I’m trying to figger back how many years ago it was that they built this road acrost Hampton Hill and down here. About 1915, I think it was. It was a mud road, and two roads, both of them muddy and a grass strip in the center. Then they voted to build the road and they had an awful time – they didn’t know where they were going to put a stone-crusher to crush rocks and so forth.

Finally they put it right out here by this stump and they used all our stone walls. Used to be y’know, you had a field and no space at all – there was a stone wall, just a little field and then here was another stone wall taking up all the space. And they said if they could put their stone-grinder out here that they would use all of those stone walls, clear our lots just perfectly clear. They dynamited rocks from our lawn no farther away from the house than here to the other end of that thresher. I suppose it had a gasoline engine at that time. When they made the roads first they’d fill it with big stones, packed those in, and then they’d fill in with this crushed stone on the top, then with gravel, and then with your oil.

Gertrude Pearl, from “Hampton Remembers”