How Napoleon Changed many New England Homesteads (and Backyards)

I have a lot of very old stone walls on my homestead. I decided to hunt down the origin of all of these stone walls that criss-cross the New England region, and was surprised to learn where many of them got there start.

Larry, that is a great video, the same sheep came to Australia but the background story did not come since its the fiurst tiume I have heard of it.
Australia has plenty of Merinos and the wool industry was the backbone of the country for many years.

The number of sheep in the USA the guy states near the end is very interesting. Maybe that's where we need to strive to get back to - wool for house insulation, for mattresses that don't die in five years, for lots of clothing, etc.

Houses with all sorts of artificial fabrics go up in flames far faster, and the smoke is far more toxic. Wool is so much safer on all accounts. Maybe permaculture can help that happen?

Nice post, I thought it was gonna be about canning !

The amount of rocks in the ground that had to be handled by hand and horse to make these walls along with the man-hours required is mind boggling. I hunt some public land in New York which is forested now but throughout the mountain are rock lined walls lost to time.

Timothy Norton wrote:The amount of rocks in the ground that had to be handled by hand and horse to make these walls along with the man-hours required is mind boggling. I hunt some public land in New York which is forested now but throughout the mountain are rock lined walls lost to time.

I know it! The walls on my property are made of massive rocks on a steep incline. I would love to have been a fly on a wall to that project.

Larry Fletcher wrote:I know it! The walls on my property are made of massive rocks on a steep incline. I would love to have been a fly on a wall to that project.

Do you have any info on how they were made, Larry? I'm wondering if they used wooden ramps and rolled the rock to get them up, or if they used some sort of a wood tripod and block and tackle. I expect in New England there would have been such a strong "ship" history that using pulley systems would have been second nature. Nowadays, most people on the street wouldn't have a clue how to set up and use a multiple pulley system.

I also think that homesteaders back then were simply a lot tougher than us modern humans who've gotten too used to internal combustion engines to do our heavy work!

Jay Angler wrote:Do you have any info on how they were made?

I don't, but onto of what you mentioned, I imagine they used of horse and Ox.

I will try to find the source but I believe that you saw generally a two step process due to the amount of labor that required it.

I believe the earliest farms that were establishing would expose the rocks as they worked the land and the frost heave unearthed more. This required by hand or utilizing ox/horse to move the rocks off to the side. These at first were placed in large piles to get them out of the area.

Later on by future tenders of the land, these accumulated stones were once again by hand moved and placed to create walls marking boundaries.

I believe a man by the name of Robert Thorson is an expert on this very particular part of history, googling his name might help unravel the store more.

I merged your stuff with the following thread. I hope that is okay by you.

I have a lot of very old stone walls on my homestead. I decided to hunt down the origin of all of these stone walls that criss-cross the New England region, and was surprised to learn where many of them got there start.

Dry stone walling is an ancient process.
Perhaps these walls have been damaged over time resulting it the current crazy look.
https://www.britainexpress.com/History/drystone.htm
details the English history of some.