A million Dogtown pictures

[urbpan]

Dogtown was a village in the town of Gloucester that was deserted after the Revolutionary War. Later, after the forest has swallowed the ruins of the village, stonecutters were commissioned by noted rich weirdo Roger Babson, to cut inspirational sayings in many of the huge boulders scattered across the landscape. It once was hard to find information about the place, but now Wikipedia has a pretty good entry on both Dogtown and Babson. There was also a good piece of historical fiction called The Last Days of Dogtown recently published.

We like to hike there with the dogs, exploring both the natural points of interest, and the stone relics. cottonmanifesto, belen1974, rockbalancer, and the two dogs who make up chaggie and I went there today. For some reason on this visit we encountered more of the inscribed boulders (16 out of 23) than ever before. They get to be a little redundant in a series of photos, but hopefully there is enough of interest here that you go look at the others' journal to see their pictures, too.




It's so hard to get a single picture that captures the feeling of a forest full of boulders, so I tried to put a panorama together.


Some of last years bracket mushrooms. One of the turkey tail lookalikes.


The first inscribed boulder we found. cottonmanifesto uses a photo of herself in front of this boulder (that I took a few years ago) as one of her lj icons.


Charlie is still so cold from an earlier swim that his ears and tail are down, in a posture that does not resonate with courage.


This boulder indicates the proximity to the neighboring town of Rockport (Dogtown is apparently composed of land in both towns).


That's better!














Can anyone read the lower writing?


In between boulders we found an ant nest, in a place where someone had moved a big rock. They were as large as carpenter ants, but were reddish yellow in color. I'd never seen anything like them. They were very sluggish because of the cold, but this one began to perk up after a little while in my hand. When she opened her mandibles up wide, I carefully put her back.


I like the full sentence inscriptions (there are others we didn't find this time).


This is one of the cellar holes from the old village.


This boulder identifies the nature of the rock features of the area, rather than suggesting routes to success.


rockbalancer here is photographing a clump of black knot


This is usually the first boulder we encounter, identifying Dogtown Square, but this time we found it on our way out.


At the exit gates (sort of--where the town compost heap is) I tried a rock balance. Not too shabby!

Comments

[wandererrob.livejournal.com]

If you find out what the writing on the Spiritual Power rock means (it looks like Greek)) can you let me know? My girlfriend and I were there in February and were baffled.

We'd like to go back in nicer weather to explore more. Cool place. :)

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

See comment below.

[bloolark.livejournal.com]

Give thanks to rof_deorc who loves a challenge. The writing on the Spiritual Power rock is three lines, all in Greek. The first two, translated into Roman characters, are 'Argyris siopis', which means silver silences. The last, according to him, is corrupted, possibly with a letter worn off, but the first three are Omicron, Chi, and Iota -- ochi. Ochi means no or no more. My best guess, being not a scholar of Greek, would be 'Silver silences no more', since that's the only thing that makes sense to me. :) Hopefully that helps a little.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that!

[johnwwells.livejournal.com]

Argyris and Siopis are both surnames, according to Google. This could be a double epitaph.

[bellelvsbeast.livejournal.com]

Cool looking ant! :) Also love the "loyalty" pic, so true...;)
Did you read my last post about the wildlife center I went to? I wish I had brought the camera...

[calypso72]

There's something eerie about those rock sayings. It makes me think of the old Nazi phrase "Arbeit macht frei"

If you ever find yourself in Georgia, you would get a kick out of Stone Mountain: the world's largest monolithic granite rock. Upon this bold and naked surface, Sculptor Gutzon Burglum carved the statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, General Robert E. Lee and General Stonewall Jackson.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

They were carved during the depression (just a few years beofre Arbeit macht frei was hung up over the gate of Auschwitz). I think it was supposed to inspire the hope that a person's industry and hard work could lift them out of an economic catastrophe created by the Robber Barons.

As a lifelong yankee, I'm intrigued and nervous about Stone Mountain.

[calypso72]

For me as well. It's a strange place on many levels.

[vampyrusgirl.livejournal.com]

You made a LiveJournal account for your dog???? Wat a dorky thing to do...

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Is Ezra jealous? I sing the line from "White and Nerdy" all the time:
"Even made a home page for my dog!"

[vampyrusgirl.livejournal.com]

Of course not!! His journal is a place where he documents important life events, like getting cookies and farting. chaggie is nothing but a platform for vanity! Not even one mention of grooming his/her own butt!!

Who does that song??

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I am SHOCKED that you know not of "White and Nerdy," in my humble opinion the best thing that happened in pop culture, AND on the internet, in the past year or so:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xEzGIuY7kw

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

this is like a disease or something!

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

i'm actually the dork. urbpan had nothing to do with it.

our dogs rarely, if ever, lick their butts - they focus on the genitals for maximum effect.

[vampyrusgirl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was just being a smart-ass, because I made one for Ezra - ezra_the_dog. Not only did I make a journal, he's written some entries. :P

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

you know, i started out trying to write from their POV but i just didn't have the heart ... or whatever organ is required to do that.

[vampyrusgirl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I just went back and re-read his...I am a total dork!!

http://ezra-the-dog.livejournal.com/

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

ha ha! those are cute! my entries are all just pictures - people can feel free to make inferences about what the dogs are thinking.

[vampyrusgirl.livejournal.com]

Mine is the opposite - they know what he's thinking (and I use that term lightly), but must make a mental picture of him, unless they know him. Huh. I'd like to know what people would think he looked like!

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

my first impression was that he most likely looks like a barrel. :)

[vampyrusgirl.livejournal.com]

Ha ha!! That's awesome! He's a greyhound, though. They may look all graceful and all, but it's all a sham. ;)

[sin-agua.livejournal.com]

This place you've shared fascinates me! Love your panorama - it's amazing how similar those boulder woods look to parts of where I grew up. Eerie, silent, crunching leaves, birdsong, wind. And the inscribed stones are...inspiring yet slightly unsettling at the same time (your robber baron notation - yeah). In a word - SURREAL. And that's just about my very favorite kind of experience! I must visit this place the next time I'm "back east."

Also - running off to find a "Visualize Industrial Collapse" bumpersticker! squeeee! ;)

[aemiis-zoo.livejournal.com]

noted rich weirdo

I think the preferred term for this is "eccentric" at least that's what I like to be called. =)

[mayagoodness.livejournal.com]

Thanks for these pics, I love things written on things. "Loyalty" + the dogs! Love it.