Debora Toll iverECSU EDU563

June 2012A TIME LINE FOR

CONNECTICUT’S STONEWALLS

http://gonewengland.about.com/library/users/ucctstonewall.htm

The Age of Ice & Pre-European North America

• 23,000 years ago: Laurentide ice sheet begins to retreat• 20,000 years ago: sea levels

rising because of deglaciation• 16,000-17,000 years ago:

Southern New England deglaciation (tundra conditions)• 13,000-14,000 years ago:

Northern New England deglaciation (tundra conditions)• 9,000-10,000 years ago: Closed-

canopy deciduous forest• 1,000 years ago: Deforestation

http://clasfaculty.ucdenver.edu/callen/1202/Climate/GenCirculation/Laurentide.jpg

Coastal Living (1500-1740)Early Plantations & Colonial

Towns

• 1500-1600: Coastal exploration and fishing stations• 1607: North Virginia Company• 1620: Plymouth Colony

(Pilgrims)• 1630: Massachusetts Bay

Colony• 1692: Town of Lebanon, CT was

deeded to a collective of colonists• 1695: 350 settlers took place in

Lebanon, CT• 1711-1734: Cattle drives from

Lebanon, CT to Boston, MA created a network of roads and a system of water management, including dams and mills

http://www.hinmanfamily.com/strat.htm

Rapid Interior Settlement (1740-1830)brought intense building of stone walls

http://jmsalsich.edublogs.org/2011/06/15/a-childs-day-in-colonial-connecticut/ http://

www.stonewall.uconn.edu/GeogofWallGallery.htm

http://www.stonewall.uconn.edu/Classification.htm

http://www.theday.com/images/static/PDF/elan_fall_2009.pdf

http://robertfrostoutloud.com/MendingWall.html

• 1755: The Great Earthquake (Cape Ann, MA) many stone walls tipped • 1763: Treaty of Paris ended the

French and Indian War• 1776-1783: Revolutionary war

left many farms untended and fieldstones accumulated faster than they could be hauled away• 1775-1825: The Frenzy of wall

building millions of stone walls were built• 1787-1794: Agricultural

societies and journals were established in every state• 1816: The year without a

summer Tambora Volcano in Indonesia eruptions and ash darkened the skies• 1819: Market panic – U.S. farm

production fell to less than half their former, long-term average

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/events/1755_11_18.php

http://www.ranker.com/pics/N1000109535/mount-tambora-event-photo-u1

Connecticut• 1796: Lebanon, CT had

more than 13,700 acres of cattle pasture on the town’s tax list• 1800: only 4% of

Connecticut residents lived in cities, every third person was a child younger than 5 years old, and only one person in six was older than 45• 1800-1830: Economic

reasons for using stones for fences: shortage of wood and abundance of stones, ended labor cost of repeated fence construction, conserve disappearing timber resources• 1811: City of New Haven

consumed 7,500 full cords of wood

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~woodworth/ne/lebanon.htm

http://www.historyoflebanon.org/aboutus.htm

Changes in Farming and Trade• 1812-1840: Tools for farming

changed horse-drawn hay rake widespread in 1820s; multi-bottomed metal plows and specialized seed drills in 1830s; McCormic’s mechanical reaper in 1834• 1819-1829: Watershed decade for

New England• 1825: Erie Canal completed• 1829: First overland railroad ended

the Watershed decade

http://www.machine-history.com/Agricultural%20Machinery

http://www.greatlakescruising.com/bssa/locks-legends.php

http://historicaltidbits.blogspot.com/2011/10/1829-lion-railroad-locomotive.html

• 1861-1864: Civil war• 1852: Rock crusher (stone eating monster) invented and accelerated disappearance of stone walls• 1862: Homestead Act gave away rich fertile land• 1874: barbed wire came into widespread use• 1908: Ford Motor Company Model T

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~blinkofamily/pafx10.htm

http://www.dipity.com/Griffincrowley/personal/

http://www.arthursclipart.org/transport/land/cars/page_01.htm

http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/civil_war_series/15/sec8.htm

Abandonment of farms (1830-1910)

http://www.beavercoveart.com/1902FarmsAG.jpg

Department of Agriculture New England Stone Wall Fencing Census & Report (1871-1872)

the first and last national census on fences• Approximately 240,000 miles (819,088,710 feet) of stone walls in New England. That’s longer that the U.S. coastline, or even the distance to the Moon at perigee!• It has been estimated that forty million man days of effort would have been required to build them. Furthermore, the census indicates that the average length of stone wall around an average 107 acre New England farm could have been built with a two-man crew in less than two days per year. The average farmer probably spent twenty-two times as much effort to heat his home as to clear his fields of stone.• 33% of the fences in Connecticut were being made of (or partly made of) stone

Rediscovery of Rural New England (20th Century)• 1910-1968: Suburban expansion changed the attitudes toward New England stone walls• Early 1900s: Archaeologists, landscape architects, physical geographers, foresters, soil scientists, and engineers began to locate and describe stone walls• End of 1800s to mid-1900s: Stone walls were being filtered through poetry, paintings, novels, photographs, and oral traditions• Howard Mansfield (writer: In the Memory House)• Henry David Thoreau (writer)• Robert Frost (writer: poem - Mending Wall)• J.B. Jackson (writer)• Eric Sloane (writer)• George Perkins (writer: Man and Nature)• J. Alden Weir (artist)• Samuel Chamberlain (photographer)• Wallace Nutting (photographer) http://poulwebb.blogspot.com/2012/01/julian-alden-weir-

part-1.html

Suburbanization/sprawl (1960-1980)• Made possible by the interstate highway system• CT River Valley (from New Haven, CT to Brattleboro, VT) was nearly fully developed• Early part of sprawl focused on toxic waste or on preserving wilderness areas• Aldo Leopold (Sand Country

