A Mystery Explored, Who Built New England's Stone Walls? Part 2

The records don't lie

     In researching the history of New England's stone walls I have run across much evidence that contradicts the accepted theory regarding their construction. This shouldn't come as a surprise viewed within the context of many other “mystery stone walls” existing all over the Eastern U.S. And Canada. There are mysterious stone walls that baffle experts in Georgia, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Alabama, Kentucky, Indiana and many other states. The majority of these have been dated by archaeologists to precolonial times. In West Virginia the Armstrong mystery stone wall is 30 feet wide 5 feet tall 10 miles long and concluded to have been built by the Adena mound builder culture who existed from 1000 B.C. to 200 A.D. in the Kanawha Valley. This is one of many unexplained stone walls in that state. In a November 7^th 1900 New York times article, the mysterious Brandywine stone wall complex of Mississippi is reported on. The wall is 4 square miles, each stone is six feet long, 3 feet wide and 2 feet thick. From the article “The sides and angles of the blocks of stone are so perfect that they resemble pressed brick. The tops of the walls are perfectly horizontal and without regard to the unevenness of the earths surface. The seams between the tiers are perfectly straight and each block of stone is perfectly horizontal in position and these blocks are smoothly dressed on the edges and ends. A personal inspection of these great structures as they lie partly buried in the earth would relieve the minds of the most skeptical of all doubt of it not being the work of the hands of man. The information above given is vouched for by other parties who have visited the scene in recent years. Truly, there is work for the scientist here. The builders, the Jackson News thinks, were some prehistoric race- it could not be otherwise”.

     In 1852 in Rockwall Texas a 20 mile (5.6m x 3.5m) stone wall was discovered and dated to great antiquity that gave the town its name. In Eastern Canada professor Gerard Leduc has recorded a series of stone walls 2 to 3 feet high beginning and ending with no apparent purpose which are not associated with the fields of farmers. The local native tribes claim that the walls were there when they arrived thousands of years ago. Early European settlers in the Ohio valley encountered abandoned stone wall hilltop enclosures. The construction of these walls was assigned to the Hopewell mound builders that built roughly from 200 B.C. to 500 A.D. Many of these structures have been revealed to align with astronomical phenomena. Quite frankly, there is a staggering amount of these walls that have been thoroughly researched outside of New England. For some odd reason there seems to be a pervasive bias against proper investigation of stone walls in the area we live. If many stone walls already existed in the New World when colonists arrived then there must have been documented evidence. This is most certainly the case and many of the reports are matter of fact, as if this were fairly known and taken for granted. Let's look at a few of the reports describing Indian “stone fences” and stone walls. The colonists attributed the stone work to Native Americans because they were the culture present at the time but Native American oral tradition does not include stone wall building.

     Henry Baker, History of Montville CT. 1896 p 31. “Owanecco.... afterwards gave them each (two Englishmen who rescued him from drowning) One hundred acres of land, which transaction was afterwards confirmed by the General Court, and ordered to be surveyed and laid out “about a mile or two west northerly of the Ancient Indian Fence”.

     Stonington, CT Deeds 1664-1714. Book 2; Part 3; 2-79: “and from thence were run north northeast northerly 288 rod where we marked a small walnut tree and marked seven notches on it a little within the Indian fence at Qualquetoye. The above written act of surveyors was entered Jan. 4^th 1680.

     Ancestors and descendant of Johnathan Abell, P.11 (Rehoboth, MA) The 26^th of the 12^th month 1651, it was agreed that Robert Abell and Richart Bullock should burn the commons round about, from the Indian Fence.

     Quassakonkanuck from ancient Native American place names in Rhode Island means “stone fence boundary mark; place at the stone wall”.

     The Smithsonian also documented one of the massive ancient stone wall complexes found in New Hampshire. Here is part of E. G. Squire's report. Smithsonian Contribution to Knowledge, Vol 2 1851; p 145-146. “when the first settlers discovered the fort, there were oak trees of large size standing within the stone walls. Within the enclosure and in the mound and vicinity were found innumerable ornaments, such as crystals cut into shapes of diamonds, squares, pyramids, etc...” This site was not a fort but a ceremonial complex. It had stone blocking mounds and horseshoe shaped stone walls, both Mississippian mound building features but done with stone and not earth.

     From John Pynchon (founder of Springfield, MA) in a letter to John Winthrop Jr. dated Nov 30, 1654. “Sir,I hear a report of a stone wall and strong fort in it, made all of stone, which is newly discovered at or near Pequot, I should be glad to know the truth of it from yourself, here being many strange reports about it”. Besides the wall complex, Pynchon is referring to the precolonial stone chamber at the site which is oriented to the equinox spring sunrise just like the stone chamber in Goshen. This doesn't sound like a colonial population convinced that all walls were built in the last couple hundred years as we have been led to believe.

Underneath the Hudson River

     The following news item is an example of under reporting that takes place when new information arises that doesn't fit the existing paradigm. On December 18, 2002 the New York Times reported the following. “Scientists mapping the bottom of the Hudson River with sonar say that they have found nearly every single ship that ever foundered in the river over the last 400 years or more. The surveys have also turned up more mysterious structures, including a series of submerged walls more than 900 feet long that scientists say are clearly of human construction. They say the walls are probably 3000 years old because that was the last time the river's water levels were low enough to have allowed construction on dry land. “I think there are going to be really significant findings”, said Warren Riess, a research associate professor of history and marine science at the University of Maine”. Or maybe there won't be because no one will hear about this story again. This is how the information filter works, maybe something might rarely slip by once but never twice. Someone who posted a comment on line after the article sums up my sentiments, “The heck with the ships, who was building 900 ft. long stone walls in the Northeast North America in 1000 B.C. or earlier”. Shouldn't this report rewrite the history books, instead of getting scant attention and then disappearing?

