We drive past the Greenville Episcopal Church perhaps three or four times each week. It’s a nice-looking old building composed we are told of brownstone. See our first photo. The church is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year and has posted a sign to that effect. That caught our attention and so did the stone it is composed of. Brownstone conjures up images of nice homes in fashionable residential neighborhoods in New York City, Brooklyn and Back Bay, Boston. We recall that the Day family in the William Powell movie ‘Life with Father,” lived in one, as did Jackie Kennedy. In fact, another meaning of the word is to describe just that sort of building.
So, what is brownstone? The answer to that question takes us back to central Connecticut or northeastern New Jersey about 250 million years. Back then these regions were witnessing the collapse of the crust beneath them. Those were major events with collapses of between 10 and 15 thousand feet. From time-to-time massive eruptions of lava were pouring out of the sinking ground and flowing across the surrounding landscapes. All this was associated with the breakup of a one-time supercontinent named Pangaea. Off to the east the continent of Africa was splitting from North America and drifting away. This left a huge gap in between; we call that gap the Atlantic Ocean.
The local landscapes were semi-arid and blanketed in deep thicknesses of red sandy soils. Early dinosaurs were to be seen everywhere. They walked across those soils and left footprints behind. Geologists today search for and find these prints. That includes us; we have one in our parlor. See our second photo. Over countless eons more and more of these sands piled up and compressed. They would eventually harden and then petrify into red sandstones. This was a good-looking stone and during the 19th century it came to be quarried and commonly used in urban architecture. New Yorkers were especially fond of this stone and hence the arrival of the brownstone neighborhoods. Greenville is not in New York City, but Episcopal church founders must have favored this stone when they built our local church. We have seen other churches built of local bluestone. That’s a variety of sandstone typical of our Catskills. It’s a lot older than brownstone. People commonly ask us how do you tell brownstone from bluestone. It’s easy: bluestone is brown, and brownstone is red, Got it?
So, most people gaze and see a nice-looking church. But you can’t judge a book by its color. We look and see dinosaurs, massive volcanic eruptions, semi-arid landscapes, splitting continents and the appearance of an ocean.
Contact the authors at randjtitus@prodigy.net. Join their facebook page “The Catskill Geologist.” Read their blogs at “thecatskillgeologist.com,”
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