The story of the Gorman brothers (Michael and Patrick) in America began in 1864 when Michael, who had been born in 1845 in Ireland and moved as a boy to Preston, England, at age twenty, came to this country, settled in Bolton, and started to follow the occupation of a farmer.

After the flood of 1869, Michael saw the possibilities of much work in the replacing of dams and bridges that had been washed away and called upon his younger brother, Patrick, born in 1849, who was still in England, to come to the United States.

The brothers formed a partnership as stone and mason contractors that lasted for over thirty years. Their first quarry, purchased in 1890, was in Glastonbury, a short distance over the Manchester town line. Because they had work in all parts of the town and to save cartage, which was all done by horse teams, the brothers purchased the Wolcott red sandstone quarry in Buckland, near Wapping Road.

Many of Manchester�s bridges washed away by floods were either rebuilt or enlarged by the Gorman brothers. Cheney brothers� bridge at Park Street and the stone wall and storage section north of that bridge were built under the direction of Patrick Gorman while Michael operated the quarries.

Many of the houses built in Manchester in the 1880s and 1890s used stone work furnished by the Gorman brothers.

Over the years, the brothers expanded their business to include heavy trucking, masonry contracting, and house and commercial building construction. They also built many houses for their own investment.

           

  

Ed. Note 1: Bob Gorman was born in Manchester in 1922 and has lived here most of his life. He is related to the Quarrymen -- Michael Gorman was his grandfather, and Patrick Gorman was his great-uncle.

Ed. Note 2: There are 2 videos related to this subject, on our "Selected YouTube Videos" page.
• If you access the page itself, they are numbers 2 and 24.
• If you would like to access the videos directly, please click   2: Case Quarry   and   24: Quarried Rock.

Reader Reminiscence: Regarding the first picture in the second row above, Eileen Sweeney of the Historical Society wrote us the following remembrance:
Robert O�Connell�s wife uses the former Gorman mansion for her senior-services business. Robert�s mother, Roberta Gorman O�Connell, is the cousin of Bob Gorman (author of the above article). Roberta still lives in the yellow house behind this one. The Gorman/O�Connell family still owns the houses along Gorman Place and the one on the corner of Linden Street at the top of Gorman Place. My father, Maxwell Hollis Jacobs (06/24/1920 - 04/26/1997), rented a room in that house as a young man, from Mrs. Elizabeth Gleason Gorman, wife of Thomas Gorman and uncle of Bob Gorman. My father used to take us back to visit her when I was very small. Robert took me on a tour of the house not long ago as he was doing maintenance. Bob and I wonder if Elizabeth is related to my Gleason side.
-- Eileen