June 29, 1917. 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder 11 
Old Stone Walls of North Shore 
Relics of Past Generations Typical 
of Our New England Construction 
KATHERINE GAUSS 
Section of Tedesco Golf club grounds, showing typical old stone wall in foreground 
I KNOW of nothing more reminiscent of the Colonial 
days in North Bore history than are the old stone 
walls that, picturesque and frost-flung, wander at  wiil 
through our fields and valleys. They stand for the cour- 
age and hard work of our New England forefathers and 
have endured even as their principles of government have 
endured, 
The first fence in this part of the country was prob- 
ably the wooden palisade that the early settler built about 
his house for protection against the Indians and the wild 
animals. It was about eight feet in height and was made 
of wooden stakes, or piles pointed at the top and driven 
into the ground so close together as to touch. It proved 
a good protection against the many enemies of the ie 
strange country and had one w eakness only; namely, it 
liability to fire. This and other considerations erailott 
about the early replacement of the palisade by the stone 
wall, as was the case in 1676 in Topsfield when the pali- 
sade around the church feere was changed for such a 
wall. 
The stones were taken fron the fields in the course 
of tillage, and as stones were plentiful and timber scarce, 
they made most satisfactory boundary lines in spite of the 
amount of labor required to make them into walls. From 
the middle of the seventeenth century until the present 
time they have endured, sufficient for their purpose in the 
world, and they will last until they sink into the ground. 
The period in which these picturesque old walls were built 
might well be christened the “Stone Age of America.” 
Besides the typical stone wall with which every New 
England visitor is familiar there is the so-called half-high 
stone wall, which is composed of a low wall made of the 
piled-up rocks and surmounted by a rail resting on 
crossed stakes. These were built after the stones had 
been pretty well used up, and are obviously not quite so 
old as the ordinary stone wall. They, too, are old enough 
to be quite covered with moss and lichens, however, and 
are interesting and romantic. 
Haven’t you ever paused in your morning stroll to 
look at those straggling stone walls that run apparently 
helter-skelter across your and your neighbor's s property 
and to wonder whose hand put them there? Haven’t 
you stopped to muse upon the labor involved in their 
making and to speculate upon their raison d'etre? 
Haven't you wondered whether they were marks of ori- 
ginal Indian grants, or the relics of early property feuds, 
or—what ? 
These poetic, moss-grown, an stones have, perhaps, 
been the scene of many a lover’s tryst, the. bone of con- 
tention in many a neighborhood dispute; and they have 
echoed the horrible sounds of many an Indian raid. 
Amid the newer fences and hedges that separate my prop- 
erty from yours, these old w alts still ramble along, undis- 
turbed through the years, 
“°Twill be well when for us the Reaper shall call, 
If the work we leave shall endure as long 
As his who builded the old, stone wall.” 
Were half the power that fills the world with terror, 
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, 
Given to redeem the human mind from error, 
There were no need of -arsenals and forts. 
—LONGFELLOW. 
“For to know rest, we must know weariness; to know 
the blessedness of peace, we must know conflict.” 
“Tf a person don’t get a good hold on his life while he 
has it here on the earth, what under the sun is he going 
to hang onto when he. gits flung out into space?” 
