Stone walls are beautiful and tell a tale

CORNWALL — Rock walls, standing boldly against time and the elements all the while in a humble silence, can tell more of a story than one might think. Nestled into the landscape of what is now a forested Northwest Corner, many of the stone walls date back centuries to when the area was filled with agrarian pastures.

For Ron Hummel, outdoor educator and naturalist and a resident of Cornwall, the stone walls are quiet gems of insight into history and culture.

“When I was driving along Cogswell Road last year looking for birds, I discovered the beautiful stone wall built by old man Cogswell,” Hummel wrote to The Lakeville Journal.

“Old man Cogswell,” Hummel explained, was Nathan Cogswell, part Schaghticoke Indian, who built rock walls in the area during the mid 1800s with his ox.

Hummel is chairman of the Cornwall Conservation Commission, which is updating Cornwall’s Natural Resource Inventory for the Town Plan of Conservation and Development. He thought the rock walls like the one built by Cogswell should be included in the update.

“When the commission embarked on this project I decided that stone walls should be included as a resource and somehow preserved.”

The large rocks used to create walls, Hummel continued, possess the potential to tell historians not only about the humans who used them as boundary markers, but also about their basic geological makeup.

“Stone walls in Cornwall reveal the glacial ecology of the land and the backbreaking work required to clear farms.

“They beautify our scenic roads and pay tribute to the craftsmen who built them.”

Hummel said that he and others are focusing on the walls on properties where the town has the right of way.

“People should be made aware of them for their personal enjoyment,” he said.

An effort is currently being made to document more of the walls and reveal their history.

On Valley Road, a stone bridge that crosses over a stream is believed to date back to the 1860s to the time and estate of John C. Calhoun.

Another stone wall, on Swift Bridge Road, was likely built around 1807, when the bridge itself was constructed.

Although a 1936 ice flow took out the bridge, Hummel said this site marked the passing of a 100-car freight and 16-car passenger train.

Older yet, an aged stone wall that leads directly onto Route 7 marks the entranceway to one of Cornwall’s oldest structures, a home potentially built in the mid-1700s.

Anyone who wants to explore the scenic and historic walls can now find a brochure with information about them at the Cornwall Library and Cornwall Town Hall and some stores in town.