The stone-wall industry

Stone wall near Hammersmith Farm, Newport, R.I.

--Photo by JG Klein

"Many New England stone fences built between 1700 and 1875 were laid by gangs of workers who piled stones at the rate of so much per rod. {Naturalist and writer) Edwin Way Teale says that in the latter years of the past (19th} century, before economic and social developments began obliterating some of the walls, there were a hundred thousand miles of stone fences in New England.''

-- William Least Heat Moon, in Blue Highways