Silas was considered Rochester's greatest stone cutter. Silas was a man of many talents. Not only was he a great stone-cutter, he also was a politician, judge, and deputy sherriff. He helped created stone monuments that are still in use today. Pictures of his two most famous works are displayed below.

Transcribed beneath the pictures is an 1899 Rochester Courier Article about Silas.

For many years Mr. Silas Hussey has been prominent in both the public and business life in Rochester. He is a native of this city, and learned the trade of stone-cutting in Quincy, Mass. For two and one-half years following, he was in Lawrence, Mass., and in much of the work which has developed that city he bore a prominent part. He was one of the "forty-niners" who sought the golden fleece in California, and in that state he remained three and a half years. He returned East, but again, in 1863, revisited California this time staying about a year and a half. He then returned to Rochester, and has been in business for himself since. He is an expert in granite work, and in his yard off Charles Street, everything in cemetery, monumental and building granite is cut. There may be seen superior specimens of the granite-worker's art. The soldiers' monument in this city, and cemetery work in Rochester and many other places, are of his production. He has done much factory and other building work. He put in the dam, and did much other work for the mills at East Rochester. He tapped and put in the gate-house at Round Pond, and the stone bridge on Market Street is of his building; the foundation and all granite work in McDuffee Block and Hayes' Block in this city, are off his production. These are but a few of the many important works in which Mr. Hussey has been engaged, and there is no branch of granite work with which he is not familiar. Not only is he an expert as a workman, but he has a thorough knowledge of stone, is an exceptionally good judge of it's quality, and believes in doing work thoroughly and well. The steam polishing machine is run by a fifteen-horse power engine.

Aside from his private business, Mr. Hussey has taken an active interest in public matters. He is thoroughly independent, and when his judgement has dictated otherwise, he has been unfettered by party ties. He is of positive character, has ideas of his own, and has always had the courage to express them. In 1854 he was appointed deputy sherriff; In 1869 he was representative to the state legislature, and the year following declined re-election. He was a police court judge of Rochester in 1876. An idea of his activity and energy may be gathered from the fact, that in the campaign of Jacob Ela for congress, Mr. Hussey delivered 49 speeches on the stump in the four counties composing the congressional district, while in the Tilden and Hayes campaign of 1876 he delivered six speeches in this city alone.