Is there a difference between “walls of stone” and “stone walls”? Is there a difference between stacked stone and hewn stone?
Stone Altars, not Altars of Stone
After Nephi and his people were driven into the wilderness and found a place to settle, Nephi continued to instruct and serve his people. “And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance. And I, Nephi, did build a temple; and I did construct it after the manner of the temple of Solomon save it were not built of many precious things; for they were not to be found upon the land, wherefore, it could not be built like unto Solomon’s temple. But the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon; and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine.” 2 Nephi 5:15-16
The temple would be built on the highest point of the Nephite settlement. It would be facing directly east symbolic of the Savior’s coming. If it was to be built similar to Solomon’s, the altars of the temple were made of stacked stone, not hewn stone. “The word in Exodus 20:25 which is translated as ‘tool’ is the Hebrew חרב which most literally means ‘sword’. There explains that a sword is designed to shorten life, while an altar is designed to lengthen life by being used to achieve atonement. It makes sense, therefore, that one should not be used in the formation of the other.” Rashi, Medieval French Rabbi.
The outside of the temple may have been finished with a mortar cement made of limestone which was prevalent in the Promised Land. “Lime mortar is a type of mortar composed of lime and an aggregate such as sand, mixed with water. It is one of the oldest known types of mortar, dating back to the 4th century BC and widely used in Ancient Rome and Greece.” Lucas, A. 2003 Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries. After processing, products derived from limestone have the unique ability to return quickly to their original chemical form.
“An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me… in all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee. And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar…” Exodus 20:24 – 26
“There is a temple mound situated above the Ohio River near Cincinnati. “Fragments of burnt limestone may still be seen on the top. The mound is a rectangle two hundred and twenty-five feet long by one hundred and twenty feet broad, and seven feet high.” In contrast to the hewn stone buildings and altars of Mexico, the Ohio mound has the right dimensions to have accommodated a timber and burnt lime plaster (“cement”) building of the size and proportions of Solomon’s Temple.” J. P. Maclean, The Mound Builders – Archaeology of Butler County, Ohio, 1904, pp. 222-223.
“Few realize that some of the oldest, largest and most complex structures of ancient archaeology were built of earth, clay, and stone right here in America, in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. From 6,000 years ago until quite recently, North America was home to some of the most highly advanced and well organized civilizations in the world – complete with cities, roads, and commerce.” Dr. Roger Kennedy, former director of the Smithsonian’s American History Museum
Moroni prepares his people to defend the cause of the Christians
Below is the only scripture in the Book of Mormon that mentions walls of stone, or anything about stone. The building materials of the Nephites were earth and wood, and at times of no trees they used some cement, which is not stone! See my blog here: https://www.bofm.blog/nephite-building-materials-wood-dirt-cement/
“Yea, he had been strengthening the armies of the Nephites, and erecting small , or places of resort; throwing up banks of earth round about to enclose his armies, and also building of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all round about the land.” Alma 48:8
What makes most sense to you? Did the Nephites cut stone walls, or stack stone walls? Would the Nephites create magnificent stone carvings, and ornate designed walls for pleasure or beauty, or communicating, or would the Nephites build simple walls for protection and survival? We report you decide as our friend Wayne May would say.
Hugh Nibley Said…
“What most impressed me last summer on my first and only expedition to Central America was the complete lack of definite information about anything. Never was so little known about so much… It is just a fact of life that no one knows much at all about these oft-photographed and much-talked-about ruins…
Counterparts to the great ritual complexes of Central America once dotted the entire eastern United States, the most notable being the Hopewell culture centering in Ohio and spreading out for hundreds of miles along the entire length of the Mississippi River. These are now believed to be definitely related to corresponding centers in Mesoamerica…
The Book of Mormon is a history of a related primitive church, and one may well ask what kind of remains the Nephites would leave us from their more virtuous days. A closer approximation to the Book of Mormon picture of Nephite culture is seen in the earth and palisade structures of the Hopewell and Adena culture areas than in the later stately piles of stone in Mesoamerica.
C. Northcote Parkinson has demonstrated with withering insight how throughout history really ornate, tasteless, and pompous building programs have tended to come as the aftermath of civilization. After the vital powers are spent, then is the time for the super-buildings, the piling of stone upon stone for monuments of staggering mass and proportion. It was after the disciples of the early church decided to give up waiting for the Messiah and to go out for satisfaction here and now that the Christians of the fourth century took to staging festivals and erecting monuments in the grand manner, covering the whole Near East with structures of theatrical magnificence and questionable taste.