Technology of the Ancients

     I spoke with researcher Glenn Kreisberg the VP of the Northeast Antiquities Research Association about this report which he is familiar with. He said he believes the walls are much, much older, maybe staggeringly older. He believes the 3000 year old dating is for too conservative. Kreisberg, who lives in Woodstock, NY and is very familiar with the Hudson, says the state of New York has yet to release information on the location of the walls so researchers have been unable to study them further. Kreisberg also spoke of a site that he has studied on Overlook Mountain for several years. The site has two ninety foot long walls which end in massive serpent heads with the two tails pointing at each other. There are also 6 immense stone cairns, 60 to 90 feet long and up to 12 feet high. When he plotted out the formations he found that they are a mirror of the constellation Draco on the ground. This phenomena, popularized by Graham Hancock in his book Heavens mirror, occurs at sacred sites all over the planet. The three pyramids at Giza are an exact reflection of Orion's belt on the ground and the 40 km temple complex at Angkor Wat in Cambodia is a mirror on the ground of Draco also. Kreisberg also has found early property deeds for the area that show “ancient stone monuments” present from the first land grants, patents and subdivisions recorded.

65,000 feet above Vermont

     A research project at Norwich University in Northfield, VT has also yielded very surprising results Led by professor Noel Ring, a scientific study using aerial photography checked by field work, soil analysis and carbon dating was undertaken. Professor Ring has identified from NASA U-2 photographs, taken at a height of 65,000 feet above Vermont, a unique pattern of hexagons identified by stone walls and ditches. Many of the stone walls are independent of colonial and current field patterns, or overlap and cross them in such a way as to make it clear that they were there before the European farmers of the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Within the hexagons, some a mile long, the soil shows up a different color- and indication of earlier cultivation. Professor Ring is convinced of the antiquity of the stone walls, “One known colonial deed mentions the prior prescience of these stone structures”.

An upside down science

     Stone walls 60 ft. under water, stone walls in the shapes of huge geometric forms, reports of ancient stone walls throughout the historical texts, the evidence seems to be pointing in an obvious direction. There are numerous accounts in historical documents, deeds, town records and personal correspondence to support the theory that stone wall construction took place long ago in the Northeast. The oral tradition of virtually every Native American tribe tells of a race that preceded them engaged in either ceremonial mound building or stone building. Obviously, the colonials did a large amount of wall building, however there is a considerable amount left that has not been convincingly explained. So why haven't these pieces been put together more convincingly by an archaeologist or team of researchers. Wouldn't you be hailed for discovering a new theory that possibly sheds light on a mysterious civilization organized around ceremonial stone building in the Northeast that could reach back thousands and thousands of years. The reality is that any professional who steps out of the norm is ostracized, called a lunatic and never debated on the basis of fact but tangential nonsense used to misdirect away from a truth deemed unacceptable by the profession. Whether it is human nature, jealousy, outright suppression of evidence or a simple inability to accept what someone else has found, this is the way the system works in many cases. Archeology is particularly guilty of this behavior. Unlike Astronomy, where amateurs and professionals often have a close working relationship, there is mistrust and division in the world of archeology. Fortunately, the old musty theories of orthodox archeology are being presently dismantled as ground breaking new discoveries continue to happen all around the globe.

A Mystery Explored: Who Built New England’s Stone Walls?

“History is a lie, agreed upon.” — Voltaire
Rising above the southern Illinois plain, just across from the modern city of St. Louis, sits the most spectacular of all ancient human-engineered sacred centers in North America, called Cahokia.

This earthen step pyramid consists of four gigantic terraces comprising 22 million cubic feet of soil. It's base, in excess of 14 acres, is larger than that of Egypt's Great Pyramid and it is more than 100 feet high. In mass it is exceeded in the world only by the Mexican pyramids of Teotihuacan and Choula.

When European colonists arrived in North America, they were astonished to discover hundreds of thousands of earthen mounds and pyramids mostly throughout the eastern half of the country. Carbon dating has revealed that the mound construction began at least 5,500 years ago at Poverty Point, Louisiana. The amount of soil used to create the earthen embankments at Poverty Point would fill the Great Pyramid 30 times. The centerpiece of the ceremonial center was a massive bird effigy 70 feet high and 640 feet wide. These structures were often massive, geometrically perfect earthen squares, rectangles, circles and octagons that connected roads up to 50 miles long, 180 feet wide and 12 feet high and joined them in an elaborate network. The entire region was transformed into a sophisticated geometrically patterned, astronomically aligned landscape.

The amount of earth moving, the elaborate and exquisite artifacts recovered from the mounds and the precision involved in their creation was so difficult to explain that scholars of the time frequently speculated that the Egyptians or a race such as the lost tribe of Israel built these structures.

In the southwest of America, Anasazi cities laid out on the ground are exact reflections of all the major stars in the Orion Constellation. Monuments found there show knowledge of sophisticated astronomical phenomena, including the 26,000-year cycle of the precession of the equinoxes. The stonework and architecture are also stunning and inexplicable, such as building celestial observatories into sheer cliffs. First, why have most people never heard of these constructions and second are we to believe that as these amazing feats happened all around the country thousands of years ago, there was nothing ancient or noteworthy in the woods and fields of New England? In reality, the evidence suggests that the whole area of the Northeast at some distant time was completely transformed into a ceremonial landscape of stone.

Mathematics of the Gods

Archaeologists from Earlham College intent on debunking the notion of astronomical calendars on the ground such as Stonehenge, concluded that the Newark Earthwork site in Ohio is, in fact, a massive lunar calendar of amazing precision that could predict eclipses and that its builders understood sophisticated astronomy such as the moon's 18.61-year metonic cycle.

The Newark Earthwork site is also built with the same architectural mathematics as the Great Pyramid of Egypt, including the 51.8-degree angle incorporated into its construction. This 51.8-degree angle, as well as the 43.5-degree angle found at the world's largest pyramid of Teotihuacan in Mexico, allow the two pyramids to use pi to an exacting degree. Archaeologists concede that pi is used in their construction, but they say it is by chance. Instead of the normal 45 degrees, these two idiosyncratic angles are carefully chosen to make this sophisticated geometry possible.

