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Rock, Mostly Sandstone
by Catherine Smith
At ChicoryLane, rock is everywhere, hidden in plain sight. Turn in at the ChicoryLane sign on Brush Mountain Road to drive along a shale and limestone gravel lane. Cross a rocky-bottomed stream on a bridge with limestone and sandstone shoulders. Continue up a small rise formed by ancient muddy deposits.
| | Now you’re here. Let’s focus on one rock type, sandstone. Pay due attention to sandstone’s beauty, uses, geology, ecology, and symbolic value. Appreciate the work of masons, excavators, builders, and others who have created with stone at ChicoryLane and on nearby ridges. Follow along as this newsletter overviews the scene in early winter when vegetation recedes and rock is more visible. | | Readers on a desktop monitor: click the images for details. | | Sandstone can be pink, tan, green, orange, light gray, almost black and, rarely, red. A single rock might be multi-colored. According to local pickers of field stones, colorful sandstone is found on the south sides of ridges while darker stone is found on north sides. | | Practical Uses, Artfully Made | | Since the late 1970s David Atkins and James Lesher have built and repaired sandstone walls, stream crossings, house foundations and more at ChicoryLane. Over time neighbors and friends – Leroy Stover, Charles Stover, Chris Lehman and John Claar with Collin Claar – have resurfaced the lane and reworked the bridge with rock. Their works are functional art. Examples include these: | | Stepping stones crossing a Brush Mountain stream. Stone picked from ChicoryLane rock pile and placed by James Lesher. | | Standing stones, worked by James Lesher, curve around septic outlets protectively, creatively. | | Retaining wall. Stone picked from ChicoryLane rock pile and worked by James Lesher. | | Sandstone reflecting leaf shadows. Stone picked from Pine Creek by Dixie Svec and Jim Rider for Catherine’s outdoor shower. Worked by James Lesher. | | James Lesher chose and brought stone from the ChicoryLane rock pile to rework the barrel. | | ChicoryLane log house foundation, west exterior. Sandstone picked and worked by builders circa 1815. Re-worked by Dave Atkins and James Lesher 1993. | | Serpentine wall of sandstone worked by Dave Atkins 1980s | | Sandstone from Hagermans Run quarry and limestone from Oak Hall quarry was worked by John Claar Excavating, Inc, to repair the bridge 2025. | | |
Ecology
“If rocks are not alive in the conventional sense, they’re not dead either – in technical terms…the lithosphere is as much a part of the ecosphere as the biosphere.”
– Philip Marsden
| | Stone walls are habitats. Lichen, grass, and seeds make a rock garden on weathered sandstone. Snakes sun, then shed their skins on sandstone edges. | | Stony stream waters are habitats, too. Adam Smith nets and Suzy Yetter displays aquatic insects and invertebrates thriving in ChicoryLane’s high quality stream water. Photo credits: Bill Rathfon | | | |
Sandstone and shale were originally sand, silt, clay, and mud sediments created by ancient mountain erosion. Pressured by layers of deposits and other tectonic and evolutionary processes, sand became sandstone and silt, clay and mud became siltstones and shale. The sandstone rock is now the top layer of ridges in central Pennsylvania where ChicoryLane is located.
Seeps and springs from porous sandstone atop the ridge called Brush Mountain spill over shale layers to flow downslope via groundwater and streams. Normally, the flow would proceed through ChicoryLane to join large creeks, rivers, the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. But ChicoryLane’s geology impedes that flow in a couple of ways. First, shaley-limestone bedrock holds moisture near the surface. Second, a bump or fold of the less permeable shaley-limestone rises up in the middle of the property and slows stream water’s southward flow. Result? Much of the ground at ChicoryLane is wet (hydric) much of the time, creating favorable conditions for lush vegetation and abundant wildlife.
| | Rick Henry, hydrogeologist, explains the relationships of rock, water, and life at ChicoryLane during the recent Fall Open Day. | | Centre County GIS adapted by Rick Henry, Gregg Township Geology and Hydrogeology 2025 | | |
History in a Rock Pile
Rocks have long been tossed on this pile alongside a stream at ChicoryLane. Barn building and rebuilding between 1803 and 2020 likely contributed rocks. House building and rebuilding between 1820s and 1990s added rocks. Nowadays, any building and rebuilding project might start with choosing rocks from the pile.
| | Rock has long been used to mark human burials. Euro-American settlers and recent lifelong residents of Penns Valley are remembered by limestone monuments in Green Grove cemetery located on ChicoryLane. | | | | |
Old Improvement
A multi-plex rock structure on the south side of Mount Nittany near Centre Hall called the Old Improvement has long puzzled archaeologists, historians, and residents. Some think it related to Euro-American settler farming in the 1800s. Others think it related to paleo-Indian hunting much earlier. Photo credit: Jeff Mathison
| Stone walls on several wooded ridges near ChicoryLane inspire speculation, as a walker’s notebook entry from July 5, 2012 shows: “Led by Gerry Geiger’s study of mysterious stone walls in the region, we were guided by Jacob Esh to see an old wall on Esh’s farm in Brush Valley. The wall is impressive: large intact sections are approximately 8-10 feet wide at base and 6 feet high, well-built. Other sections are tumbled or slumped but show original good building technique. The wall runs north-south on the north face of Brush Mountain, beginning at the south end with a dirt mound, continuing north with pitched rocks topped by laid stone out of sight beyond three large oak trees. Straight, no curves. On top of the wall a single oak tree grows. It must have started as an acorn dropped onto the wall. Now (in 2012) the tree trunk is approximately 4 feet wide (wider at the root flanges as Jacob Esh pointed out) and 30 feet high, maybe aged 100 years or more. Evidently, wall construction pre-dated that oak. The wall might have been built in 1812 or earlier.” | | |
Invitation
ChicoryLane's features appear different under different light conditions. Just as the flowers of New York Ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis) glow iridescent purple in sunlight and dim to gray-blue under clouds, stones can be intensely colorful or dull depending on the light. To experience stones in their range of colors and intensities – only suggested in the images here – visit ChicoryLane on sunny days or dynamic sunny-cloudy days.
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Andy Goldsworthy, Wall 1997; Stone 1994
- Rick Henry, illustrated talk, ChicoryLane 2025
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Douglas Macneal, “The Nittany Arch” and “Karroondinha Gorge,” A Penns Creek Companion: A History and Guide 2021; 1999
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Philip Marsden, quotation in Nautilus November 2025; shared by Thom Rippon
- Catherine Smith, notebooks 2012
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David B. Willliams, Cairns: Messengers in Stone 2012
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ChicoryLane is an ecological reserve near Spring Mills protected by a Conservation Easement held by Clearwater Conservancy. Its 68 acres are actively managed for conservation.
The landscape is natural and scenic. It includes wetlands and meadows, streams, remnant and successional forests, and a grassland. This diversity of habitats is especially inviting to birds and butterflies. A system of mowed trails makes most of the property accessible to walkers.
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