It looks like an unassuming pile of rocks. About 11 feet tall and meandering along the side of North Common road, the wall of stones is hard not to miss. Most people don’t give a second thought to the lopsided, tumbling wall built more than a century ago. But it holds an intriguing and almost relatable story- a story about spite. 

According to The Gardner News, Westminster, Massachusetts in the 1900s was a town with Puritanical roots. Even though it wasn’t a law, plenty of people believed that honoring the Sabbath was still extremely important. Debates of religious freedom were bitterly argued across New England. 

One man in Westminster during this time stuck so firmly to his beliefs about working on Sunday, he decided to build a wall.

According to The Gardner News, Edmund Proctor moved to a farm in Westminster in 1852. He continued the farm there, and lived in his house on the side of North Common road for the rest of his life. But, as true for most things, his life on the farm was not without conflict. 

His nearest neighbor, Farwell Morse, lived across the street. The two houses were close, so close both neighbors could hear and see what the other was doing all day. 

Upon discovering Edmund Proctor working on his farm one Sunday, Farwell Morse was astonished. Morse didn’t want to hear his neighbor working, not to mention yelling, on Sunday. Morse told Proctor of his objection, and asked that he stop swearing at his oxen while working on his farmland. Morse thought that was that. 

But this was not the end for Edmund Proctor. So firmly fixed in his beliefs, Proctor was resolved to keep working on Sunday, whether his neighbor liked it or not. 

So, Proctor built a wall. A wall made of stones- the tallest of its type in Massachusetts. His barricade was directly in front of his house, and blocked him from view of Morse. He kept piling stones on his wall until the day he died in 1880, when he was 71 years old. 

His decades-lasting project became known as “The Spite Wall,” a suitable name for the enormous barrier stubbornly hiding the land behind it. At almost 11 feet tall, Proctor’s Spite Wall is still visible today. 

There is no known response of what Morse thought of his neighbor’s blatant stand against Morse’s beliefs. But we can imagine how shocked he might have been. 

If you ever find yourself in the center of Westminster, Massachusetts, check The Spite Wall out. It’s a fitting reminder that human contact wasn’t so different a century ago.