When I learned about the massive scope of building and the complexity of the civilizations that created these structures, I was mystified why none of this was taught in our schools. This same bias ignores the fact that New England possesses an enormous number of astronomically aligned stone constructions. It is as if there is an imaginary circle drawn around New England that represents a total absence of pre-colonial construction although there are enigmatic pre-colonial remains in every other part of the country as well as virtually every part of Canada, Central and South America. This irrational historical blackout has its roots in the prevailing attitudes of the first colonists. When the pilgrims first landed in New England and began to acquire land, they needed to believe that the land was empty and the natives were ignorant savages. This despite the fact that the landscape was littered with strange stone construction. Within a generation or two, the myth took firm hold and every stone creation was concluded to be built by colonials. It is necessary to understand the paradigm that existed and continues to exist that has allowed such a level of ignorance to shape theory.

To the moon and back

This leads us to the stone walls of New England. Local folklore states that every stone wall you see was built sometime in the last 400 years. This seems like a reasonable supposition at first glance. Colonials definitely built walls for property boundaries and agricultural uses. Timber eventually became scarce in the colonies and fencing was needed as land was farmed and livestock raised. We are told that the majority of the walls were built in a roughly 50-year window between the Revolutionary and Civil wars. How many walls did and does New England actually have?

A 1939 study done by an engineer using agricultural records estimated there were 240,000 miles of stone walls east of the Hudson River right after the Civil War. This very conservative estimate was done using incomplete data and didn't account for other areas in the Northeast that possess large numbers of stone walls. The actual figure is well over 500,000 miles, many researchers estimate — equivalent to a stone wall that circles the earth 20 times or all the way to the moon and back. Does it seem likely that a colonial population struggling for survival, involved in several all-encompassing wars and working difficult and unforgiving land could have accomplished this feat? It would have been the most costly and labor-intensive undertaking in colonial history. The total sheer tonnage of New England stone walls represents an amount greater than all the world’s pyramids, stone temples, stone complexes and ancient stone structures combined.

Walls without colonial purpose

An indication of the antiquity of many walls is their seemingly irrational construction and placement. If the reason for walls was for agricultural purposes and boundary markers, then a massive amount fall into some unknown realm. There are stone walls 12 feet high with 20 foot bases, walls that undulate wildly, tying into huge glacial erratics, beginning and ending without seeming purpose and defining no boundary; walls that are balanced with exact precision and have large holes throughout their entire length; walls with precise geometric shapes such as squares, triangles and rectangles embedded in them; walls that have the exact same strange building techniques used in Martha's Vineyard to Pennsylvania and all around New England including in Ashfield, Plainfield, Hawley and other surrounding towns.

There are walls that follow no property boundaries or deed lines; walls that enclose huge swamps, climbing up 30-foot cliffs, using precariously perched stones weighing 5,000 and 10,000 pounds apiece; walls that consist of quartz that geologists determined to be brought from miles away because the area in question possessed none; stones actually quarried and used in construction when there is ample stone in close proximity if the purpose was to clear land or build boundaries; quartz quarried and made into walls, walls that end abruptly with serpent and effigy heads, walls with massive amounts of stone cairns and effigy mounds next to them that have the same construction techniques; walls over mountains that were never settled or farmed; walls that head straight up mountains built on such extreme slopes that your lungs burn just to walk them — many, many walls that use countless stones weighing several tons in totally inaccessible areas that could not have been made without the benefit of beasts of burden.

Astronomical orientations

Many astronomical observatory stone chamber sites also have wall complexes determined to be associated with them. Several of the sites have been dated 1,000, 2,000 and up to 5,000 years old. Also, a large number of walls are located on paths that lead to the setting sun on the solstices.

In the Northeast, the angle of that path is approximately 123 degrees southeast for the winter solstice sunrise and 303 degrees northwest for the summer solstice sunset. Standing along this line, one would see the sun rising on the southeast horizon on the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice and, six months later, if you turned around 180 degrees, you would see the sun setting at that point on the horizon, on the longest day of the year, the summer solstice.

The area we live in is a particularly good example of how unrealistic the notion of exclusive colonial construction is. Our towns were some of the last to be settled and the first to be abandoned. The very small populations of the towns could never account for the immense number of walls unless huge labor pools were imported to build them like a Roman era construction project, of which there is obviously no record. Take the town of Hawley, which is an area 30.9 square miles, first settled in 1770. It contains a dizzying amount of walls, however its population at the time in question was 539 in 1790, 1,089 in 1820 and 600 in 1879. Could this meager population be responsible for over a thousand miles of walls in town? Hiking on isolated Parker Hill (elevation 2020 ft.) in the Hawley State Forest last week, I found a 200 foot long solitary wall near the top. It is the only wall anywhere near the peak, pointing with an apparent equinox orientation directly at Mt. Wachusett. The wall terminates at a massive balanced stone arrow pointing true north just like many others I have found on Hawley mountain tops that also point true north. Why build a short wall on a windswept inaccessible peak that seems to serve no purpose?

A feat to rival the pyramids

All this is backed up with colonial reports of walls existing when they arrived here and old records referring to Indian stone fences or walls that existed before colonials.

Mystery walls of ancient origin have been studied, dated and cataloged all over the eastern U.S., Texas, California, Utah, eastern Canada and on and on. Carbon dating has also been eye-opening at many sites. A team of Harvard archaeologists studied and dated an ancient stone wall at the Flagg Swamp rock shelter to 2,700 B.C. This site was later destroyed to make a cloverleaf for Interstate 495.

After weighing the evidence of the theory that colonials built all the walls we see, it just doesn't add up. Just like the mound-building phenomena and other massive engineering feats of antiquity such as building pyramids, New England's stone wall network is a feat of improbable and amazing proportion. It is as enigmatic as Stonehenge, Easter Island and Machu Picchu.

The reality is that we have a Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark-style mystery right here in our own backyard. The question is who built many of the walls and what was their purpose? Asking this leads to a series of answers that archaeologists have yet to explain.

