Dogtown & The Babson Word Rocks, Gloucester Ma.

Explored April 12th 2018
Join me on a spectacular hike through historic Dogtown and the trails of the Babson word rocks.
Once known as the Common Settlement, the area later known as Dogtown is divided between the city of Gloucester and the town of Rockport. Dogtown was first settled in 1693, and according to legend the name of the settlement came from the dogs that women kept while their husbands were fighting in the American Revolution. The community grew to be 5 square miles, and was an ideal location as it provided protection from pirates, and enemy natives. By the early 1700s, the land was opened up to individual settlement as previously it had been used as common land for wood and pasturing cattle and sheep. It is estimated that at one point 60 to 80 homes stood in Dogtown at the peak height of its population. In the mid-1700s as many as 100 families inhabited Dogtown which was stable until after the American Revolution.
As the last inhabitants died, their pets became feral, possibly giving rise to the nickname "Dogtown." By 1828 the village was all but abandoned. The last resident of Dogtown was a freedman named Cornelius "Black Neil" Finson, who was found in 1830 with his feet frozen living in a cellar-hole. He was removed and taken to a poor house in Gloucester. The last structure in Dogtown was razed in 1845, ending what had once been a thriving community.
Long after the last resident of Dogtown died, Roger Babson created a trail of over 30 immense boulders etched with sayings to promote his inspirational ideals, now called the Babson Word Rocks. The rocks bear inscriptions including “Help mother,” “Stay out of Debt,” “Loyalty,” and “Never try never win.” Babson was a millionaire who supported the project, carried out by local masons, as a Works Progress Administration project during the Great Depression. Originally, the boulders stood in a groomed field, but now, the rocks are an eerie presence strewn in an overgrown forest with many footpaths scattered throughout, and make up a popular hiking trail. Roger Babson, is known for, among other things, his commissioning of unemployed stonecutters to carve inspirational inscriptions on approximately three dozen boulders in Dogtown during the Great Depression. Babson also mapped and numbered the cellar holes left from the homes of Dogtown's former residents.
A quote by Roger Babson:
“Another thing I have been doing, which I hope will be carried on after my death, is the carving of mottoes on the boulders at Dogtown, Gloucester, Massachusetts. My family says that I am defacing the boulders and disgracing the family with these inscriptions, but the work gives me a lot of satisfaction, fresh air, excerise and sunshine. I am really trying to write a simple book with words carved in stone instead of printed paper. Besides, when on Dogtown common, I revert to a boyhood which I once enjoyed when driving cows there many years ago."
Roger Babson, "Actions and Reactions", 1935
#dogtown #explore #ruins

[@JSmith380]

"PROSPERITY FOLLOWS SERVICE" is the hardest one to find.

[@ExplorewithmeMarloC]

Thank you for that info. 😊

[@TheLostTurtle1]

Nice explore been wanting to go there for awhile now thanks for posting

[@ExplorewithmeMarloC]

The Lost Turtle lots of trails... i didnt make it down to the reservoir, I hiked all over. Enjoy when you get there ~

[@geriwilson8056]

You should speak louder so you can be heard

[@ExplorewithmeMarloC]

Thank you. This video was 5 years ago, I believe I have gotten better but appreciate the feedback