Waking Up on Turtle Island

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

The Most Photo

Of course this nomination for the most rock piles in a photo competion (see: rockpiles ) should be placed in the “other people’s photos category.”

And whoever took these photos might be dead and thus unable to attend the ceremonies, as well as collect the big winnings, however imaginary both may actually be.

And I don’t know his ( her?) name.

It's from a 1934 Aerial survey of Connecticut and in particular The Photo known as 07599 deserves a good look at.

Creator: Fairchild Aerial Survey Co.; Connecticut Air National Guard

Contributors: Connecticut State Planning Board

Date - Created 1934 Apr.

Source - Location 9 x 7 in., b&w photograph; Connecticut State Library, State Archives, RG 089: 11a

This photo series was captured back in the days when there were more cows living here than people, which was also about the time that small tractors were just becoming available to small farmers – or farmers of any size for that matter.

So this is just on the edge of the days of earth (and stone) moving machinery, perhaps a bulldozed State Highway or two, but the photo shows many a place where these stone rows were left alone for a long time. You can zoom in on stones now missing, see how things looked in 1934.

I’m most familiar with photograph 07599 and you may click click on that to zoom in and time travel back to the year my mom was born.

I venture into other frames, but many of my photos were taken in this area - from soon to be 20 years of following the stone rows that appear as both straight and squiggly lines in frame 07599. Many of the water features are visibly bordered by stone rows and within these boundaries are rock piles and other structures.

Not to mention zigzag rows bordering both sides of the oldest of roads, a reversal of the road first and the “stone wall” second theory about roadside stones. Are these Indian trails?

Not to mention that in many places the construction method of the stone wall sometimes appears as a series of circles, or rock piles, suggesting that perhaps these Native American Stone Rows themselves are sort of elongated rock piles.

So: how many?

All of them, of course…

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

2009 Retrospective

If I had to narrow it down to one particular site and one particular day, I guess I’d have to say that stopping to take a look at a “stonewall” on November 12, 2009 was the eye-opening (as well as mind-opening) highlight of the past year. It’s a rather famous place in my old hometown, on the National Historic Register (Bridge No. 4408) because of a dry-stone arched bridge (# 4408) built above a branch of the river that often appears on this blog. I’ve passed by the spot more times than I can remember, stopped there many times to look at the bridge, and walked down the river a bit once, trespassing of course, but now find I can do so legally as it’s become an Open Space Preserve.

At the Watertown Land Trust’s website ( http://www.watertownlandtrust.org/id23.html), you can read that:
“The area is rich in local history. According to Cothren’s History of Ancient Woodbury (1854), this region provided Native Americans excellent hunting, fishing, and gathering of plants...At the northeastern boundary of the property, headwaters of the…River flow beneath the old Skilton Road Bridge, a stone arch structure built entirely without mortar in the 1860s and now on the National Historic Register. Repaired by the town in 1985, the bridge now can be viewed only from below, due to Jersey barriers along the road. Nearby are two outstanding 18th and early 19th century houses, placed on the state historical places register in 1966. In the late 1800s Cleveland’s mill was located near a dam on the river a short distance from the bridge.”

That 18th century house, coincidently, is dated the same year, 1734, as the house my family presently lives in, which I believe is the year our house was completed.

(Editing in Nov. 2022, I'm less sure about the date of our house.)

I’ve written about my observations at these two posts: More Turtle Visions & Watertown CT . I would have to say that the important “visions” are the additions of some different “turtle-types” incorporated into these stone rows, casually and conveniently dismissed as colonial land clearing by those who insist Native People did not build stone constructions. I’d give them descriptive names of:

“Turtles with Legs Fully Extended Forward”

“Swimming Turtles.”

Another result of these observations is that numerous stone rows that I had dismissed as colonial constructions – stone fences – I now view as “Native American Stone Rows, as they contain these “turtle-types.” The number of “Indian Stone Rows” I believe I see has grown incredibly, as well as beginning to suspect that the earliest of colonial roads followed stone rows rather than being a result of road clearing, a sort of “chicken/egg” situation, if you will…

Monday, December 21, 2009

Orange Quartzy Headed Turtles

Back to November 2009 and these stones in my yard.

A single-stone Turtle was my focus, but a smaller stone caught my eye.

It was just to the left of the perhaps two foot long larger stone.

Turns out there were more of them.

And I was surprised, having never noticed this motif before

...

A couple weeks later, I recognized the same thing going on in a stone row half a mile away...

Fooling Around with Turtles

Both my photos and other people's...

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Snow melting on Stone Rows

A ten foot stretch of zigzag stone row (More Squiggles), suggests a construction style of three serpentine rows...

Following the zigzag south, the construction changes to linear and seems to be "peppered" with what look like circular rock piles, as I said:

3 views of perhaps a mortar stone? Notice the wedges?
Notice anything that reminds you of a quartz head and a right front foot of a certain animal?

A couple places I've been this autumn are like this, these circular rock piles: Turtles in the Round Mounds & Pile by a stone row .

Another?

Monday, December 14, 2009

Snow covered zigzag rows

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

35th Reunion Hike (Part Two)

Previous posts about the place:
“The Rock House” (part one)
By the Old Hunting Caves
By the Old Hunting Caves 2

And of course:
35th Reunion Hike (Part One)
Below: WHS 1974 Block Rock Dam Surfers Team :

We left them at the entrance of the Rock Shelter or "Cave."

"Let's climb the Rock," the team decides.
Looking up at our destination, I took a photo:

Later at home I notice the rather testudinate nature of the face of the House Rock, as if I were standing by a giant stone turtle's right foreleg and decided, "I'd better get a picture of this!"

I really just thought the sky was a nice color blue that day...