Elaine and I had visited Pawtuckaway with Glenn back in 2009, but that was to climb South Mountain. The area now occupied by the west (back) side of Pawtuckaway State Park was first settled in the late 18th century.   Much of the land within the Pawtuckaway Mountains was cleared for pasture, most of which was subsequently abandoned in the middle 19th century.   The soils here are very rocky (from glacial deposits) and acidic (from an ancient volcanic ring dike), which is not ideal ground for farming. Cellar Site 1:

House cellar 1

House cellar 1 in the foreground, with cellar foundation of a much larger structure in rear.

Ground level passageway in the large structure

Stone foundation of the large structure

Foundation corner

Same corner from interior

Far corner of the large structure, with a rock wall extending beyond...

Glenn, for scale... Notice how the foundation includes a mix of quarried slabs and fieldstone boulders. It would have taken more than a couple of men to put these granite slabs in place.

I'm not sure what the huge structure was. Maybe a large barn or ?

Meloon (aka Maloon) Cemetery: (Gravestones here are engraved with both spellings)

There are 36 identified graves here, with all burials in the 1800s.

Gravestones

Gravestones

There are 10 Meloon / Maloon graves here

Seeing the Ichabod name brought up mention of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

The Winslow family was the second most common here (8 graves).

Foss couple

One more gravestone example

Cellar Site 2:

This home was likely utilized in later times, having concrete incorporated in the foundation.

An outside wall

Outside wall, near the cellar.

Quarried slab wall...

Cellar Site 3: This was probably the Chase homestead.

Less than a mile away, we found a pair of adjacent cellars. This is the first one.

The adjacent house cellar Both were of a similar size and orientation.

We saw dozens of these tiny Red Efts (the juvenile stage of the Eastern Red-Spotted Newt) on the ground. Due to their small size (less than 2 inches) we had to be careful not to step on them.

Cellar Site 4:

This massive cellar foundation was even larger than the one shown at the top of this page. Probably for a large barn.   I wish I had put a person in the image for scale.

Same corner, backed off a bit

Many of these boulders would have required a good- sized block & tackle hoist on a tripod to lift into place.

I wish I had taken a few more photos here to better show the size of the cellar structure... Continued on Page 2

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