by Susan Koso

About the author: Susan Koso previously served on the board of directors of the Amesbury Carriage Museum. She also volunteers as a researcher, enthusiastically shares her extensive knowledge of carriages and transportation-related history, and has supported the ACM for many years.

Between 30,000 and 15,000 years ago, the glacial ice sheet came grinding over Amesbury. It brought with it rocks of all sizes – from those the size of a small car to the tiny grains in clay. When the first colonists came in the 1600s, not many of these rocks were lying on the surface. Instead, the early settlers found rich leaf-littered soil among the many trees in the forest.

At that time, trees were plentiful, so wood fences of the rail and zig-zag type – not stone walls – were built to contain animals. Joseph Merrill in The History of Amesbury and Merrimac notes that “by 1648 very little stone walls had been built.” As the forests disappeared, cut for building supplies and fuel, by the late 1700’s stone walls became prevalent.

The stones buried in the forest soils by the glacier had started coming to the surface. Deforestation caused soils to freeze deeper, which accelerated frost heaves and gradually lifted the stony gifts brought by the glaciers through the layers of soils to the surface. And as farmers began to work the land, the stones needed to be cleared from the fields.

As Amesbury farmers encountered the rocks, they were excavated from the soil and loaded into stone boats (a kind of sledge) using a fulcrum and bar. Oxen or horses dragged the loaded boats to the edges of the fields. Some of the farmers just dumped stone along the edges, but others made fences with the rocks. These were “dry laid” walls, meaning they were constructed without mortar and held together by their own weight. Besides clearing the fields, the stone wall served to mark property boundaries.

Colonial rules required that walls be 1.2 to 1.5 meters (4 to 5 feet) in height, but most stone walls were not that high. When needed, farmers placed rail fences on top of the stone walls to increase the height. Removing rocks from fields was time consuming and body punishing. The stones in most walls average 60 to 70 pounds apiece.

According to Kevin Gardner in his instructive book, The Granite Kiss, the majority of the walls in New England were built between 1775 and 1825. John-Manual Andriote, in an Earth Magazine article, puts the peak of stone wall building between 1810 and 1840. And we believe this was also true in Amesbury. This was a period of important development in the community.

Geologist Robert Thorson, an expert on stone walls, estimates that there are “more than 100,000 miles of stonewalls (in New England), enough to circle the globe four times.” Amesbury has its share.

Stone walls are from the period when farms were small-scale and operated on a subsistence basis. By mid-19th century industrialization of agricultural techniques changed stone walls from “ornaments to obstruction”. Many were torn down and others were buried when roads were built. By 1900, more than half the cleared land in New England was rapidly becoming reforested.

A few old stone walls can still be seen in Amesbury, mostly in less developed and more rural areas. The art of the stone wall is not dead, however. Gary Landry, an Amesbury resident, is building stone walls in the town. But now building a stone wall costs between $80 - $100 per running foot.

Lest you think of relocating rock from an old stone wall for your own yard, pay heed to Massachusetts General Law, Part VI, Title 1, Chapter 266, Section 105, titled “Stone Walls or Fences, Unauthorized Removal.” It states that if you pull down or remove any portion of a stone wall, you can be fined and/or arrested without a warrant.

If you decide just to explore and inspect an old stone wall, keep in mind that it is likely to be on private property. Please do not trespass. Always ask permission before venturing onto private land.

Acknowledgements: The author thanks these Amesbury residents for research assistance: Maryann Connor-Ives, Susan Favaloro, Jennifer Freeman, Andy Gilmore, Kerry Macdonald-Richard, Robin Papkey, Judy Romano, Tina Wallace and Barbara Worsley.

References:

John-Manuel Andriote, “The History, Science and Poetry of New England Stone Walls,” Earth Magazine.

Kevin Gardner, The Granite Kiss, The Countryman Press, Woodstock, VT, 2001.

Anna Kusner, “New England is Crisscrossed With Thousands of Miles of stone Walls”, www.atlasobscura.com.

Gary Landry, President, Landry Construction Company, interview May 25, 2019.

Massachusetts General Laws.