A Presentation by Dr. Robert M. Thorson, Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Connecticut

As Robert Thorson notes in his book, Stone by Stone, “abandoned stone walls are the signatures of rural New England.” Thorson’s research on the region’s historic stone walls has revealed that the majority were built between 1775 and 1825, principally by farm families and their hired hands, to mark boundaries between properties, enclose pastures and fields, and clear the fields of stones left by the last glaciation. There are an estimated 240,000 miles of stone walls in New England—a distance longer than the entire U.S. coastline. In this illustrated presentation, Thorson will describe the history of stone walls in New England, how and why they were made, by whom, and their purposes and styles. He will incorporate the present-day ecological roles of walls and discuss how what were once barriers in the landscape now bind together the region’s cultural fabric. Finally, Thorson will offer suggestions for how landowners, towns, and other organizations can inventory and map their historic stone walls.