COLLECTING OPPORTUNITIES
A statement from Jeff Morrison: While I love to have collectors at the Havey, the quarry is an actively worked quarry and closed to the public. You can get access through mineral clubs throughout New England – as many do an annual trip – and I allow Poland Mining Camps to bring people in. I also allow college geology and science classes to visit and occasionally other educational groups. We do mine tours during our two annual tailgate sales although no collecting is allowed. These are promoted on the Havey Facebook page. If you want to stay updated, join our email list.
About the Havey
The Havey Mine, located in Poland, Maine, is part of the Oxford pegmatite field and is celebrated for its diverse, high-quality mineral specimens—especially gem-grade tourmaline.
Mining began around 1900, with A.R. Berry working the southern portion of the site, and Forrest Havey the northern. After roughly five decades of dormancy, Stephen Welsh revived interest in the 1990s by leasing and later purchasing the Berry Quarry.
In 2006, Jeffrey Morrison acquired the Havey Quarry and began systematic mining in 2009. Since then, the site has produced notable specimens of tourmaline, fluorapatite, quartz, beryl, hydroxylherderite, cassiterite, and others (check out the extensive mineral list on Mindat).
Specimens from the Havey Mine are featured in the Maine Mineral & Gem Museum, the Smithsonian, and other institutions, and the site remains a focus of scientific research and mineralogical interest.
Jeff Morrison Oral History
for the Maine Mineral and Gem Museum
135+ years of discovery – a Chronology of the havey
The Havey Mine has been part of Maine’s mineral story since the late 1890s. From the early feldspar operations of A.R. Berry and F.L. Havey to the modern pockets that still produce gem-quality tourmaline, the site’s history spans three centuries of exploration, craftsmanship, and scientific study. What began as a small farm quarry grew into one of Maine’s best-documented pegmatites — visited by geologists, miners, students, collectors, and enthusiasts from around the world.
Click on the button below to view a detailed chronology of major events and discoveries at the Havey, continually updated as new chapters are written underground.
JUST a few highlights…
1910–1912: Havey strikes several major tourmaline pockets that draw national media attention and letters from the American Museum of Natural History — one of Maine’s first moments on the gemological map.
2011: Cross Jewelers begins marketing “Sparhawk” tourmaline, connecting the modern Havey mine to its early-1900s legacy.
2019: The Maine Mineral & Gem Museum opens with a major Havey display, cementing its place in Maine’s mineral history.
Stories from the 2013 Mining Season
by Cross Jewelers: This is the story from the jewelers perspective as you will notice that there is barely a terminated crystal in any of the pictures. Still a wonderful read, it is the stuff that dreams are made of. Every year I hope for a repeat and are sadly let down.
Power Point Presentation: Tourmaline Discoveries at the Havey with Jeff Morrison
Maine Mineral and Gem Museum; Tourmaline Turns 200 Lecture Series
Chance Blast Reveals $100,000 in Gems and Makes Tourmaline Mine Treasure Store – Boston Sunday Post, September 4, 1910.
A fun highly sensationalized article about Havey’s big tourmaline find from over 100 years ago.
Realize that Havey made so much money from this venture that he leased out the feldspar rights to the Havey so that he could go mine feldspar in Topsham, Maine (sarcasm).
Nobody mined feldspar for fun as it was just a means of getting a small amount of cash for a lot of hard labor. Tourmaline gemstones were not a big item at that time and that was where the values they were using came from. They also didn’t understand that the gemstone yield would actually be a very small percentage of the original find.
Description of a Suite of Tourmaline Crystals. By George R. Howe. Describing some of the crystals from the 1910 era find.
Tourmaline “Find” Stirs Maine Miners. Boston Globe October 24, 1910. Another fun, very sensationalized article about the Havey.
Morphology of Recent Havey Quarry Elbaites, by R. Peter Richards and John Rakovan. Some ‘tourmaline’ science you might find interesting.
Research Posters
- Interaction of basaltic melt with gem tourmaline miarolitic cavities in the Havey pegmatite, Poland, Maine USA
- Garnet layer replacement of almanditic garnet by löllingite from the Havey pegmatite, Poland, Maine, USA
- Science Journal Articles (some articles may require a subscription to see the entire article)
VIDEOS
- Tourmaline Discoveries at the Havey with Jeff Morrison; Maine Mineral and Gem Museum; Tourmaline Turns 200 Lecture Series
- SparHawk Maine Tourmaline – The River of Gems
- SparHawk Maine Tourmaline – Ice Cream Sundae Pocket
- Sean Extracting Big Tourmaline Crystals
- SparHawk Maine Tourmaline – Under the Road Gem Pocket
- Maine Tourmaline Mining – Havey Quarry – Behind the “Pocket Fairy”
- Faceting a tourmaline from the Havey with gem cutter Justin Prim
- Sister Rosetta Tharpe – Didn’t it Rain
More information/resources
- MINDAT – Havey Mine – Hint for using the Mindat website: Look for the photo section on the top left of the page (in the banner under the mine location name). It will have photos of many of the minerals that have been found at the mine. You can also scroll down the main page for the mine and it will have a list of all the minerals that have been found at this location.
- Havey at the Maine Mineral & Gem Museum – Definitely the best place to see what the Havey has to offer and the rest of Maine’s fabulous collections of minerals and gems. They also have one of the premier collections of meteorites on the planet. There are pieces of the Havey around the whole museum. From outside in the rock garden, in the draws of the Discovery room, the jewelry store offers pieces with Havey tourmaline for sale, the pegmatite diorama was based on the Havey, the blasting video was filmed at the Havey, you might also recognize my voice yelling Danger Danger Blasting Blasting, there is a polished slice of pegmatite showing what the pegmatite looks like around the pocket area, an abbreviated version of my mining history at the Havey, in the Modern Mining Section there is a case with video and many of the great specimens that we have found along with some of the beautiful gemstones that have been faceted from our finds, plus some treasures in other areas of the museum.
- Havey at the University of Arizona Alfie Norville Gem & Mineral Museum, Tucson – This may be a little out of the way for most, but Tucson is the center of the Gem & Mineral world for several weeks in February during the annual show. A new and beautiful world class museum which we feel honored to be a small part of. On display from the Havey is a fine collection of gem quality crystals and plenty of cut gemstones along with some associated videos.
- Havey at the Smithsonian – use the ‘search’ box – input “Havey” and see what comes up!
- Havey Tourmaline at Harvard; Photo
- Cross Jewelers SparHawk Maine Tourmaline – product page with video at top
- Havey Tourmaline Bracelet by Derek Katzenbach (video)
- “The Thrill of Discovery” – An Interview with Jeff Morrison of the Havey Quarry by Sara J. Powers (PDF)
- The Paragenesis of the Granite Pegmatites of Central Maine, by Kenneth K. Landes, 1925 American Mineralogist This is a heavy read unless you want to delve into some hard science. Only a small portion of this is about the Havey.
Photos – Action Scenes from the Mine
Havey on Social media