Ebb & Flow
Peter K. Prybot
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A relatively unknown rock that sits on private land amidst the Lanesville and Bay View highlands is one of a kind on Cape Ann.
This geologically significant granite mass, dubbed "the moving rock," once had an adjacent pasture, chicken farm and boarding house named after it, and even provided play and sated curiosity to at least two local youth decades ago. Its whereabouts recently became the mission of a Lanesville author who co-chairs the Gloucester Archives Committee.
John J. Babson mentioned "the rocking stone" or "moving rock" in his "History of the Town of Gloucester," published in 1860.
"It is a bowlder (sic) weighing about 70 tons," he wrote, "resting on a rock on a level with the surface of the ground and may be set in motion by one person, so that, after the withdrawal of the force, about 15 vibrations may be counted."
Geologically speaking, this moving rock is "... a glacial erratic; it's a balanced rock," explained Sarah Dunlap, the Lanesville author and archives committee co-chairman.
"Some are perched on other rocks. This one just happened to land (after the glacier moved it and melted) in a way it teetered a bit," she said. "The bottom of this one has a hollow spot, and it's balanced."
The stone rocks from east to west and vice versa.
"It's the only balancing rock on Cape Ann," added Erik Natti, a retired science teacher, who lives near the rock and knew of it. "There are others like it elsewhere in Massachusetts. There were a lot of stones this size on Cape Ann that got cut up (for their granite). It was a lot easier for the quarrymen to do that on top of the land rather than in it."
Lanesville, Bay View and Pigeon Cove in Rockport have rich granite quarrying heritages.
"Anything about Gloucester that I come across and don't know about, I get curious," said Dunlap. She said she didn't know about the "moving stone" until she read about it through several book references, including Babson's, and soon began a mission to find it.
"It started dawning on me, the stone was right in Lanesville, but nobody knew where it was (at first). I went around the Lanesville woods pushing possible stones," she said.
Dunlap added, "Jane (Walsh, co-chair of the Gloucester Archives Committee) found a map that had 'moving rock pasture.'
"Then it was Costa Maletskos (a nearby resident), who actually came through and mentioned where the stone was, followed by (Lanesville carpenter and builder) Frank Garrison, who knew Erik, and I finally got to see it about a month ago. Where I had looked wasn't even close to where the stone actually was."
"When I was a kid (in the late 1940s and early 1950s), my father and neighbor, Costa Maletskos, walked on that stone and made it move a foot or two," recalled Natti, a Gloucester native who also climbed atop it himself many times.
"You could sit on the rock and could see the ocean from Wingaersheek Beach toward Rockport. Trees have since blocked that view," he added. "The rock was more of a curiosity than a place to play for me."
But, for Dr. Constantine "Costa" Maletskos, who holds doctorates in biology, chemistry and physics, "the moving rock" definitely was a place to play for him back in the 1930s.
Maleskos summered in Lanesville then, and found out about the rock after becoming friends of the Natti family, who ran Moving Rock Farm. He even helped the Nattis clear around the rock so chickens could have an outdoor pen.
"I made it rock when I was a youngster," he recalled. "Just visualize going up there as a youngster and making it rock. Everybody else was doing the same, and eventually enough chunks fell off, and you could no longer move the stone."
Peter K. Prybot writes regularly for the Times about the fishing industry and other Cape Ann issues.
