New England Stone Walls
I promised someone that I would find, and publish, examples of the stone walls I found and photographed in Ct over the years. As a young man, 11, it was my job to follow the plow pulled by our horse Major, as we set the fields for spring planting of ensilage. All of the stones we turned up, I had to take and place in the walls surrounding the fields. This then would be an example of what we built over the years. When I see how this goes, more will follow.
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Really neat. That son of a gun just rolls away doesn't it? I like stone work and the Mayan stone work is just dazzling!
After the war my remaining brothers and I stumbled over Dudleytown, Ctand the operative word is truly stumbled. This is a haunted town and is now off limits as I understand it. Just going into the town limits is really spooky and there isnt too much left but foundation walls and we didn't go there often.
Cool picture tsula!
Really neat pictures and stories Tsula. I especially like this one above. Very curious about the story. Tell us more. What tribe did you belong to? You seem to be on the east coast.
Very unusual walls Mike. They almost look surreal. Nice shots.
Perrie, quickly and short story, I was born on the reservation in Tahlequah but my Grandfather got wind that the church was going to take all of the children in the families so we all ran East. I wound up in Ct at a very young age and grew up there. So I am full blooded Cherokee. Lots of stuff in between but I'm sure you get the idea here.
That's a really neat story about your heritage tsula!
Great idea for theme ... potentially a natural element for "leading lines" drawing the viewer in.
Thanks for posting this discussion, and Mike ... thanks to you as well ... especially the top image!
Tsula,
Very interesting story. I am sorry that your family had to make this trip under such conditions, but it is a very sad common story, even told by theAboriginesinAustralia.
Thank you both for we must have been some sort of sight because our whole family including uncles and aunts and their families made this trek. We seeded the entire NE states with Uncles and Aunts and their families left in Ma, Me, Vt, before we settled finally in Ct in1929. Talk about wandering in the wilderness, holy cow.
Perrie, if I may, these are not unfamiliar tales of the Indigenous Peoples no matter where the White Man "discovered" and conquered them. Even today, in our enlightened age, we are considered by many as less than human. Using one of my made up argument lines concerning this I would say: You may have defeated us in battles, enslaved us, and put us in/on your concentration/reservation camps BUT you have not defeated us! Check out the glorious history of the Spanish Conquistadores throughout the Americas and all done in the name of God and Country! Very sad testament to Mans inhumanity to Man! nvwasohiyadv peace Tsula
This has been, and continues to be, great fun for the old man and so with an eye to getting it back on point I shall post here a shot that I made some years ago near the town of Riverton. Classic sight on the back roads of Ct. When looking at all of these stone walls you just have to wonder about the original small family farms and what ever happened to the folks who built them. My feeling is that the Industrial Revolution was responsible for the deaths, bad word I know, of this simpler way of life. Point of interest concerning Riverton, it was the original home of the Hitchkock Furniture Company back in the 1880s and their furniture now is classified as extremely valuable collectables, he said, sitting in a house full of it!
Since there does not seem to be a reply button at the bottom of RobertG's response concerning the deliberate genocide of the indigenous peoples of both North and South America by stating that the Indians themselves held slaves. I will call this attempted diversion ended since there is no recorded history of the magnitude of the deliberate and government sanctioned slaughter of entire peoples as done purposefully by the Spanish. No useful purpose can be served by saying that it was/is OK for the White Man to do it because the Indians did it too! This then is the end. I apologize for this unwarranted and unwanted intrusion.
Traditions of Native American slavery
Many Native American tribes practiced some form of slavery before the European introduction of African slavery into North America; but none exploited slave labor on a large scale.
Native American groups frequently enslaved war captives whom they primarily used for small-scale labor. Some, however, were used in ritual sacrifice. While little is known, there is little evidence that the slaveholders considered the slaves as racially inferior; they came from other Native American tribes and were casualties of war. Native Americans did not buy and sell captives in the pre-colonial era, although they sometimes exchanged enslaved individuals with other tribes in peace gestures or in exchange for redeeming their own members. he word "slave" may not accurately apply to such captive people. Most of these so-called Native American slaves tended to live on the fringes of Native American society and were slowly integrated into the tribe.
European enslavement
Native Americans enslaved by Spaniards, published in 1596. European colonists caused a change in Native American slavery, as they created a new demand market for captives of raids[2]. For decades, the colonies were short of workers. Especially in the southern colonies, initially developed for resource exploitation rather than settlement, colonists purchased or captured Native Americans to be used as forced labor in cultivating tobacco, and, by the eighteenth century, rice, and indigo.
Thank you so much for your thoughts. As I said somewhere, during my years working on a farm, it was my job during planting season to follow the plow and take the turned up stones and add them to the walls surrounding the fields. Had a hand in building more than one of them for sure. Our greatest crops always seemed to be stones!
This is an example of the types of roads you would need to traverse to get to some of the more interesting walls.
I wonder if you realize just how strong your photographs are? Your compositions and exposures are solid, compelling and impressive! Please keep sharing them.
Thank you so much for your statement. I wasn't sure if anyone was even looking at them to be truthful so this was going to be the last one but now there will be more. Your encouragement is more than just meaningful since I do not profess to have the expert knowledge you possess and these are strictly amateur pictures taken on the spur of the moment with an old Kodak fold up camera.
I would not hesitate to use your photos in teaching students how to implement some of the basic elements of composition and point-of-view.
Please ... take more and share more.
Taking more no longerpossible.Will certainly share what I have taken, though. You just made the old man's day! Thank you.
I thought that it would be nice to show an early attempt at panoramic views. This is interesting because of the scope of it.The making of natural gateways allowed for the free transit from one field to another where hay, or corn, was planted, obviously long ago now!
Neat!
I am amazed at the skill, energy and time involved in stone-wall building---just beautiful!
Thanks tsula!
:~)
Thanks, Larry. I still remember putting stones into those walls so long ago and if the stone was not placed just right the whole dumb wall would collapse.I think that, truth be told, I rebuilt as many as I built.