How unlike the building program of the Church today which can barely erect enough of our very functional, almost plain chapels to keep abreast of the growing needs of the Latter-day Saints. Though such piles as the great pyramid-temple of Chichén Itzá yield to few buildings in the world in beauty of proportion and grandeur of conception, there is something disturbing about most of these overpowering ruins. Writers describing them through the years have ever confessed to feelings of sadness and oppression as they contemplate the moldy magnificence—the futility of it all: “They have all gone away from the house on the hill,” and today we don’t even know who they were
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The great monuments do not represent what the Nephites stood for; rather, they stand for what their descendants, “mixed with the blood of their brethren,” descended to. But seen in the newer and wider perspective of comparative religious studies, they suggest to us not only the vanity of mankind and the futility of man’s unaided efforts, but also something nobler; the constant search of men to recapture a time when the powers of heaven were truly at the disposal of a righteous people.” Ancient Temples: What Do They Signify? By Hugh Nibley September 1972
Now let’s consider the following information about the incredible stacked stone walls of North America. They were built for protection, hiding, concealment of records, and other practical things. Why don’t we find in North America a grand pyramid, or a gorgeous temple of hewn stone, or a palace of stone, built up to worship some evil king or dictator? The Nephites were disciples of God who lived simply without aggrandizement or pride. They built earthworks for burial, temple worship, or representation of a special mountain or animal. They built works that represented the heavens where the Great Spirit dwelt. They held sacred the moon, sun, and stars as a spiritual way of worship. Remember the Nephites had the true Gospel of Jesus Christ as we do today. Remember also they lost the blessing of this Gospel. Let us learn from their mistakes.
Stonehenge of North America Salem, NH
What is America’s Stonehenge?
Built by a Native American Culture or a migrant European population? No one knows for sure. A maze of man-made chambers, walls and ceremonial meeting places, at over 4,000 years old America’s Stonehenge is most likely the oldest man-made construction in the United States.
Like Stonehenge in England, America’s Stonehenge was built by ancient people well versed in astronomy and stone construction. It has been determined that the site is an accurate astronomical calendar. It was, and still can be, used to determine specific solar and lunar events of the year.
Various inscriptions have been found throughout the site including Ogham, Phoenician and Iberian Punic Script. Dr. Barry Fell of Harvard University did extensive work on the inscriptions found at the site. They are detailed in his book America B.C.” source: https://www.stonehengeusa.com/
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, hundreds of impressive and elaborate stone chambers, massive balanced stones, over one million stone cairns, stone animal effigies, solstice and equinox markers and many other unexplained structures litter the landscape. Historical texts, colonial reports, carbon dating, astro-archeological research and Native American oral traditions all support this contention.
The Adena, Hopewell and Mississippian mound building cultures built earthen mounds, pyramids and geometric enclosures that showed an extremely high degree of engineering and mathematical skill. Shell and midden mounds were built from Florida to Maine. Mystery stone walls and forts were built throughout the midwestern states. In the Southwest the Anasazi and Hopi built star cities on the ground that are a perfect reflection of all the major stars in the Orion system. While all this construction and more was happening in ancient America, we are told that in New England there was nothing occurring of note other than scattered native tribes involved in a fairly primitive lifestyle. Archeologists continue to claim that stone chambers are root cellars, elaborate cairns, sometimes up to 9 feet high and conical or in the case of the 25 foot high 200 foot long, Hopkinton, MA cairn, are farmer’s clearing piles and dolmens and balanced rocks are glacial erratics.
The Historical Blackout
It is as if a large circle is drawn around New England which represents a complete absence of pre- colonial construction. This is the conventional wisdom proposed by the Archaeological community, however the evidence does not seem to support this notion. Let us look at several enigmatic stone sites in New England and what they tell us about its mysterious past. America’s Stonehenge in Salem, New Hampshire is probably the most elaborate and controversial site in New England. 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 and stone drains. 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 of Cambridge, Mass after dating 13 different test pits. 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 and then aligns with the terminal of this wall.
Gungywamp
In a letter dated November 30, 1654 by John Pynchon (founder of Springfield, Mass.) 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 New Haven 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”. The complex has stone chambers, precolonial walls, a bird petroglyph, a double concentric ring of 21 large quarried stones and has been carbon dated to 600 A.D. 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 only on the spring equinox. The high density of the granite 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. 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? These stone chamber sites often have large standing stones, stone animal effigy mounds, wells, cairns and wall complexes associated with them.
Mystery in Vermont
James Mavor and Byron Dix led a seven year investigation into stone sites in New England with much of the focus on two sites in Vermont they 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. Their results were eye opening. The Calendar Two stone chamber was built with the exact 2 to 1 ratio found at many worldwide sacred sites, it’s roof is constructed with nine 14 foot long expertly joined roof stones that weigh over 3 tons apiece. But even more sophisticated, the size of the doorway entrance is such that it’s limits mark the declination angles 18.3 and 28.6 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. These two Vermont sites are 14 miles apart but they exist on a perfect north/south alignment accurate to within 200 feet. Mavor and Dix concluded, based on their research that the sites were at least several thousand years old .
Carbon dates and astounding feats
The stone chambers of New England like all the precolonial stonework are dry laid. 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. At the New Salem Mass. 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 Upton, Mass. there is an enormous stone chamber which was built completely underground and carved into the side of a hill. A 4 ½ foot high 14 foot long tunnel leads into a 12 foot diameter 11 foot high chamber. The irregular stones were meticulously fitted and many roof stones are ovals weighing over ten thousand pounds apiece.This chamber also possesses many precise astronomical alignments with a focus on the Pleiades. Charcoal remains in a stone chamber in Putney, Vermont have been carbon dated to 492 A.D. by Geochron labs.
