Town Pound, Eighteen Thirty

That low stone enclosure beside the road is a town pound, dated eighteen thirty, and it was once a serious piece of village machinery. In early New England, livestock roamed freely, and a loose cow or pig could trample a neighbor's corn, pumpkins, or hay in a single night. So every town built a pound, a stout pen to lock up stray animals until their owners paid a fine to get them back.

Towns often recorded ear markings to tell whose animal was whose. Pounds could also hold livestock seized for unpaid debts, which could then be auctioned off. Early pounds were often wooden, but many towns later built them in stone, like this one, which is why it has outlasted nearly everything around it.