This is part one of a two part series.

The Mysterious Stone Chambers of New England and the Search for Lost America Part 2

“The stones are great and magic power they have, men that are sick fare to that stone, and they wash that stone and bathe away their evil”. 12^th Century chronicler Layamon writing of Stonehenge.

     While pouring through records of the town histories of West County I gained a great deal of insight into the nature of life in what was the frontier of our new country. What I discovered was a story of hardship and determination with a focus on practicality and survival. What I failed to find was any mention of stone creations built by colonials other than mills, foundations and utilitarian walls. In fact in the entire documented history of New England there is not a single account of a colonial creation of a stone chamber, cairn, standing stone or dolmen. This, in spite of the fact that the northeast possesses the highest concentration of astronomically aligned stone monuments on the entire planet. I did however come across many old accounts of precolonial stonework that puzzled the new inhabitants of the land. The colonials did not know what to make of the stone chambers they found and speculated that they may have been Native American sweat lodges or hot houses. In 1643 Roger Williams wrote, “This hot house is a kind of little cell or cave, six or eight feet over, round, made on the side of a hill, commonly by some rivulet or brook. In 1702 Cotton Mather added “their hot house is a little cave, about eight foot over... In 1709 a Mr. Lawson writes “near the town, within their clear'd land, are several Bagnios or sweating houses, made of stone. In the shape like a large oven. Finally, the highly regarded John Pynchon writes in 1654, “Sir, I here a report of a stonewall and strong fort in it, made all of stone, which is newly discovered at or near Pequot. I should be glad to know the truth of it from yourself, here being many strange reports about it”. Accounts such as these suggests that stone chambers predate colonial arrival. The question is who built them and for what purpose.

Native American Legends

     Native Americans do not claim to be the builders of these structures. In 1870, an old Stockbridge Native American returned to the site of his ancestors for a visit and recounted the following tale. His people had gone west after “much wretchedness” living in the local area. He said his ancestors told his people that they had found these “stone huts” when they first arrived to these lands. They were not comfortable to his people, so they moved across the Ripowam to the high ground to live. Evidence shows that Northeast Native American tribes were not engaged in large scale stone building but did some work with stone and used the chambers for ritual purposes. Researcher Philip Imbrogno had a rare opportunity to spend three weeks with and interview the last living shaman of the Wappinger tribe. His name was “Onawan Tu” which in english translates to “he who walks with the spirits”. Onawan Tu recounted the following ancestral tale of who built the stone chambers. “Long, long ago my people lived in peace and prosperity. One day strange beings came from the direction of the rising sun. These beings were much taller than my people. My people greeted them as friends and they began to build the stone huts you call chambers. They would have huge fires around them and would be able to commune with “spirits” because these chambers stored energy and acted as doorways to the spirit world. It is said that the giant stones were moved by spirit power with a great wind. These beings were considered by my tribe to be messengers of the great spirit, they lived with my ancestors for a very long time. There was a great exchange of ideas and knowledge not only with our tribe but also with the Delaware, Algonquin and Huron people.”

     The missionary John Heckelwelder told of a legend he heard from the Delaware Indians about an ancient race that preceded them known as the Alligewi, who were said to have “built to themselves regular stone fortifications or entrenchments,” to have been “remarkably tall and stout,” and to have included giants among their people.” A particularly interesting report from 1895 comes from the History of Deerfield page 78 “At the foot of Bars Long Hill a (precolonial) skeleton was described to me by Henry Mather who saw it, as being of monstrous size with double teeth all round. The skeleton was examined by Dr. Stephen W. Williams of Deerfield, who said the owner must have been nearly eight feet tall”. There are countless similar reports of giant human skeletons all over Eastern America, oftentimes many at a site, that have been suppressed by institutions such as the Smithsonian, which has a long record of underhanded behavior such as “losing” evidence that doesn't fit its dogmatic theories. Many of these accounts are predominantly in town histories and were viewed as oddities not something trumpeted up to bring publicity. Anecdotal evidence seems to suggest the possibility of a lost culture of stone builders in the Northeast.

The Physicist and the Stones

     Native American legends speak of many stone sites that are thought to be magical and sacred, which they believed were gateways to another world. They considered different kinds of stones to possess different powers or energies. Quartz, in particular, was considered a potent supernatural stone by shamans that was often used in ceremony and ritual. Quartz in today's society is used in watches, electronics and computers for its ability to conduct electricity and store information. Is there modern scientific verification for the belief that stones possess energetic properties not understood by mainstream scientists? That appears to be the case and it happens to come from a very strange chapter in the history of science.

     Let's take a look at the work of the American physicist Thomas Brown. Brown developed theories concerning the link between the electromagnetic and gravitational fields theorized by Dr. Albert Einstein. Famously discovering the Biefield-Brown effect propelled him into a career with the U.S. Navy, working on the governments most highly classified projects for decades. In the early years of Brown's research he discovered the capacity of certain types of rock to produce an electric current, even when properly shielded. Brown's work with rock electricity began in 1931 and continued up until the end of his life in 1985. It became his main area of focus after leaving his position with the government. His findings were revolutionary. As shown in his papers, “studies of telluric electricity as related to individual rocks, have revealed the existence of electrical self-potential. The true source of this energy is not now known, but the fact that the electrical output of rocks undergoes diurnal cycles, sidereal cycles and secular variations, appears to indicate that the energy has a cosmic origin. One might express it- that the rocks of the earth may actually be tapping cosmic energy”. In layman's terms Brown's research revealed that not only do stones produce an electric current almost magically by themselves but they are affected by the cycles of heavenly bodies. He had the government's most advanced scientific equipment at his disposal to carry out these experiments because of his reputation. He found that the voltages produced by the stones were within the range of the human brain/body communication system, meaning that humans are directly influenced by stones in a very real way. One may ask, why does a man who has worked on some of the governments most fascinating “black operations” projects end up studying the electrical output of stones and their relationship to cosmic gravitational forces for the balance of his life. The answer appears to be found in his papers where he claims to have discovered ,“a whole new spectrum equivalent to the electromagnetic spectrum”. What Brown had stumbled upon was a whole new spectrum of cosmic force. These implications are profound and would certainly get the attention of a physicist. Brown concluded that stones (some more than others), emit electrical output apparently of their own volition, that not only can be received by a human in its field but are also affected by celestial movements of bodies that create a waxing and waning of this energy. Is this why certain types of stone are chosen for building megalithic sites such as Stonehenge, where it's builders chose bluestone from a quarry 180 miles away instead of local stone. Is this also why so many sites such as stone chambers are astronomically aligned, to make use of the stones maximum output at certain celestial events? Esoteric literature certainly tells us so and now it appears science is telling us a similar tale.

