Hiking to Ruins & Relics

The forests of New England are young. The trees here are survivors of a dendrological apocolyse that saw the entire region all but clear-cut in in an agricultural boom that peaked between 1830–1880. The forests have started to revocer, but echos of that event remain in the stone walls and empty foundations that dot the landscpape.

Less than 1% of pre-colonial forests remain in New England. The once towering white pines that dominated the landscape were coveted by European settlers who found their tall, straight growth perfect for building ships masts. Settlers cleared 99% of the old growth forests, first for agriculture, then for industry.

Today, though, 80% of the northeast is forested.

It's in these scragly, spooky woodlands where you'll find some of my favorite things.

Stacked stone walls. Crumbling foundations. Rotting cabins. Rubble from factories long-shuttered, pipes from mills no one remembers. Clearings in the woods where fine estates once stood, lost to the ravages of time, shifting fortunes, and growing vines.

I can't get enough of it.

My own home has as it's eastern boundary a stacked stone wall that was probably built in the 1800's. The entire neighborhood stands on former farmland that was planned and divided into approx. 40'x100' lots in 1910. Behind my property - where livestock likely once grazed, it's too rocky for crops -  stands two acres of young, scragly forest, fighting back against the spread of human habitation.

My point is, the woods in New England are chock full of cool old shit.

So, Where Are These Ruins?

In New England – everywhere. Below are photos of a few I have visited, and I have an ever-growing All Trails list that includes (some of) these and others on my 'to hike' list.

Four tall white columns sit atop a crumbling foundation, surrounded by forest.
Titus Mansion – Tyringham, MA
Unidentified foundation alongside Jackson Falls in Jackson, NH.
Stone wall at Breton Point, Newport RI. This park was once a sprawling estate, and these walls, a stone tower, and an outbuilding are all that remains.
Unidentified foundation alongside a river in NH.
An old farmhouse at Borderlands Park, Easton, MA.
The Assabet River Wildlife Refuge, Sudbury MA hides ammunition bunkers from WWII, now abandoned.
An old mill in Raynham, MA, is now a park.
Fort Rodman in New Bedford dates from 1860, but is now a park and beach.