After finals, I’ll nose around and see if I can find out anything about the historiography of those walls. I’m not aware that it’s ever been attempted (though American history is not my specialty, remember). I’ll let you know if I find anything out.
By the way, I’ve been to Maine on several occasions, and found it beautiful but heavily infested with those blasted black flies. Augh!
Well, the season doesn't last too terribly long but it really is horrendous. But we had a sure fire trick for dealing with them when working outdoors ( and it seems we were always working outdoors)
We all wore white construction helmets that were slathered with baby oil. The black flies were attracted to the baby oil I think...or maybe they just got stuck to the helmet trying to get at us. I don't recall which but it sure worked! While the black flies are bad in swarms during their season there are few bites as bad as the dreaded Deer Fly - brother, those things would draw blood! Really bad.