Letter to Members and Wall Enthusiasts

TO:                 Members & Friends of the Stone Wall Initiative (SWI)

FROM:           Robert M. Thorson

DATE:            February 9, March 2005

Dear Friend and Supporter of the Stone Wall Initiative:

Thanks for your previous interest and support. I hope that you’ve been able to keep up to date on our activities through the SWI website (www.stonewall.uconn.edu). This is our first e-newsletter to those who have expressed a special interest in stone walls. I’d like to share with you this “insider’s view” of our activities.

Robert Thorson

Coordinator

Fieldstone wall near the Old North Bridge in Concord , MA .

What is your favorite stone wall?

In a recently published field guide, Exploring Stone Walls, I suggested a candidate for the most important stone wall in the Northeast.

My candidate is a simple stack of granite fieldstone boulders in Concord , MA , located between the Old North Bridge and the Reverend William Emerson House (later dubbed The Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne). The bridge marks the place where the American Revolution began with a “shot heard round the world.” The Old Manse is the colonial-era house managed by the Trustees of Reservations (a statewide land trust) where Ralph Waldo, penned Nature, an early manifesto for the Transcendentalist movement. The primitive farmstead wall is one of many that line the battle road between Lexington and Concord , many of which are now incorporated into Minuteman National Park . I would like to think that this humble stone wall protected fields that helped nourish the colonial militia, provided cover from British musket fire (as described in Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride”), and helped inspire the rethinking of the relationship between humans and their natural world.

Please let me know what you think of my candidate for most important stone wall., or provide your own favorite as a candidate Simply log on to the SWI website, click on the link Contact the SWI, then respond by Email, phone, or surface mail.

SWI News

The four basic goals of the Stone Wall Initiative are to enhance the appreciation, investigation, and conservation of New England stone walls and to foster educational programs. We’ve made steady progress on all fronts since the debut in the summer of 2002. Our work, that of the SWI, has achieved national recognition, as shown by a recent (March-April, 2005 report in Preservation, the official magazine of the National Trust for Historic Preservation (www.preservationonline.org).

Public lectures, workshops, readings, mapping projects, policy meetings, gallery talks, scientific symposia, and general brainstorming sessions are being held throughout the region by those involved in cultural resource management, heritage tourism, and environmental policy. SWI has upcoming events scheduled in every New England State . For details, go to www.stonewall.uconn.edu/events. A new calendar will be posted shortly.

The SWI now has an office on Horsebarn Hill on the Storrs campus of UConn in a facility operated by the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Research on using stone wall in the K-8 curriculum is supported by the National Science Foundation and will be coordinated through the TNE (Teachers for New Era) project at Uconn.

Get Document

If you do not wish to receive future Stone Wall Initiative e-mail news, please let me know by e-mailing: stonewall.uconn.edu

If this e-mail newsletter was forwarded to you and you wish to receive your own copy, please send your e-mail address to: stonewall.uconn.edu

Stone Wall Initiative

Connecticut State Museum of Natural History

2019 Hillside Road Unit 1023

Storrs , CT 06269-1023

(860) 486-6198