Rosendale cement

KEYWORDS natural cement, Rosendale, historic mortars, historic concrete, historic stucco, mortar formulation, lime mortars... 

KEYWORDS Roman cement, natural cement, Rosendale cement. Prompt cement, hydration of cements, porosity, strength, calcium alumlnate hydrates... 

FIG. 5—The Century Cement Plant in Rosendale (ca. 1955) was the last cement works to manufacture natural cement in North America. This plant was operational between 1928 and 1970 (collections of the Century House Historical Society). 

Rosendale natural cement quickly became popular enough to compete for business in regions with... 

FIG. 7—Simplified stratigraphic column of the Ordovician, Silurian, and Devonian rock units exposed in the Rosendale natural cement region. Dolostone from the Rosendale and Whiteport members of the Upper Silurian Rondout Formation was used in the production of natural cement. The Glasco Member of the Rondout Formation was not suitable for natural cement production. Stratigraphic thicknesses after Waines and Hoar [13] (please refer to discussion therein for information regarding geologic units not mentioned within this text). 

FIG. 9—Photograph looking north into an abandoned cement mine in the Rosendale Member of the Rondout Formation (see also Fig. 7) in the west-dipping limb of the Hickory Bush anticline near the Fourth Binnewater Lake (Fig. 1). This mine was completed in strata that are dipping at roughly 80° from horizontal. Pillars are approximately 4-m (13-ft) tall. 

As discussed earlier, manufacturers in the Rosendale natural cement region used the Delaware and Hudson Canal, the Rondout Creek, and the Hudson River to transport their products to market Factories along the Delaware and Hudson Canal (now State Route 213 and Creek Locks Road) generally loaded barrels of cement directly onto barges from company-owned docks (Fig. 11). Cement works located inland near the Binnewater Lakes, Hickory Bush, and Whiteport, with no direct access to the canal, utilized either the Wallkill Valley Railroad or other creative methods for transporting their goods to nearby docks. One such innovative solution was a horse-drawn railroad that connected remote cement works near Hickory Bush with docks on the Rondout Creek at Eddyville (Fig. 12). 

Lewis, F., The Plant of the Lawrence Cement Company, Binnewater, NY, and The Plant of the New York and Rosendale Cement Company, Rondout, NY, The Engineering Record—The Cement Industry, Descriptions of Portland and Natural Cement Plants in the United States and Europe, with Notes on Materials and Processes in Portland Cement Manufacture, 1900, pp. 151-168. 

KEYWORDS mortar analysis, natural cement, petrography, Rosendale, historic binders, masonry... 

FIG. 1—High Bridge over the Harlem River in New York City. The photograph was taken before 1927 when masonry piers over the river were removed to accommodate a steel span to allow for larger naval ships to pass. The picturesque New York landmark was constructed using Rosendale cement manufactured several tens of miles north along the Hudson River. 

FIG. 2—Close-up photograph of a polished cross section of concrete produced with Rosendale natural cement. The arrows indicate visible tan colored lumps of residual cement. Large unreacted or partially grains such as these are relatively common in historic construction materials and greatly aid the forensic petrographer in identifying the binder. The included scale is in inches. (See color insert for color version of this figure). 

FIG. 10—This plane polarized photomicrograph illustrates a residual grain of Rosendale natural cement circa 1850. Rhombic-shaped crystals of calcined dolomite are surrounded by reddish rims of an ironbearing mineral phase (arrow). Note the similarity to the laboratory produced cement depicted in Fig. 9. This microtexture is diagnostic of natural cements produced from dolomitic raw materials and is never observed in portland cements or limes. (See color insert for color version of this figure). 

Manuscript received May 5, 2006 accepted for publication October 26, 2006 published online December 2006. Presented at ASTM Symposium on Natural Cement Conference on 30 March 2006 in Rosendale, NY M. Edison, Guest Editor. 

States and Canada at various times during that period, and composition was highly variable. More than half of aU of the more than 35 miltion tons of natural cement produced in the United States originated with cement rock mined in Ulster County, New York, in and around the Town of Rosendale in the Hudson River Valley. Major secondary centers of production were located along the Potomac, James, and Ohio Rivers. 

FIG. 5—Remains of the former Century Cement Company plant in Rosendale, NY, last of the original natural cement producers in the United States, closed in 1970. Natural cement mining in Rosendale was restarted in 2004for production of natural cement for use in historic restoration. (Photograph Courtesy of Michael Edison, 2004.)... 

Formulating Historic Mixes with Rosendale Natural Cement... 

Beyond the traditional uses and the recently renewed capacity to repair natural cement buildings and stmctures in kind, natural cement holds great promise as a specialty material for use in a variety of restoration and preservation applications. They promise to be a resource that will remain in good supply, as well. Unlike the exhausted or inaccessible sources elsewhere, the mines in Rosendale, New York, still... 

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