Cobble Rock
Two Hundred tons in the balance
Cobble Rock is what is know as a glacial erratic and was one of many balancing rocks located in New England. The term glacial erratic means that it was transported from its place of origin by a glacier but doesn’t fit with its surroundings. As the glaciers melted this would sometimes place a boulder so that it balanced just so, producing a balanced rock.
The earliest reference to Cobble Rock is a caption for an engraving on page 131 of Charles T. Jackson’s Report on the Geological and Agricultural Survey of the State of Rhode Island (1839), in which he describes a rock found on the Smithfield estate of A. Arnold as a “Diluvial Boulder of Granite resting on Gneiss”.
The rock is mentioned more extensively, and given a name, in a March 4, 1870, Woonsocket Patriot article on “Ancient Land Marks of Smithfield’s Union Village”.
“Another very important “land mark”, is what is called the “Coblin Rock.” It is located about a half a mile North of the village, is of uniform diameter, standing on a large flat rock, and weighs probably 200 tons.”
The rise in popularity of the penny postcard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century produced many different photographs of the boulder with a slightly different spelling, Cobble instead of Coblin. The site drew many visitors during this time and soon the surface of the rock was covered with the carvings and painted names and initials of visitors. Some of the views show men and women in period dress sitting on top of, or standing beside, the boulder for scale.
Sadly, on the evening of Monday, September 26, 1977, severe thunderstorms lashed the northern part of the state, knocking down trees and telephone poles. On September 28th the Woonsocket Call reported. “An historic oddity—the 200 ton precariously perched Cobble Rock—was somehow dislodged and overturned during Monday’s savage thunderstorm, it was learned yesterday. The huge granite boulder was found in its ungraceful new condition by Donald L. Lanctot, Jr., of 76 Fountain St.”
One theory is that, over many years, the continuous freeze-thaw cycle of the seasons caused cracks to form in the boulder. On the night of the thunderstorm, one or two pieces of the boulder finally fell off, and that, perhaps combined with the weight of the water and the push of the wind of the furious thunderstorm, unbalanced the boulder, tumbling it into a hollow next to the ledge upon which it had rested for thousands of years.
The above information was gathered from Quahog.org
