The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-10-11
BouLDERs TO BE PROUD OF.
Connecticut Boasts of Many Genuine
Rocking Stones.

Norwich, Conn, Oct. 9.-There is a
large number of rocking stones" SO
called, in New England, but about two
years ago city geologisG published the
statement that he knew of less than
half dozen of the kind III the region
noted There are boulders enough in the
New England States, he explained, that
are set up on small bases, and some of
hem are more or less delicately balanced,
but of genuine rocking stones, that
may be made to rock. tits safe to say
that there are no more of them than the
number / have named.n
The scientific mans statement was pub
lished far and wide, and in three months
was contadicted forty times, mainly by
jewellers in rural towns, in all parts of
New England. Three rocking stones
were reported in one town in Massachu-
setts, and one or more of them were
mammoth monoliths. Eight or ten were
reported in New Hampshire, and several
in Maine, while no end of rocking stones
were -located in Connecticut and Rhode
Island, since, it is we'll known, these
States, which evidently caught the great
est part of the rock debris of the glacial
era. are thickly bestrewn with poulders
of all sorts and shapes In this county
alone rural observers cited not less than
dozen or more instances of perfect rock
ing stones.
Recently an influential Mystic citizen
has declared that there are no less than
five perfect rocking stones in the little
seashore hamlet of Quiambaug. near
Mystic, in the southern end of this
county. "The quiet little village" he
says, can boast of more rocking stones
than any other town Of its size in the
United States can do. Good authorities
in New England, one in Massachusetts
and one at the Haley Farm, at Noank,
quaint little old-fashioned hamlet on a
knoll, at the sea shore, not far from Mys-
tic. 1t is evident, therefore, that the
present ones are not well known.
"But there is no doubt that they are
as excellent examples of the glacial period
as any that can be found anywhere.
They vary in size from stone weighing
about three TONS on the land of Miss
Nancy j. Moredock, to one weighing As
tons, on the farm occupied by James Lord
Another stone is found on the lands of
Elias Davis and two on the farm OF Am
brose Miner.
Perhaps the best specimen of the
whole lot is the rocking stone on the
land of Miss Morelock. 1t is about
feet long, 2 feet wide, and 8 feet high,
and it oscillates about five inches. 1t
can be rocked by the pressure of two
fingers. tits set on sloping ledge and
it looks as if it could be easily rolled off
and down the hill, but the combined
strength of half dozen men could not
stir it an inch out of it's place. The rock
has been great playhouse for children,
and the Oldest inhabitants can remember
the spot as their earliest playground"
All of these rocking stones are in the
cd ota h of sc OF.
Hill, where the powerful and illustrious
Pequot Indians made their last stand
against the whites, in the latter part of
the seventeenth century, a region that
is thickly dotted with lonely, isolated,
sentineI-lilze tall boulders. AT Fort Hill,
near Mystic, overlooking the ocean the
SPequots, with all their braves, spuaws,
and pappooses, were gathered in their
longest and strongest fort, when Capt.
"Jackn Mason and his band of Puritan
braves, coming from Saybrook, at the
mouth of the Connecticut River, stormed
the fort, burned the red mems wigwams,
and massacred most of the warriors, with
the women and children, who were not
burned in the wigwams.
The descendants of Capt. John Mason's
soldiers-the people of Mystic and Noank
Ia year ago dragged a great boulder.
with thirty yoke of oxen, from its resting
place in a lonely pasture, near the famous
;ra handsome monolith, which they erect
ed, amid great concourse of people, in
honor of the PequOt massacre, on the
summit of Fort HILL The great bould-
er, handsomely polished aud bearing
on one of its finished sides an appropri-
ate inscription in commend ration of that
mighty deed of arms, is now one of the
most conspicuous objects along the Sound
shore as seen from the ocean. 1t weighed
in the rough not less than % or 30 tons.
In an open mead, near the old Norwich
Town Green, two miles north of this city,
there is a similar monolith that was
erected great many years ago at the
grave of Capt Mason.
Boulders, some of which weigh thous-
ands of tons, are altogether too plentiful
in Connecticut and Rhode Island to have
any commercial value, but not many
months ago wealthy Ohio gentleman
journeyed to the Quonochontaug (R.I.)
boulder plain, on the shore of the ocean,
purchased a gigantic boulder there and
shipped it to his home in the West. Its
weight was over thirty tons. In trans
porting it from it's site on the plain, six
miles to the Mantle railroad station, sew
eral Transfers, with fifteen or twenty
yoke of oxen, were busy six days. 1t cost
the Ohio man about 81, 900 TO get the big
stone home with him. 1t is now the CEN
trail figure in his spacious city lawn.
The array of boulders on Quonochon-
taug plain, which are mainly oval in
shape and sit up like penguins, often in
parallel rows, or like companies o.. sol
diers on parade, is one of The most curl
GUS phenomena in. New England. Al
though they were deposited there by ma
ture in a haphazard way, with no orderly
alignment, yet SO symmetrical is their
shade as rule, SO starSling their posture
aud withal so numerous are they they
are said to be quite as singular and i'm
pressive, in respect to their appearance
they give the desolate plain, peeially
at dusk, as the famed stone rows of
Stonehenge, England.