Homesteading historical puzzle
It looks like there was once
a hand made dam here in the creek next to our new
pump.
I'm guessing that the water was channeled
towards the hole that seems to have been cut out with a hammer and
chisel.
Maybe a pipe was connected at
the bottom to carry the water to some sort of mini grain mill or
rudimentary electrical generator?
It must have taken the
previous homesteaders hours upon hours of hard, back breaking labor to
carry these rocks from I'm guessing the nearby river which is an 8
minute drive away. That kind of project must have surely yielded some
sort of mechanical advantage to make it worthwhile.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Like the Roman one found at Chemtou in Tunesia;
Or it could be that the stone was standing straight up and the hole was for holding the axle of a water wheel. In which case there probably should be two stones.
How old do you think the dam was? Must have been a heck of a job if done without power tools!
I think you may be right.
Seems logical that there may be another stone with a similar hole.
It also explains why this stone was off to the side of the creek.
I'll look around more closely to see if one of the other rocks has a hole.
Not sure how old it could be.
Wished I could reach back in time and talk to the original engineer.
I thought you might have been the one who told me about dynamite holes. Thanks for the refresher --- it makes more sense now!
I think this is probably limestone. (I didn't peer at it closely when I was down there last, but it looks like it from the photos.) I like your fencepost idea, but those other rocks were clearly brought in for something too. (Our creek is rock-free.)