Stone by Stone: The Magnificent History in New England's Stone Walls

by Robert M. Thorson

Book Overview

There once may have been 250,000 miles of stone walls in America's Northeast, stretching farther than the distance to the moon. They took three billion man-hours to build. And even though most are crumbling today, they contain a magnificent scientific and cultural story--about the geothermal forces that formed their stones, the tectonic movements that brought them to the surface, the glacial tide that broke them apart, the earth that held them...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802776876
• ISBN13: 9780802776877
• Release Date: March 2004
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Length: 287 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

Wonderful- Geological, Historical and Poetic

This book covers both the geological and historical elements of the New England stone walls. Very broad but not over broad, he covers the many different types of walls and their regions. The last part of the book evolves into a poetic meditation on the grace and value of the walls, very genuine and with obvious affection for these mysterious and beautiful relics of New England.

Why New England's Stone Walls Must Be Protected

Since I returned "home" to Connecticut, I have become fascinated by the stone walls to be found everywhere here and throughout New England. I've been especially intrigued seeing the old walls running through the forests by the sides of highways. After just finishing Robert Thorson's interesting and clearly written book Stone By Stone, I realize my fascination and intrigue are well-founded. Mr. Thorson, a geology professor at the University of Connecticut, is recognized as New England's leading authority on the region's historic stone walls. In this book, he takes us far back in time to the earth's cooling, the continents' splitting apart and the glaciers' icy grip on the land to show how rocks and stones were formed. He brings us on a journey up through history to the present, showing why the time and tools were finally right in the early to mid-19th century to construct the tens of thousands of miles of stone walls found throughout New England. He explains why these walls are such a special feature of New England's history and New Englanders' sense of ourselves as people who belong to a distinct and distinctive place. And he argues eloquently for preserving these walls against those who are selling and plundering them, literally carting off stone walls that took decades to build simply to lend faux gravitas and authenticity to new construction in areas that are "stone-poor," as he puts it. As he says, archeology is being sacrificed to become mere architecture and, in the process, what should be viewed as sacred pieces of our heritage are being lost forever. Anyone interested in stone walls and in what makes New England the unique place it is should read this excellent book.

Densely enjoyable

Thorson's discussion of frost heave is so wonderful I no longer resent picking those damn rocks out of the garden. Well, I still don't like those damn cobbles and pebbles but at least now it makes sense. I lived on sand in Schenectady, NY for awhile and I almost forgot how easy mending that lawn was, you could dig without a shovel, but New England called me home and alas this is a land of rocks, but walking through the woods here in Massachusetts with its stranded rock walls, whose existence in trackless woods makes one wonder who built them, so long ago that the trees surrounding them are well over 100 feet high, humbles one, such a long history, so many generations gone, you can feel the hard labor that must have gone into hauling these tons of rock, these walls that run up and down hillsides through woods that haven't seen farming in over 150 years. I loved the soil talk, the geology, the history lesson, this is real history, the story of the people, explaining the reasons for the individual decisions of the many; the big history moves are the result of the many many little historical imperatives. If you live in New England or any other glaciated terrain, you should read this book, you will find your surroundings, your own neighborhood woods, a source of new fascination.

Solidly Magnificent

"The stone walls of New England stand guard against a futurethat seems to be coming too quickly. They urge us to slow downand to recall the past."This is only one of the many observations that Professor Thorsonconcludes his marvelous book with. I must admit that his final,summarizing chapter actually brought a tear to my eye - hardlyto be expected from a book on geology and regional historymixed with, amongst other topics, some anthropology.In other words this book has enough of everything to satisfy every curiosity you might have about those tumbled down rowsof stones found in just about every New England forest and suburb. A surprising wealth of information on numerous topics.Fascinating scientific and cultural and historical background -far more than one would ever expect to encounter consideringthe topic. And Professor Thorson's writing style is commendablyclear and readable, with a poet's affection for his topic.Quite simply one of the best nonfiction books I think I have everread (and I read quite a lot), for its perfect fusion of research, understanding and sentiment.Almost an answer to my prayers during so many long, wandering and wondering forest walks. I encourage you to read this book.

A remarkably thought-provoking book

As a native New Englander, I have long held stone walls to be an intrinsic element of life. I remember playing as a child on the rows of grey rocks marking out fields on my grandfather's farm. When my parents built their new house on part of that farm, the old stone wall in front was preserved to bound the new lawn. One of the genuine pleasures I find where I now live is that when I walk out into our front yard, I am almost literally surrounded by stone walls from when that land was a farm, walls that I have now learned to name "tossed" and "single" as labels of style. As I drive to work I see miles of stone walls bordering the back roads and, especially after recent snow, I glimpse long, thin, arthritic stony fingers stretching across the hillsides beneath barren trees. At home when I sit at my computer desk, I look out the side window along one of those tossed walls, its glacier-rounded boulders grey-green with lichen. A few weeks ago I ambled along its line, retrieving stones that had fallen among pine needles and leaves, putting them once again atop the wall for another month, year, decade.I find these old walls vitally beautiful - not particularly the prettified, careful walls of ornamentation, but rather those rough farm walls whose beauty is rooted in unpretentious utility. A New England stripped of these stone walls would be a place immeasurably poorer in ways not readily computed in dollars. Robert M. Thorson, a professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Connecticut has detailed the origin and natural history and modern threats to these walls in "Stone By Stone: The Magnificent History In New England's Stone Walls." Road improvements and housing developments have been major agents in the destruction of these old walls, bulldozing away our stony history to clear room for something new, but more recently a more insidious development threat has been growing: the purchase and demolition of existing old walls to be re-erected (in a much more regular and "improved" style, I am sure) as decorative ornamentation for new-built mini-mansions springing up like mushrooms across the land, a counterfeit of old authenticity purchased by destroying the real thing. Thorson's book is a rallying point for those concerned about such loss.But "Stone By Stone" is not mere polemic in support of the latest good cause; it provides an education in not only the history of the stone walls themselves, but also of the geophysical processes that quite literally underlie (and undermine) the walls. Thorson explains that few stones poked above the surface in newly cleared New England fields. For perhaps a few decades after these new fields were turned to tillage or pasture, they remained clear. And then, almost as if by magic, stones would emerge from the soil. Although plows played some role in this, frost heaving and allied causes were mostly behind the phenomenon, along with plain old soil erosion. Depending on soil type and rock size and