Stories in the Stones: The Earliest Land Plant Fossils on Earth, Winslow Farms, Mapleton, Maine, Revised, Expanded, and Updated Paperback – November 16, 2025

When Francis Winslow moved to Mapleton, Maine in about 1858 and selected the land for his future farm, he could not have known that the beautiful red sandstone abundant on the property contained the rare fossils of the earliest land plants on Earth – one of which is not found anywhere else in North America. He did not foresee that paleontologists would still be continuing to studying these important fossil deposits 167 years later. Nor did he foresee that his descendants, who still live on the farm, would continue to be quarrying that spectacular stone. The popularity of the stone is easily seen throughout Aroostook County today in cellar walls, retaining walls, patios, walkways, and in many other applications which have been built from Francis’s sandstone over multiple generations. He could not have known that his beautiful rocks would be so popular in the future that in more recent years, they have been shipped by the truck load to locations throughout the Northeast. His quarry is the sole source of red flagstone for construction and landscaping in the State of Maine.More importantly, Francis did not know that specimens of the rare land plant fossils found on his farm are now treasured by museums, colleges, and private collections in the United States and Canada. These fossils were first identified by Olof Nylander in 1893 as imprints of the earliest land plants on Earth. Thus began the story of the discovery of these plants that lived on the edge of a warm shallow lake, the earliest lake in Maine’s geologic history, between 393 and 390 million-years-ago.Francis’s “rock pile,” as his grandson would later call it, has been much studied by paleontologists over the past 150 plus years, and continues to be a site paleontologists bring their students. The scientists have discovered over seven species of plants that were growing there on the edges of the warm lake. The stone is also unique because it is the only preserved sedimentary formation deposited in a land environment during the Eifelian time period in the United States. This unique and important formation, known as the Mapleton Formation, is only found around Creasey Ridge in Mapleton, Maine, in and around the Winslow farm quarry location.The beautiful stone, and amazing fossils, and quarrying it have been an important and integral part of the lives of Francis’s descendants, several of whom still live on his original farm, and continue to quarry that spectacular stone. This book tells the story of the discovery and study of these important fossil plants; the listing of the site on the Register of Critical Areas in Maine; as well as what the environment was like at the time these fascinating plants lived. There is also information on the plant fossils, and many pictures.This is the story not only of these fascinating and important ancient land plant fossils, but of the family who have quarried, studied, and loved them since the 1860’s. Read more