If I remember correctly, a local farm had sections ripped off.
I remember seeing the yellow tape and there are now warning signs.
Stone “rustling” is on the risehttp://www.brookfieldcitizen.com/current/news/0509hotrocks.htmlBy Sarah Heller
September 2005
Have you heard about this new human assault on the environment? It seems that people want old New England stone walls and will even resort to stealing to get them. But how seriously does the Massachusetts state legislature take this? Not very, to read the law on the books.*The General Laws of Massachusetts, Chapter 266: Section 105 states (
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/266-106.htm) “Stone walls or fences; unauthorized removal. Whoever willfully and without right pulls down or removes any portion of a stone wall or fence which is erected or maintained for the purpose of enclosing land shall be punished by a fine of not more than ten dollars. Natural resource officers and deputy natural resource officers of the office of the secretary of the executive office of environmental affairs may arrest without a warrant any person found violating this section.”
![](http://farm1.static.flickr.com/148/425618006_3b26c47bcd.jpg)
Ten dollars!? That seems a strangely paltry sum for tearing down a beautiful old stone wall that probably took months to build and years to age. But then the whole subject of stealing stone walls is a bit strange. What would drive a person to do such a thing? And can you really steal a stone wall? Actually, on that score, the General Law got it right. It refers to “removal” not “theft”. Because can a stone wall really be stolen? It is so much a part of the place where it was built. The contour of the land, the way the rocks are balanced and have settled on one another, all are of a piece. It would be impossible to recreate that elsewhere. You can destroy the wall, but doesn’t “theft” imply that the thief is left with something of value?
Rhode Island apparently thinks so. They passed a law in 2001 relating to “the theft of historic stone walls.” Their punishment is to be “civilly liable to the property owner for the cost of replacing said stones and any other compensable damages related to said larceny.” But that begs the question of how do you determine a replacement cost for something that is essentially irreplaceable?
“Stone walls are so much more than boundary markers, abandoned fence lines, elongate rock piles, architectural ornaments, and sources of poetic inspiration. They are the signatures of rural New England.
They are landforms. They are icons. The landscape wouldn't be the same without them,” Professor Thorson writes on his website.
http://www.primaryresearch.org/stonewalls/history.php">History of New England Stone Walls
![](http://www.primaryresearch.org/stonewalls/images/2.jpg)
According to Allport, by the early 1650’s the colony of Massachusetts had already enacted legislation mandating farmers to build fences to a minimum height to separate their livestock from other farmers’ crops or a neighbor’s prized livestock. Most towns in colonial Massachusetts had fence requirements between four and five feet.
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