Quartz, gold, copper, iron and electromagnetism

     It has been noted by researchers that areas chosen to build stone chambers are high in specific mineralogical compositions such as quartz, gold, copper and iron, that attract electromagnetic energy. Let us examine a few chamber sites in our area to see if this holds true. The Goshen chamber complex is built on an entire mountain of quartzite. Not only is there a large amount of quartzite stones in the chamber but the two standing stones, effigy mound head and massive stone walls are all quartzite as well. Researchers brought in a professional dowser who located a spring directly under the center of the chamber and pinpointed an electromagnetic line of force that ran right through the doorway. Just recently on March 20^th I experienced the awe inspiring equinox sunrise from within it. This verified the intentional directional placement of the structure. From the history of Leyden in 1910 we hear about a Mr. Frank Tilden, a rocky mountain prospector who opened a mine extremely close to one of the town's two chambers. The mine possessed a high percentage of copper and a fair percentage of gold and silver. Harold Campell of Leyden bears out this statement. He says that Mr. Tilden presented him with a fine specimen of Leyden quartz rock with a vein of gold running through it which was from his mine. Also from the town records are other reports of unusual mineral deposits in the area such as encouraging results from geiger counter prospectors in West Leyden. Lastly, aviators report that planes flying low near Daniel's peak are thrown off course by the odd behavior of compasses which dance and spin erratically. Such compass action usually indicates the proximity of lodestone deposits. In the 1990's Dr. Bruce Cornet, then a staff geologist at Lamont Dougherty Observatory brought a proton procession magnetometer, used to measure variations in the earth's magnetic field to several stone chambers. Dr. Cornet said he recorded “the strangest readings I ever got in this area. It was strong enough to reverse a compass. Each stone chamber had a significant pull right in front of the door. This magnetic anomaly is a true clue that they are much older than the early colonial period”.

What does it mean?

     It appears that the builders of New England's stone chambers used geometry, astronomy, magnetic lines of force, water and specific kinds of stone to carry electro-magnetic energy to create a specific field of energy. This field it seems was created to produce an energetic state that allows the participant to experience higher levels of awareness and physical and mental healing. The shaman and quantum physicist both agree on the existence of this field.. Shamans enter this field through prolonged fasting and ritual. They understood that when a human came into contact with these stone monuments they would experience a very real and measurable consciousness expanding and healing effect. This is a clue to why Native Americans would call these sites gateways to another dimension. It is my contention that the builders of worldwide prehistoric sacred stone sites not only had knowledge of this force but possessed a spiritual based science that far exceeds our present civilizations. I also believe that indigenous legend, geological, archaeological and astronomical evidence along with common sense all support this. It is also my contention that these builders were part of a lost civilization that built stone monuments all over the world including New England. Let's quickly look at the Jupiter Temple in Baalbek Lebanon. It is so old that archaeologists don't even attempt to date the original structure. They focus rather on the Phoenician and Roman remains built at the site. The temple possesses the three largest quarried stones in the world. They weigh two million pounds apiece, are placed on a forty foot retaining wall, and are so tightly fit you can't slip a piece of paper between them. Modern engineers freely admit the total impossibility of being able to do this today because of weight and site constraints. Yet, we are supposed to believe that stone age man crawled out of his cave six or seven thousand years ago and littered the entire planet with inconceivable stone structures such as this. Who then was this mother culture responsible for all these monuments? Well, there appears to be an answer for that too....

The Mysterious Stone Chambers of New England and the Search for Lost America Part 1

Calendar 2 Stone Chamber Vermont

(photo courtesy of James J Garfall)

Corbelled Roof- Newgrange Stone Chamber Ireland

Corbelled Roof Shuttesbury Chamber Massachusetts

Goshen Chamber Standing Stone Massachusetts

Interior- Goshen Stone Chamber Massachusetts

Turtle Effigy Mound Goshen Massachusetts Chamber Site

Upton Chamber Upton Massachusetts

Winter Solstice sunrise Calendar 2 Vermont

“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts”. Theoretical Physicist Richard Feynman

     One day in the early 1800's, two boys from Goshen were chasing a rabbit when it darted away and ran into its burrow. While trying to dig it out they discovered that its burrow lead to a massive stone shaft and stone tunnel that was completely sodded over with bushes covering the top. The boys quickly shared news of their discovery. What they found was perplexing to say the least. The main shaft of the structure was fifteen feet deep with a diameter of 3 ½ feet. Two side tunnels near the bottom of the shaft traveled 70 feet in one direction and 15 feet in the other, where it is believed a stone chamber ten feet by ten feet once existed before it caved in long ago. The roofs of the tunnels were comprised of tightly fitted large quarried capstones. Goshen's subsoil in this locality is composed of “clay hard-pan” that is so dense it has to be loosened with a pick or similar instrument before it can be removed. The entire construction was dry laid, used quarried stone, some of which were massive. The entire project required backbreaking labor.

