VINALHAVEN – For months, in a quarry, near a windmill on Vinalhaven, ‘The Four Old Guys’ toiled away on a future monument representing the town’s past.

Trained sculptor Wesley Reed and his partners, ‘The Four Fossils,’ set to work last year on a Veteran’s Memorial for the town’s soldiers. The Fossils (Fred Granger, Hugh Martin, Randy Farnham and Reed) are men in their 60s and 70s who work with granite, share a saw, and help each other as needed.

At the Swenson Quarry, surrounded by slabs of granite weighing hundreds of pounds each, the foursome set to work with their 1955 wire saw, upgraded to use as a diamond saw.

With that machine, and with some finishing help by stone mason Sandy Benne, slabs of up to five-feet high and 12-feet long slabs could be cut for the long-awaited Memorial now open to the public on Main Street.

“[The saw] really isn’t made to cut pieces this fine, but...I’m trained as a sculptor. I have a master’s in fine arts,” Reed said July 8, a day after the Memorial’s dedication ceremony.

“You take your time, you can make some pretty nice things,” he said.

Because of his work, provided to the town at a discount, and with an estimated 30 hours of his own time used, a contingent of Vinalhaven hearth from four different island quarries, donated by four different families, now stand as one on Main Street. All are united in honor of the island’s blood who fought in WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam.

“They never should have been there,” Louis Martin said of the conflicts that took his father and four brothers. And yet, “What state would this country be in if the guys hadn’t gone and fought?”

Tim Dyer’s father’s name is listed, along with some uncles, according to Reed, who relocated to Vinalhaven in 1976 from his hometown of Mexico. Dyer donated the fine-grain granite that are the tablets themselves.

Those tablets are an estimated 500 pounds, four feet deep, three inch slabs, smoothed and finely etched with each name, according to Reed. They are pinned together with stainless steel pins, and rest on bases weighing about 700 pounds.

Eighteen bases came out of one huge block of granite donated by Bill Alcorn and Del Webster, who own the old Swenson Quarry where the windmills are.

And John and Darren Jones, excavators for the project, donated the tops of the four benches that will eventually reside on site.

“[The soldiers] went through hell and high water, but at least they did serve the country,” Martin said. “You have to give them credit for that.”

Reach Sarah Thompson at news@penbaypilot.com