Almost two years ago, Westford resident, Dan Provost stopped in at the Westford museum office. He had five small, black and white photographs taken at the Fletcher Granite Company during the late 1920s of granite panels, large friezes, depicting the Industrial Revolution of Man. The pictures had been given to him by his cousin, Leon-Pierre Coqet, from Canada, and now the two were wondering where, or on what building, the panels had been installed. The men in the old photographs were Dan's grandfather, Pierre Moreau from Roberval, PQ, Canada and Camille Boucher, his uncle. Dan says, "My grandfather came to the position of master carver at Fletcher's and supervised the carvers. He then insisted that the company hire Camille, his son-in-law." Camille was hired and became an apprentice stone-cutter and carver to Pierre. The two men were shown in the photographs, dwarfed by bulldozers and steam shovels carved in granite. Dan wanted to know if we could help find where the granite panels had been shipped to and installed. He felt they had gone to Washington, DC and been installed there on a building, but the possibility existed that they might have been taken down and stored somewhere.

Weeks went by; in August 2003, Tony Janeczek, administrator of the Westford web, posted the pictures on the Westford Historical Society website (westford.com/museum). Agencies and individuals in Washington, DC were consulted, among them, Robert Vogel, retired curator of engineering at the Smithsonian. Bill Lebovich, architectural historian and photographer, provided many names of people for us to contact. Hobie Fletcher in California thought the panels were in New York City. Finally in the summer of 2004, Patrick Harshbarger, editor for the prestigious Society for Industrial Archeology newsletter, included two of Dan's the pictures, along our request for help, in the current publication. Within days, Todd Croteau from the National Park Service responded. He thought "our panels" were on the Washington Boulevard Bridge in Los Angeles. However, it turned out that even though those panels were made in the same theme of the Industrial Revolution of Man, they were brown and black terra cotta friezes, not Fletcher granite. Next, Joel Shprentz, webmaster for the Art Deco Society in Washington, DC, offered to put our query on his website (www.adsw.org).

And, it was the Art Deco site that brought our answer, as finally, on Sunday, November 28, all our waiting and searching paid off. The panels were found by Seth Gaines, an amateur photographer specializing in photography of old buildings specifically old movie theatres, war memorials, court houses and state capitols. Seth said, "I had been following links from another site when I saw your mystery on Art Deco. I just happened to be in Harrisburg a few weeks later. I was up near Scranton [PA] on a road trip, but the rain chased me down to Harrisburg. By the time I got there, it had started to clear up. There they were, over the north and east entrances of the North Office Building on the Capitol campus in Harrisburg, PA, and I recognized them immediately." (See Seth's accompanying photos)

The North Office Building was built in 1927 as part of the Capitol complex. The panels from Fletcher's measure 8 feet by 4 feet and must have been installed during the building process.

How does one say thank you to so many people whose persistence wouldn't let us give up the search? When Dan was called with the news that the panels his grandfather and uncle had worked on so many years before had been found, you'd have thought he had just received the greatest Christmas present ever! He couldn't wait to call his relatives back in New Hampshire and Canada to give them the news - the panels had been found. However, there was one he couldn't call, as his cousin, Leon-Pierre, had died during the spring of 2004.

Unfortunately, we didn't get the answer in time for Leon-Pierre, but we can say thank you to Dan Provost, as he has provided us with another chapter in Westford's never ending history.

Submitted by Marilyn Day, Director of the Westford Historical Society