     The first settlement in Goshen did not take place until 1761, not long before the discovery of this enigmatic structure, when David Stearns and Abijah Tucker built homes in western Goshen. Colonial settlement in the late 18^th century in Goshen was dispersed and limited. There is no mention of its construction in the town records and the fact that it was sodded over in the early 1800's points to a probable precolonial origin. An engineering feat of this magnitude would certainly be common knowledge if it were a modern creation. A mystery by itself, it becomes more perplexing existing in the context of hundreds of strange stone chambers and tunnels throughout New England. Archaeological excavations in the 1980's revealed that part of the complex was dug while soil deposits from melting glaciers were still being laid. This occurred about ten thousand years ago. Researchers excavated a stone sun disc and other stone artifacts at the site that are located at the Goshen Historical Museum. Five such stone sun discs from the late archaic period have been unearthed throughout New England, all at archaic Indian quarry sites. One site was the Fife Brook site on the Deerfield River here in Western Mass. Fitzhugh (1972). Stone tools used for hammering, scraping, tailing, braking and spading have been dated to a period of roughly 2000 B.C. based on excavations at the Horse Hill Quarry site in Milbury, Mass. Fowler (1966).

A Multitude of Chambers

     At the Pound Ridge Historical Museum in New York exists a faded letter dated July 1742. It is from a priest writing back to a local farmer who had just discovered a stone chamber near his property in the woods. The priest instructed the man to stay away from the chamber because it was the work of the devil and was a place where the devil enters this world. Why would this admonishment take place if it was a colonial root cellar as modern archaeologists insist. Local stone chambers can be found in Goshen , Leyden, Shuttesbury, Wendell, Pelham, Montague, Adams, Peru, New Salem, Russell, Palmer, Whitingham, Warwick, Thorndike, Petersham, Webster and South Hadley. The chambers at Hardwick, Marlboro and a complex of thirteen chambers in Thompson, Conn. have been recently bulldozed, victims of archaeological indifference. The construction techniques used in many of these chambers are time consuming and sophisticated. Take a look at the Goshen chamber which is located a mile from the Goshen tunnel as the crow flies. It has a double column design and the columns have an extremely high degree of construction competence, nearly every stone in the columns fits perfectly with barely a shim used. Getting stones to match up without gaps all the way around, even with the best quarried stone is extremely challenging. Instead of one roof capstone, the column configuration intelligently supports nine very large ceiling stones. This is done with existing material at an inaccessible site at 1400' elevation. It is oriented due east in the direction of the equinox sunrise. When you examine any of these chambers you will see that they were not easy to construct, their design is quite complex. The walls are built using a technique called corbelling. This sophisticated architectural design is used to support arches, parapets and floors. In this case corbelling is used in the walls which are made up of piles of stones arched inward to support the ceiling lintel stones. This corbelling technique was used in Bronze age Europe as far back as 5000 years ago in such structures as the famous astronomically aligned complex of Newgrange in Ireland. Just like Newgrange where it's stone chamber is oriented to allow the light to penetrate only on the day of the winter solstice so too are a large percentage of New England's hundreds of chambers similarly aligned to the equinox or solstice event. Compare the corbelled roof of Newgrange, dated to 3000 B.C., to the corbelled roof at one of the Shuttesbury chambers. The chamber ceiling stones are usually huge flat slabs of rock that are chiseled out from nearby ledge. From their design, the weight of the ceiling pressing down on top of the walls gives them enormous stability. They are also remarkably waterproof. In one Vermont chamber known as Calendar Two the seven roof slabs are up to 14 feet wide, weigh more than 3 tons apiece and are tightly joined together. At the New Salem chamber, the roof is one stone slab which is 10 ft. x 5 ft, several feet thick and weighs over fifteen thousand pounds. Forgetting about the mathematics and geometry of solar orientations for a moment, the organization, engineering and force required to construct some of these chambers is very impressive.

     In 1938 after the Category 5 “Great Hurricane of 1938” hit the region, two young girls discovered a long mysterious tunnel in Montville, Conneticut after a huge oak tree was toppled to reveal it. The tunnel is 37.5 feet long and you must crawl the entire length to enter a chamber that requires you to sit cross legged. The end wall of the chamber is cut into a ledge that has been quarried to level and shape its contour. The dry laid structure is built completely underground and shaped like a serpent. It has been theorized that it might have been an ancient shamanic vision quest site and a serpent stone wall lies right next to it. It is an architectural feat by its builders, especially having cut into ledge and its location is just across a brook from the elaborate Gungywamp complex. In Upton, Mass. there is an enormous chamber which was built completely underground and carved into the side of a hill. A 6 foot high 14 foot long tunnel leads into a 12 foot diameter 11 foot high chamber. The irregular stones were tightly fitted and the roof stones are ovals weighing over ten thousand pounds apiece. This chamber also possesses many precise astronomical alignments with a focus on the Pleiades. Based on the phenomena of the precession of the equinoxes, the 25,900 year cycle caused by the earth's wobble and the obliquity of the ecliptic, the complex has been dated to 710 A.D. The engineering feats encountered at these chambers are complex and mystifying. Carbon dating of chamber sites is also eye opening. The Gungywamp, Connecticut chamber site has been dated to at least 600 A.D., the Putney, Vermont chamber site has been dated to at least 492 A.D. and most notably the Mystery Hill chamber site in New Hampshire has been dated to at least 2000 B.C.

