The Miraculous Stonewall
by Frances Sandiford

Until recently, whenever I came across an older stonewall I felt like I was straddling two time periods. One is that of the practical farmers who converted the nuisance of stones littering their fields into dry walls that marked their property boundaries and fenced in their livestock. The other is that of well-to-do property owners, who have walls built as ornaments for aesthetic purposes or the display of wealth—a period that continues today.

The local historical interest of these old stonewalls can indeed be fascinating: Who lived on this land in years past? What was the significance of the wall that they built? I had an ecological eye-opener, however, when I read a book entitled Exploring Stone Walls by Robert Thorson, a professor of geology at the University of Connecticut. The opening chapter of the book begins, "When we encounter a stone wall in the deep woods, we instinctively think of the place as being desolate. This is an illusion. Every stone wall is animated with life … Every wall is part of the broader habitat in which we, and other animals, live our live." Thorson talks about old stonewalls, not as relics of history, but as an integral part of a woodland ecosystem, more alive today even than when the walls were first built.

Stonewalls are apartment houses for small creatures, but no one pays rent. On the top floor, the capstone of the wall, the fat rattlesnakes bask in the sun. Every little hole between the stones is home for some creature. Salamanders creep around snatching worms and insects. Toads love the crevices, so do spiders, centipedes, pill bugs, ground beetles, and ants. The larger holes are taken over by chipmunks, mice, squirrels, possums, skunks, and raccoons. Birds fly down to pick up seeds, and snails sleep in the tiny cracks, which are too tiny for anything else. Thorson gives special recognition to the problems stonewalls pose for the turtle. As if blacklisted by the other tenants, the turtle with its capacious shell can find neither a home in the wall nor a passage through it. It can't climb over so it is forced to wander until it finds a gate or some other opening.

In addition to being the home of small animals, stone walls affect the ecosystem and attract the eye as a kind of perennial gallery of natural art. Thorson describes his pleasure in watching the colors change on the surface of a wall in his neighborhood, from brownish gray in winter to pale greenish gray in early spring to verdant green in summer, and back to the dark green of hemlock before winter comes again. These colors are a sign that the wall is alive with bacteria, algae, and lichen throughout the changing seasons.

Older stonewalls affect the ecosystem in other ways too. They are often built in spots to prevent soil erosion. Thorson writes, "If all these stone walls—probably more than 100,000 miles of them—vanished today, a surge of physical and biological changes would ripple through the landscape." Not only would there be both massive erosion and an eviction of creatures running back into the fields but, according to Thorson, distinct areas of woodland and animal habitat "formerly kept apart by the stones would blend together." The results could be disastrous. Alas, many people are not heeding Thorson's warnings. In Connecticut, and even in Dutchess County, homeowners with old stone walls on their properties are being asked to sell them so they can be rebuilt in another person's yard for solely decorative purposes.

Why can't new wall-builders simply buy new stones from a quarry? Newer stones are expensive, explains another local mason, David Mastri, and usually don't have the "right look." But re-used stones do not always work well. These older, weathered stones are often very difficult to make into walls, according to writer and historian Cynthia Philip. Nevertheless, some ardent collectors are willing to purchase or apparently even steal them to get the effect they want.

Local mason Al Wenhardt says he has noticed that the capstones on the tops of double-sided walls along some highways are missing. He doesn't like to call this "stealing," but what other name can we give to someone walking away with the prized older, weathered stones from public land? Thorson writes: "to thoughtlessly strip-mine stone walls . . to sell them as if they were so much rubble, is to unravel the binding threads that hold our patchwork landscape of culture and nature together."

Instead of trying to relocate and "possess" these objects of natural beauty, I suggest we all learn to revere and appreciate them wherever we find them. After all, admission is free to this year-round open air natural art show.

Viewing Stonewalls

Kathy Kinsella, Rhinebeck Superintendent of Highways, says that two of the best places for viewing older stonewalls in her town are Wurtemburg and River Roads. Local mason David Bathrick suggests the town of Clinton, specifically Browns Pond and Mountain View Roads. Actually, it's possible to find walls almost anywhere in rural Dutchess County.