SELLER USES CRAIG’S LIST

The legal strip-mining of stone walls reached Craigslist  on January 17, 2009. There I found several postings from the Boston area, one complete with the original bad grammar and spelling. It reported that they were  “takeing apart a peace of a 2 hundred year old wall excelant stones 800$ truck load will delver about 9 tons.” They were selling the stones to anyone who met the purchase price. Unfortunately, this legal stone trade fosters the destruction of New England archaeology, a phenomenon that rises and falls in syncopation with unemployment and frustration.  In this tragedy the character-defining rural stone walls that are so much a part of the rural landscape are being converted to private patios hidden from us all.