Astronomy, Geometry and Mystery

     James Mavor and Byron Dix led a seven year investigation into chamber sites in New England with much of the focus on two sites in Vermont named Calendar 1 and Calendar 2. Mavor received a masters degree in naval architecture from MIT, taught marine engineering at the U.S. Naval academy and taught mechanical engineering at Northeastern University. As a research specialist in applied physics he was the lead designer of the famous deep sea submersible “Alvin”. Dix was a brilliant optical designer and an expert in archeo-astronomy, surveying, precise measuring and was eminently qualified for the research they undertook measuring the movements of heavenly bodies. Not exactly a couple of intellectual lightweights. Their results were startling. The Calendar Two stone chamber was built with the exact 2 to 1 ratio found at many worldwide sacred sites. But even more sophisticated, the size of the doorway entrance is such that it's limits mark the declination angles 18.5 and 28.5 of the moons major and minor standstills, thus providing a means of accurately predicting eclipses. This form of ecliptic prediction requires advanced astronomical, mathematical and engineering knowledge. Down the road at Vermont's Calendar One site 8 stone chambers, 14 standing stones, 5 cairn groupings and many other stone structures were meticulously and painstakingly excavated, mapped, and studied. There turns out to be 32 astronomical alignments from one single location at the complex. An example of some of the events accurately recorded at the site are the acronomical rising of Sirius at the winter solstice in 3150 B.C. and a heliacal rising of Rigel in the constellation of Orion at the summer solstice in 2424 B.C. If you apply the formula of taking three length measurements, three width measurements, divide each by three and then divide the average width into the average depth it yields a ratio of something to the number one. In the case of Calendar 1 the ratio yielded is 1.617 to 1. Phi, the golden ratio and divine geometric proportion that is incorporated into sacred sites worldwide is 1.618. Astounding. These two Vermont sites are 14 miles apart but they exist on a perfect north/south alignment accurate to within 200 feet. How was this done without a GPS? There is also a 4x5 plinth grid carved into the chamber wall that Dix believed was a geometric calculus used to calculate astronomical events. Mavor and Dix observed similar grids on European megalithic tombs from 3000 B.C. Not only are there astronomical and geometric characteristics associated with chambers but standing stones, astronomically aligned walls, stone animal effigies, sacred wells and stone cairns are also consistent features from site to site. The Goshen chamber site has two standing stones, a stone lined well, a thirty foot long four foot high stone turtle effigy mound and many stone cairns. The same stratigraphic soil anomaly that occurs at the Goshen tunnel site occurs at Calendar One and a stone sun disc and similar stone artifacts were unearthed there as was the case in Goshen. The disc in Vermont was excavated at the lowest level of exploration, logically dating it of greater antiquity. Mavor and Dix theorized the original site could be as old as ten thousand years. They believe parts of it were constructed and reconstructed over time like most worldwide stone complexes. Very recently, Calendar 2 has been added to the National Register of Historic Places and the town of Goshen purchased the land where the tunnel is located to preserve it.

Final thoughts

     Lastly, many chambers have ancient carved script in or near them. Celtic Ogam, Phoenician Runic, Carthaginian and Iberian writing and symbols throughout New England are abundant, perplexing and may date back thousands of years. Massive stones fit by expert artisans, ecliptic architecture, astronomical orientations, precolonial artifacts, ancient carbon dating, precise geometric calculations, bronze age building techniques, puritanical edicts to avoid them, historical designation and ancient inscriptions, this doesn't sound like root cellars to me. This is not an isolated example of archeology missing the mark, the closer you look the more you see a long standing pattern of incorrect or erroneous conclusions drawn by archaeologists. Anything that does not fit the old paradigm is mocked, attacked or ignored. Many archaeological theories regarding are just that and worse they were concocted long ago with filtered information layered on top of the original outdated and questionable hypothesis to give the illusion of fact. Of particular relevance here is the misunderstanding by archaeologists of the meaning and purpose of sacred sites and unexplained stone structures worldwide. In part 2, I will delve into theories of who built the chambers, examine relevant Native American legends and explore the emerging movement to rethink Americas mysterious past.

The Mysterious Stone Builders and The Search For Lost America

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(photo courtesy of Sue Carlson)

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(photo courtesy of James J Garfall)

     “You do not find what you do not believe in.” Dr. Albert Goodyear

     Scattered throughout the woods and fields of New England lie the remains of an ancient civilization. These remnants are enigmatic stone structures that predate European settlement. Standing stone circles, impressive and elaborate stone chambers, massive balanced stones, cairns, stone animal effigies, solstice and equinox markers, stone pilgrimage paths and many other structures that litter the landscape. Some examples are the 80 ton dolmen of North Salem (Figure 1), the stone calendar in Heath which once consisted of 12 standing stones, (Figure 2) the mortar less Goshen stone chamber (Figures 3), the carved Buddha figure in Shutesbury (Figure 4) , the megalithic stone shrine in Shutesbury (Figure 5) and the balanced car sized turtle effigy with notched fin and quartz teeth in Ashfield (Figure 6). The prevailing theory among open minded researchers is that cultures that existed here prior to colonial settlers built these structures. Byron Dix and James Mavor's groundbreaking book Manitou lays out this argument using rigid scientific process and meticulous archaeological techniques. Take a look at the snake effigy wall near the Hawley bog in Hawley (Figure 7). The last seven stones weigh several thousand pounds apiece, are fitted on vertical planes and are stood up and balanced with smaller stones. The entire structure is built on a massive 20 foot high erratic and the last stone, the snake's head, has a carved eye and iris. Does it seem probable that colonists struggling for survival would be responsible for such an elaborate and seemingly non-utilitarian creation? Further questions arise when you view it in the context of the existence of thousands of such stone creations in New England and down the east coast.

STONEHENGE IN AMERICA?

     America's Stonehenge in New Salem New Hampshire is probably the most elaborate and controversial site in New England (Figure 8). It has been described by Dr. Edward J. Kealy, professor of History at Holy Cross University as “potentially the most important stone complex in the Northern Hemisphere”. Featured on the History Channel and other programs, this 30 acre complex is a mixture of stone chambers, stone solstice and equinox markers, cairns, chimneys, fireplaces, stone drains and ancient carved Phoenician script. The two largest stones here weigh 45 and 70 tons. The site has been carbon dated to at least 2000 B.C. by scientists at Geochron labs. That dates it's construction half a millenia before the final construction phase of Stonehenge, and like Stonehenge it possesses many precise astronomical alignments. Stone markers throughout the site provide over 200 alignments with the sun, moon and 45 different stars which have been verified by independent researchers. One alignment wall allows a person to observe the southern most standstill of the moon on its 18.61 year metonic cycle. A period of 18.61 is required to carry the moon to all of its possible positions in respect to the sun. This event is marked at Mystery Hill as the moon passes above the winter solstice stone (Figure 9) and then aligns with the terminal of this wall. This certainly raises questions about the antiquity and purpose of many of the stone walls in our area.

