The Great Stone Puller

DEMONSTRATION FRIDAY/ AUGUST 14TH, 2020

Dave Little is back again showing us how the stone puller machine operates and to explain why it was valuable to many early settlers.

This machine was very important to farmers because stones weren’t always light enough to move by hand, and if there were rocks in the middle of good farmland they would need to be removed.

The first step would be to dig around the rock, and a little underneath, in order to determine the size and the shape of the stone. These two things would then be taken into consideration when pounding two holes on either side of the stone so that the “claw” of the stone puller could attach to it.

Although we don’t know for sure, we can guess that there was often one stone puller that was shared by a community, and everyone would help one another. Dave tells us that two teams of horses may have been used when the stone puller was in operation. One team would have been for raising and lowering the stone, and another for moving the stone from the field to a different location. This would ensure that the process would be efficient and allow for more stones to be moved in a day.

watch video here