Finding purpose by following a Maine stone wall forgotten by time | Column

A stone wall located on the Eaton Farm Preserve in Wiscasset, managed by the Chewonki Foundation. (Courtesy of Patrick Sandefur)

Stone walls in Midcoast Maine are as ubiquitous to our forests as lobster boats are to our harbors. You don’t have to search far to find one. I cross the street that runs by my house on Youngs Point in Wiscasset, step into the woods, and there it is. Its rocks are covered with green moss, brown pine needles, dead leaves, branches and fallen trees. It is beautiful as it meanders across the landscape, and yet there is a haunting loneliness to it. Abandoned by those who built it, and seemingly by time, it is left to fend for itself. If this stone wall could speak, what would it say?

I decided to follow it. It began inconspicuously, in dense forest, hiding amongst tiny white pine sprouts, sticks, brown needles, bramble, leaves and grass. As the stone wall ascends a steep hill, it wanders through a mix of young and old trees, made up mostly of pine, with some oak and maple. A few of the trees touching the wall are dead but standing. Others lay across it, like fallen sentinels. Neglected, this stone wall still has grandeur. It grows taller the further I follow it. I try to imagine what the landscape looked like more than 100 years ago when it was built. I am left wondering as I step over branches, barbed wire, fallen trees and discarded stones.

This is but one of several stone walls located on a 200-acre nature preserve called Eaton Farm Preserve, managed by the Chewonki Foundation. The land was once used for growing hay and grazing sheep and cows. Given its proximity to the Back River and its mudflats, it was and still is used for clamming and worm digging.

Like many stone walls found winding through the New England forests, it was the result of land being cleared of trees and brush to facilitate farming and grazing. As fertile soil erodes over time due to exposure and overuse, it was common to repurpose the land for growing hay and grazing cows and sheep. A byproduct of soil erosion is stones, pushed up to the surface by frost heaves. Known by many as “Maine potatoes,” moving these stones from the useable, productive part of the field to the edge of the property and creating “tossed walls” rather than piles of stones was regular practice. It was a place to dump unwanted stones, to delineate property lines, and to keep agricultural products and livestock separated when used with wood, other natural debris and later, barbed wire. At the time when many of these stone walls were built, it was common for them to be part of a complete fence that included wood. When the property was later abandoned as a working farm, the wood would eventually rot away leaving just the stone walls.

One can also find stone walls built around ancient Midcoast Maine cemeteries, originally to keep livestock out, preventing them from trampling and soiling the graves. The walls also mark hallowed ground, providing a clear separation from other parcels of land surrounding it. Many of these walls remain intact today because they serve their original purpose. Unlike cemetery stone walls, the stone wall I am following no longer seems to serve a purpose.

I continue my walk and marvel at the construction. The tallest sections are typically thigh high, a practical height when you consider the physical stress that lifting heavy stones must entail. Most of the stones are in contact with multiple stones in the wall. Two stones on one is a common pattern. This interconnection of rock continues down the length of the wall, like individual bones of a skeleton, connecting the neighboring stones together and making the entire structure stronger and more resistant to falling trees, animals, frost heaves and small New England earthquakes.

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Even the sturdiest stone wall requires regular maintenance. The purpose for which these walls were built has long since passed and time has moved on, leaving them orphaned in the forest and in the past. The Mainers that built this wall would likely not recognize it in its current condition. And yet it still stands, this wall, devoid of purpose, of attention, of caring. All but forgotten except by the forest and its inhabitants. That is, until this moment.

I follow the wall, purposefully, mindfully, carefully. I stop and observe where I am, and where this stone wall is taking me. A journey back in time, through the woods, to simpler times. I listen and I hear the wind, leaves rustling and birdsong. If this stone wall could speak, what would it say to me?

Live in the moment?

Be grateful for what you have?

Love deeply, live simply?

Loneliness needn’t be?

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Perhaps my self-awareness and my appreciation of natural beauty all around me is the wall speaking to me. Perhaps this stone wall does still have purpose. To evoke wonderment, introspection, and inner peace.

Or perhaps, just perhaps, this wall is helping me find my purpose, by just being there.

If you would like to explore old stone walls, local conservation nonprofit land trusts such as the Kennebec Estuary Land Trust in Bath, the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust in Brunswick, and the Chewonki Foundation in Wiscasset protect and maintain properties where stone walls can be viewed from trails such as BTLT’s Tarbox Preserve in Topsham, KELT’s Thorne Head Preserve trails in Bath, and the Chewonki Foundation’s Back River Trail in Wiscasset. Another notable trail to see Midcoast Maine stone walls is the Pownalborough Courthouse Trails in Dresden.

Patrick Sandefur lives in Wiscasset. He is a proud father, lucky husband, devoted runner, and the founder of Elevate Running, a division of Bass Harbor Group. His 40+ years of running changed his life in so many ways and at so many levels. It unchained him. It helped him to see the possibilities that a life well lived has to offer.

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