IRISH EXPLORERS?

     A letter dated November 30, 1654 by a John Pynchon of Connecticut lends strong support to the idea that many stone structures existed here before the colonists arrived. Here is a portion of his letter. “Honored Sir, Understanding you are now at Newhaven and supposing there will be opportunity from Hartford for conveyance thither, I make bold to scribble a few lines to you... Sir, I hear a report of a stonewall and strong fort (chamber) within it, made all of stone, which is newly discovered at or near Pequet (presently known as the Gungywamp Range), I should be glad to know the truth of it from your self, here being many strange reports about it”. Gungywamp in Groton Conn. is another site that has been thoroughly researched and has generated equally perplexing questions. Also featured recently on the History Channel in the special “Who really discovered America”, it is believed to be a Celtic monastery built by the Irish explorer St. Brendan and his men 1400 years ago. The 600 A.D. Carbon dating helps to verify this theory. The name Gungywamp is not Native American it is actually Celtic and translates to “church of the people”. The complex has stone chambers, ancient Celtic Ogam script, petroglyphs and at it center lies a double concentric ring of 21 large quarried stones. Extensive fire burning on the slabs is apparent which leads researchers to believe it was an ancient altar. Nearby there are several large standing stones that have been carefully positioned along astronomical site lines. The main chamber has a stone lined shaft that was designed precisely to permit the Equinoctial sunset to fully penetrate the chambers dark interior on only two days during the year- March 22^nd and September 21^st just like similar chambers in Ireland and Scotland. (Figure 10). The high density of the garnet in the stones magnifies the intensity of the sunlight entering the chamber. Archeo-astronomers have determined that New England is replete with stone chambers. There are some 105 astronomically aligned chambers in Massachusetts, 51 in New Hampshire, 41 in Vermont, 62 in Connecticut, 12 in Rhode Island and 4 in Maine. Suffice it to say, it is obvious that the alignments found at Gungywamp and America's Stonehenge are not random. Orthodox archaeologists routinely claim that the chambers are colonial root cellars and the father of modern archeology Samuel Morrison of Harvard asserted that standing stones are upright because they were hit by colonial plows and positioned that way.

MYSTERIOUS ANCIENT SCRIPT

     One day in 1874 Reverend M. Gass, assisted by two students was engaged in opening a small Native American burial mound near Davenport Iowa. They found an engraved tablet (Figure 11) now known as the Davenport Steele. This was extensively engraved with strange signs and came into the ownership of the Davenport Academy of Science. It has inscriptions in three languages Egyptian, Iberian Punic and Libyan, each in its appropriate alphabet or hieroglyphic character. Translated it reveals itself to be an astronomical calendar. It was deemed a hoax by the Smithsonian because at the time the script could not be deciphered. I do not deem this to be very scholarly. Harvard professor Dr. Barry Fell considered one of the worlds leading experts on ancient writing until his death in 1994 was a pioneer in the effort to decipher the mysterious ancient script carved all throughout Eastern America. One of Fell's theories backed by intriguing evidence is that parts of America as well as New England were settled by non-natives before the Viking explorations of 1000 A.D. Native American legends make this same claim. This was apparently accomplished by Phoenicians and Iberian Celts hundreds of years before the coming of Christ. The Phoenicians were renowned seamen and traders of the ancient world. Chroniclers of the time wrote that they not only ventured well beyond “the pillars of hercules,” meaning Gibraltar, and traveled the Atlantic ocean with ease, but as Greek historian Herodotus in 5 B.C. wrote, “The Phoenicians could sail for thousands of miles without falling off the edge of the earth”. The oceans were conveyor belts not impediments to ancient seafarers. The Iberian-Celts and Phoenicians traded and intermarried, and both used “ogam,” the language engraved in stones found and deciphered in New England. The Bourne stone of Bourne Massachusetts (Figure 12) was recognized by Fell as Celtic-Iberian and translated reads “Hanno takes possession of this place”. Hanno was a noted explorer from Carthage who voyaged into the Atlantic in 425 B.C. Asked to decipher script found chiseled deep in stone near the Damriscotta River in Maine, Fell deciphered it as Libyan script which read “Dama is waterless” and “Dama lacks water and the spring is blocked”. These messages are dated 2,300 years old by the form of the script used. Fell was called out to Mohegan Island by local anthropologists to decipher an inscription on another boulder. The strange writing, Fell concluded ,was Iberian-Celtic and read “cargo platforms for ships from Phoenicia”. He also deciphered Celtic Ogam at a site in Buckand in 1983 that read “stag”, “bear” and “mother goddess”. At America's Stonehenge Fell translated an inscribed triangular dedication tablet that reads in Iberian “To Baal of the Canaanites (Phoenicians), this in dedication” . The Eye of Baal is also carved at the site (Figure 13). Baal was the Phoenician sun god and America's Stonehenge certainly appears to be a solar temple.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

    While initially the presence of multiple trans-migratory cultures in ancient America was controversial, the reality is there is so much evidence now that it has become mundane. Remember, for years archeology has told us that no one lived in the Americas before the Clovis barrier 11,500 years ago. Starting with discoveries in 1997 this theory has been shattered by countless carbon dated settlements. Cactus Hill Virginia has been carbon dated to 17,000 B.C., Medowcroft Shelter in Pennsylvania has been carbon dated to 24,000 B.C., Monte Verde Chile has been carbon dated to 33,000 B.C. and Dr. Albert Goodyear is working on the Topper site in South Carolina that has been carbon dated to 50,000 B.C. While there are certainly many examples of different cultures building intriguing stone structures in New England, the reality is that the pre-colonial inhabitants may be responsible for much of the work. While orthodox archeology does not attribute stone building capabilities to Native Americans, there are countless of examples of stone constructions that have been proven to be of pre colonial origin. Whatever lost civilizations left these impressive stone structures would have to have possessed a high level of mathematical, engineering, and astronomical skill as I will write about Next- The Mystery of The Stone Chambers.