gravel trail around the quarry. Programs change by season; check the visitor center page for how to ask.

Good For

• Families and first-time visitors: DCR rates the loop easy and the paths are wide gravel.
• Anyone curious about how granite was quarried before machines did the work.
• A short visit. The Trustees suggest allowing at least an hour, or two if you also visit the visitor center and museum.

Maybe Skip If

• You came to swim. Go to a town beach instead.
• You want a longer, rougher coastal walk. DCR's Atlantic Path trek runs about 4 miles round trip; see hiking.