Almanac)• Rachel Carson (The Sea Around Us)• Bill McKibben (The End of Nature)• 1969: National Environmental Protection Act• 1971: Curtis Fields book The Forgotten Art of Building Stone Walls• 1969-present: environmental awareness

http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-illustration-1585993-connecticut-highway-map-vector.php

http://www.barharborbookshop.com/ap_curtis_fields_p.html

References• Thorson, R.M. (2002). Stone by stone: The magnificent history in New England’s stone walls. New

York, NY: Walker & Company.

Resources for Education• The Stone Wall Initiative (SWI) Education: http://stonewall.uconn.edu/Education.htm• The Geology of Colonial New England Stone Walls: http://

www.primaryresearch.org/stonewalls/schweizer/index.php• Stone Walls of North Eastern Connecticut: http://www.qvctc.commnet.edu/brian/smith/stone.html• Stone Wall Preservation Laws: http://www.cga.ct.gov/2009/rpt/2009-R-0194.htm• Stone Wall Preservation (SWI): http://stonewall.uconn.edu/ConserveIntro.htm• Robert M. Thorson Books• Hartland Land Trust Stone Wall Discovery Project: http://www.hartlandlandtrust.org/stonewalls.html

http://polizeros.com/2007/10/07/gungywamp/

Gungywamp near Groton CT

Curriculum standards - 4th grade integrated unitStone Walls in Connecticut

Social Studies: (S.S. Curriculum Framework 2011)• 1.2: Significant events in local and Connecticut history and their connections to

United States history• GLE 4: Research the significance of CT historical sites• GLE 5: Analyze the impact of historical changes on the state or region

• 1.4: Geographical space and place.• GLE 8: Locate man-made and physical characteristics of Connecticut

• 1.8: The Interactions between citizens and their government in the making and implementing of laws• GLE 15: Explain the process for making and implementing laws in Connecticut

• 1.10: How limited resources influence economic decisions• GLE 19: Hypothesize how people use their personal resources

• 2.1: Access and gather information from a variety of primary and secondary sources including electronic media• GLE 4: Summarize information from primary and secondary sources

• 2.2: Interpret information from a variety of primary and secondary sources including electronic media• GLE 6: Distinguish between useful and irrelevant information

Curriculum standards - 4th grade integrated unitStone Walls in Connecticut

Social Studies: (continued)• 2.3: Create various forms of written work to demonstrate an understanding of

history and social studies issues• GLE 7: Create written work to describe historical events, people and/or places

using evidence• GLE 8: Organize information in outlines and graphic organizers

• 2.4: Demonstrate an ability to participate in social studies discourse through informed discussion, debate and effective oral presentation• GLE 9: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions with diverse

partners on social studies topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly

• GLE 10: Present information orally and answer questions about a social studies topic

• 2.5: Create and present relevant social studies materials using both print and electronic media• GLE 11: Prepare accurate charts or graphs depicting relevant social studies

information• 3.3: Apply appropriate historical, geographic, political, economic and cultural

concepts and methods in proposing and evaluating solutions to contemporary problems• GLE 4: Analyze articles from appropriate sources that propose solutions to

contemporary issues

Curriculum standards - 4th grade integrated unitStone Walls in Connecticut

Arts: (Arts Curriculum Framework)• ART – CS4: History and Cultures - recognize that the visual arts have a history

and a variety of cultural purposes and meanings• Art – CS6: Connections – recognize that works of visual art are produced by

artisans and artists working in different cultures, times and places• MUSIC – CS4: Composition – Create and arrange music to accompany readings

or dramatizations Language Arts: (Common Core State Standards)• RI.4.3: Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific,

or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text

• RI.4.6: Compare and contrast a firsthand and secondhand account of the same event or topic; describe the differences in focus and the information provided

• W.4.1: Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information

• W.4.8: Recall relevant information from experiences or gather relevant information from print and digital sources; take notes and categorize information, and provide a list of sources

• W.4.9: Draw evidence from literary or information texts to support analysis, reflection, and research

• SL.4.1: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions with diverse partners on grade 4 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Curriculum standards - 4th grade integrated unitStone Walls in Connecticut

Mathematics: (Common Core State Standards)• 4.MD.6: Measure angles in whole-number degrees using a protractor. Sketch

angles of specified measure• 4.G.1: Draw points, lines, line segments, rays, angles (right, acute, obtuse), and

perpendicular and parallel lines. Identify these in two-dimensional figuresScience: (Science Curriculum Standards 2011)• 4.2.a.: When the environment changes, some organisms survive and reproduce,

and others die or move to new locations. • GLE 1: Give examples of ways that living and nonliving things are

interdependent within an ecosystem• GLE 2: Draw diagrams showing how the sun’s energy enters and is transferred

from producers to consumers in a local land or aquatic food chain• GLE 3: Design and conduct simple investigations to record interactions among

producers, consumers, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores and decomposers in an ecosystem

• GLE 4: Analyze food webs to describe how energy is transferred from plants to various animals in an ecosystem

• GLE 5: Distinguish between naturally occurring changes in ecosystems and those caused by human activity

• GLE 6: Predict the effect an environmental change, such as drought or forest destruction, might have on the community of living things