Rock piles in middle of woods?

[claydog65]

My dad used to own a 600+ acre tract of land near Martinsville, VA. No longer in the family, but something keeps nagging at me. There were random piles of rocks throughout the forest, some near an old roadbed, but many were in difficult terrain, far from roads or trails. Several were high up on sides of hills. No doubt they were all man-made piles. I always assumed the early inhabitants, made these piles to mark boundries. I never dislodged any, nor ever thought to swing a detector near one. Does anyone have other ideas as to what they were? Could they have been indian graves? A woodsman's cache' of supplies, etc? Let me know what you think, I can possibly get permission/access to go back from the new owner. Thanks everyone.

 

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[vpnavy]

Could be a marker, grave, etc. See if you can get permission and take some pictures and swing the MD - very interesting - looking forward to your find.

 

[DizzyDigger]

Surface mining claims generally have the corners marked with
a stone cairn, so those could be old claim boundary markers.

 

[labradigger1]

Boundary markers or where they picked up rocks from the area and piled them up. Most likely the area was a field.

 

[claydog65]

No frields present, these were either down a a creek edge, or high on a mountain ridge, but no fields.

 

[claydog65]

I do know there were Mica mines on this property back in the early 1900's.

 

[Mud Hut]

My bet was they were products of field reclamation.
Many times, they would take wagons to the fields and pick up rocks and dump them in piles somewhere just to get them out of the fields.
Even though there are no fields present, what use to be fields could easily be woods now.

 

[Indian Steve]

Hi Claydog65, I live Near Fairystone Park, just west of Martinsville. More than likely, they are just piles of rocks that were picked off of the fields back in the day. Back in the 1800s and early 1900s most of the land that is woods now was cleared fields and farm land. Even the sides of mountains were cleared. I talked with an oldtimer back in the early 1980s that told me even Bull Mountain was almost all fields and orchards. I wouldn't bother with the rock piles. I would be looking for the old house sites on that property. Message me if you want a hunting buddy sometime.Steve

 

[DiggerKid2003]

All I can say is that old house foundations were rock piles...detect it and see if you get any signals

 

[digging wv]

I live in South Central WV. All mountains. And this area was farmed, hillsides and all. There are random rock piles here also where stuff was planted. This was hard country in the 1800s and you worked the land...even if is slanted on its side! If they look like the stone laying around the area, chances are gardens/crops were planted there.

 

[Sheldon J]

No frields present, these were either down a a creek edge, or high on a mountain ridge, but no fields.

a farm field left fallow for say 50 years and you have a very nice woods....

 

[maxpower]

Rock Piles

 

[tamrock]

I found in the 1980s two piles of rocks in a desert area. The odd thing about them was the rocks were all from a seam of pale colored rhyolite that was from a granite bluff a mile or so away. My first thought was they were graves. To this day I still wonder why would someone haul those rocks all that way and pile them up in that one spot? They could have used all the various random rocks right there at the spot they piled those all those same pale colored rhyolite rocks at ??

 

[RushinPA]

It was that way in the ghost town of Pandemonium, piles of rocks every so often. It was how they tried to clear and farm. I can't fathom how difficult it was to live in that time and that situation.

 

[Dr. Syn]

Yeah, growing up I picked my share of field stones from the fields after plowing, and yep they got added to the other piles around the property. Some out in the middle of the woods, even a couple that bordered steep drop offs. Even piled them around the runoff area of the big spring on the property. Kept the dumb cows from getting stuck in the mushy area around it. Do be careful around them. Snakes love em.

Those field stones had many uses where I lived. Homes faced with them, fireplaces and chimneys, fences, paths, built from them. Cripes I even carted them off to my first house, built a retaining wall out of dry stacked stones. 350 feet long, 3 feet wide and high, and another 50 feet of walk way and steps to the front door. And that was just from one pile on the farm.

Now folks pay good money for those stones. My neighbor at the time faced all the columns of his house with field stone. He paid dearly for the same stones that I got for free. Too lazy to go out and load them in his truck, he paid to have a stone company deliver pallets of them.