Holliston Golf Course Stone Mound perspective

Joanne Hulbert, the Holliston Town Historian and Forest Committee manager writes:

Although the Mavor interpretation of the golf course pile is tantalizing, Many years ago I spoke to Mary Driscoll Murch who lived nearby when the piles were created on the Howe Brothers Farm in an attempt to clear the fields for pasture land. In order to get an idea of what they were up against, the Murch property next door has their rocks still in place and there's alot of them! Mary remembered watching the farm hands - Italian, Portugese and/or Irish, depending on who told the story (Jimmy Macchi said they were Portugese) and the workers were told to build a stonewall around the field "wide enough to drive a wagon upon it - not that they would, just a measurement - and they had so many rocks left over they built the famous pile on the north and started another south of the present golf course clubhouse - but the didn't finish it. Also there's other structures further out on the property. Some have recently been dismantled. My father was a close friend of the Murches and had been told of the rock clearing by them. The town has alot of other great sites, but I don't think we can attribute the golf course piles to anything other than a grand attempt to clear the fields.