Stonewalls: A Stacked History of Land Use and Ownership in the Connecticut College Arboretum

My SIP used a multidisciplinary approach to the study of land use history in the Connecticut College Arboretum. The goal of this project was to create a land records archive and take a very detailed look at the stonewalls in a 26.5 acre area north of Gallows Lane . I did land records research at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and the Waterford Town Hall to determine the history of land ownership in this area. I also used techniques from Robert Thorson's “Exploring Stonewalls: A Field Guide to New England 's Stone Walls” (2005) to record the attributes of the 1.5 miles of stonewalls in this particular area. I found that this area was extensively used over the 200 years before it was bought by Connecticut College . It contained an array of features including a house foundation, well, barn, and outbuildings and its intricate display of stonewalls indicate that it had an interesting farming past. This project has opened the door for future anthropological, archeological, ecological, historical, and biological work to be completed within the arboretum to gain a better understanding of how this landscape tells a story of land use history.