"Stone Wall Mythology" - How Fast Could They Actually Build Those Stone Walls?

For Episode 07 of my Ancient Stone Mysteries of New England series, I wanted to debunk some “Stone Wall Mythology” - the ideas about New England’s stone “walls” which are deeply ingrained in the region’s culture… but likely untrue. What I label “Yankee Lore”. This short clip from the episode finds me extrapolating from an average stone mason’s capabilities for creating stone wall — in a generous way — to show how much labor would have been required to build the (at least) 250,000 miles of stone walls in New England in the 30-50 years some say the stone walls were built when attributed to the “Merino Sheep Craze”. Doing some math…

The Music is by Kevin MacLeod.

Credits:

Spirit of the Girl by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4407-spirit-of-the-girl

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/