About one and a half miles of the slate lay underneath the river until the construction of the Concraingo Dam submerged more of it. The quarries were located near Delta, PA, Peach Bottom. P.Y. and Cardiff. MD. Slate splitters had some problems getting Peach Bottom slate to split to their satisfaction, and eighty-eight percent of the slate mined in the Peach Bottom district became fiberglass shingles. I knew this would cost the new roof owner many times the amount it would cost just to repair the roof, so I contacted the inn manager and informed her that the inn would be losing one of the best roofs in the world. She passed the word on to the owner, and it turned out that he didn’t care, because his insurance was paying to replace the roof. I then contacted the roofing contractor and offered to remove the slate, free of charge, so I could salvage them. I explained that these slates would still last hundreds of years, that they’re no longer quarried, they’re rare, and he would save a lot of work if someone removed the slate for him. etc. I told him that if he didn’t like the idea of me working on his roof job, then he could take the slate off himself and I would buy them from him. At the very least, I said I could be there when the slate was ripped off and gather them up before they went into a dump truck to he hauled to a landfill. The contractor said he’d get back to me. A couple of weeks later I drove by the inn to see the last of the Peach Bottom slate being smashed into a dumpster, while the last section of roof was having fiberglass shingles stapled to it. When I stopped and gave the contractor a piece of my mind, he didn’t seem to understand what I was saying. Perhaps I was speaking the wrong language, but then I don’t speak Neanderthal all that well.

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