Building Materials - Table of Contents........................... Illustrated Architecture Dictionary

Onondaga Limestone
TEXT Beneath Illustrations

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Onondaga limestone. The dark stone is chert, also known as flint	Onondaga limestone wall in Scajaquada Expressway near Parkside	Onondaga limestone wall along Niagara River. Originally constructed when Erie Canal was being built.
The base rock of the Buffalo Lighthouse is Onondaga limestone	32 Summit Ave: Two story-garage. 1st story: Onondaga limestone which was probably quarried from the back yard, accounting for the slope. 2nd story: clapboard	361 Porter Ave foundation	Hayes Hall on UB's Main Street campus is built of two types of limestone
Delaware Park, near Parkside Lodge. Former site of Onondaga limestone quarry (next Illustration)	Delaware Park, near Parkside Lodge. Onondaga limestone quarry

Other examples from Buffalo:

• Wendt House
  
  
• Clement House/Red Cross
  
  
• Kellogg House
  
  
• 305 Elmwood Avenue
  
  
• St. Stanislaus RC Church
  
  
• Pelham Drive entry gates
  
  
• Photo: 54 Agassiz Circle
  
  
• Photo: Basement with insulation foam

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Location: Onondaga limestone is found throughout the Onondaga escarpment

Definitions:
• Onondaga: eastern Finger Lakes region of west-central New York
• limestone: a common sedimentary rock consisting mostly of calcium carbonate, used as a building stone and in the manufacture of lime, carbon dioxide, and cement. 
• chert: (chert)
  a siliceous rock of chalcedonic or opaline silica occurring in limestone
• flint: the colloquial name for chert
• escarpment: a steep slope or long cliff that results from erosion or faulting and separates two relatively level areas of differing elevations
• course: a row of stones
• ashlar: cut, rectangular stone used in walls
• rubble: irregular, uncut stone used in walls

Characteristics:

• There are chunks of black flint (chert) embedded in the gray-colored limestone. Because the chert is much harder than the limestone, limestone is hard to "dress" (trim). The village of Black Rock was named after a large black rock near the Niagara River shoreline. The rock was Onondaga limestone with a large percentage of chert.
• Quarriers have to use explosives to separate the rock

Uses:

• Was used primarily for foundations.
• There are a few houses in the Kensington district in Buffalo that are constructed of limestone.
• Today, Onondaga limestone is used primarily for crushed stone in cement aggregate and in riprap (a loose assemblage of broken stones erected in water or on soft ground as a foundation).

Onondaga escarpment:

• In Western New York, Onondaga escarpment parallels Route 5 and continues east and it crosses under the Peace Bridge into Ontario and can be seen along the northern shore of lake Erie. The Onondaga Limestone underlies the rest of Western New York in the subsurface across NY to the Hudson River Valley and down into Pennsylvania. It is a very extensive rock unit.
• Extends east to Albany. South of Albany, the escarpment is part of the Heiderbergs Mt.
• In South Central New York State, the height of the escarpment varies from 10' to 245'. There are large deposits of gas and oil in this section.
• Onondaga escarpment waterfalls in Western NY along Route 5: Scajaquada Creek in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Glen Falls in Williamsville, Akron Falls

Onondaga escarpment in Buffalo:

• Height varies considerably. One high area in Buffalo is at Masten and Best Streets where City Honors School is located. The school building, when it housed Fosdick-Masten H. S., was known as the "The School on the Hill." Another high area is at Kensington and Bailey.
• In the Kensington area, as well as in the Delaware Park and in Central Park areas, basements often had to be blasted because the bedrock was so close to the surface, i.e., next to no soil on top of the limestone.
• At Robie and Main Sts., the rock is only about one inch below the surface.

Former quarries in Buffalo:

• UB (behind Baird Hall). Filled in in the 1960s. UB Main St. campus has many Onondaga limestone buildings, e.g. Hayes Hall.
• Bennett Quarry (behind Bennett High School)
• On Kensington Expressway at Scajaquada exit, at Delavan entrance, etc.
• Next to McCarthy Park in the University Heights area in Buffalo
• Vogelsang Quarry at Main and Kensington (at Thruway entrance)
• Buffalo Crushed Stone Quarry in Cheektowaga - STILL ACTIVE

Former quarries near Buffalo:

• Stafford Quarry near Batavia, N.Y.
• Sherkston Quarry in Canada

Fogelsonger Quarry workers, c. 1890   ...   On display at the Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village Museum in November 2017 Fogelsonger had one of the most well-known quarries in the region.  His property included a geologically significant portion of the Onondaga escarpment, one of several large quarries bertween Buffalo and Rochester.  The Onondaga escarpment was the remains of a large coral reef.  Many fossils are represented in great numbers here.  You can still see the strata of limestone rock on the walls of the underpass of the Expressway under Main Street.  It was discovered that a special layer of the stone could be burned down to produce "hydraulic cement," a waterproof mortar that would harden under water and remain waterproof. The value of the local limestone deposits were so important in the building of the Erie Canal in the early 1820s that many of the grist mills, such as that belonging to John Fogelsonger, were converted to cement mills.  This quarry was run by the Fogelsonger family for over 50 years until it was sold in 1887; in 1855, four Fogelsonger families lived on the property, all in stone houses, of course [219 Park Club Lane]. The quarry on James Youngs' property, known as "Lime Ledge," covered 220 acres and according to a report from one of Young's sons, the "quarry produced the strongest and whitest of lime."    There were four lime kilns on the property, and some of the remains can still be seen.      A quarry and lime kilns were also located near Glen Park, where the Duck Pond is now.  It is quite possible that the stone for many of the houses we know today came from a small quarry near each one. - TEXT: Cohen, Lerner, & Simon, The Stone Houses of  Amherst, New York

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Special thanks to Jerry Bastedo and John Opera supplying much of the information of this page.

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Photos and their arrangement © 2002 Chuck LaChiusa
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