Leaving the family business at age 16, Matt traveled the countryside searching for a less strenuous livelihood. Construction work paid his bills over the next 10 years, until he felt the urge to return to the family tradition of mining bluestone. He operates an area fieldstone yard. Sitting behind his desk in his office trailer, Stace discusses with his father why they both left and later returned to the bluestone business. Family pride, it seems, had a great deal to do with it, a quality as durable as the stone the family has mined for 40 years.
Stone walls seem to line every country lane in our Northwest Corner.
They can be seen hugging the road for miles, only to drift across open pastures and disappear into the thick underbrush with oak and pine trees. Stone walls, fences realty, were a result of industrious farmers taming the land for crop growing and homestead building. As they cleared the rocky soil, the farmers moved the rocks to the outer edges of their property and piled them up to create fences. These dividers not only served as boundary markers but as enclosures for containing livestock. It is impressive to think of the manner in which these stones were worked.