In 1951, Yale archaeologist Frank Glynn studied the massive stone turtle mound in Andover, Mass. The stone mound has two chambers in it and Glynn found charcoal and human bone remains in them that were carbon dated to 2000 B.C. Glynn also found tools and artifacts that he dated to 3000 B.C. Lastly, in 1981 a team of Harvard archaeologists studied and dated an ancient stone wall at the Flagg Swamp rock shelter in Westborough, Mass. to 2700 B.C. This site was later destroyed to make a cloverleaf for the I-495 interstate highway. Putting aside carbon dating evidence for a minute, are we to believe that colonists built these elaborate and time consuming structures and had the means and desire to orient them to predict eclipses and mark equinoxes and solstices?
The stone walls of New England, to the moon and back
Let us now examine the stone walls of New England. Again conventional wisdom states that every stone wall you see was built sometime in the last 400 years. This seems like a reasonable claim 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 75 year window between the revolutionary and civil wars. How many walls did and does New England actually have? An 1872 U.S. Department of Agriculture report estimated there were over 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 amounts of stone walls. The actual figure is well over 500,000 miles, many researchers estimate. That is a stone wall that circles the earth 20 times or all the way to the moon and back. Reflect on that staggering reality for a minute. 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? The average colonial home burned between 20 and 40 hand cut cords of wood yearly. Processing this amount of wood, among other overwhelming tasks, in a harsh environment with long and difficult winters left little time for activities like wall building which had very little utility. Take the town of Hawley, Mass., an isolated community in the rugged highlands of Western MA, which has an area of 30.9 square miles. First settled in 1770 it has over one thousand miles of stone walls. However, it’s population at the time in question was 539 in 1790, 1089 in 1820 and back down to 600 in 1879. Could this meager population be responsible for such an impressive feat? To build all the walls of New England would have been the most costly and labor intensive undertaking in colonial history. An enormous venture but with little mention in the historical texts other than the assumption that it was done. The total sheer tonnage of New England’s stone walls represents an amount greater than all the worlds 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 only purpose of walls was for agricultural uses such as livestock containment 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 glacial erratics, beginning and ending without seeming purpose and defining no boundary. There are walls that are balanced with exact precision and have holes throughout their entire length, walls that have precise geometric shapes such as squares, triangles and rectangles embedded in them. There are walls that have the exact same odd building techniques used from Martha’s Vineyard to Pennsylvania and all around New England. There are walls that enclose huge swamps, climbing up 30 foot cliffs, using precariously perched stones weighing 5 and 10 thousand pounds apiece, boulder walls with stones built off the ground weighing 50 thousand pounds and more. We find walls that consist of quartz that geologists determined had 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. There are walls that end abruptly with serpent and effigy heads, walls that have massive amounts of stone cairns and effigy mounds right next to them that have exactly the same weathering and construction techniques. There are walls over mountains that were never settled or farmed, walls that head straight up such extreme slopes that your lungs burn just to walk them. Many, many walls that use stones weighing tons in total inaccessible areas that could not have been done with the benefit of beasts of burden. Finally, an inordinate amount of walls are located on a path that leads 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
Underneath the Hudson
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 online 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?
The records don’t lie
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 well 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. 4th 1680. Ancestors and descendant of Johnathan Abell, P.11 (Rehoboth, MA) The 26th of the 12th month 1651, it was agreed that Robert Abell and Richart Bullock should burn the commons round about, from the Indian Fence. The Smithsonian also documented one of the 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 had stone blocking mounds and horseshoe shaped stone walls, both Mississippian mound building features but done with stone and not earth. There are numerous accounts in the historical texts of chambers, cairns and other enigmatic creations existing before the colonists arrived. Thomas Jefferson, Yale President Ezra Stiles, Cotton Mather, Roger Williams and countless others described the different structures they saw and theorized about who the builders might be. There is certainly a mystery here and the closer you look, the stranger it gets.
Source: https://barbaradelong.com/special-projects/secrets-of-the-stones/search-for-the-mysterious-stone-builders-of-new-england-2/Jim Vieira I am a stone mason, researcher, freelance writer and member of the Northeast Antiquities Research Association. I can be reached at [email protected].
References
Byron E. Dix, James W. Mavor, Manitou: The Sacred Landscape of New England’s Native Civilization, Inner Traditions International, 1989.
Francis Hutching, Earth Magic, William Morrow and Co. 1977. pp. 151-159
Philip Imbrogno, Marianne Horrigan, Celtic Mysteries: Windows To Another Dimension In America’s Northeast, Llyewllyn Publications. 2000. pp. 10-14, 92-93
Byron E. Dix, James W. Mavor, Heliolithic Ritual Sites In New England, Northeast Antiquities Research Association Journal, Volume 42 #2 Winter 2008. pp. 2-20
Robert Ellis Cahill, New England’s Ancient Mysteries, Old Saltbox Publishing, 1993. pp. 27-30, 37-43
Gregory L. Little, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Native American Mounds And Earthworks, Eagle Wing Books, Inc. 2009. pp. 2-9
Louis H. Everts, History of The Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, Volume 2, 1879.
Tom Draheim “A Look at Andover Turtle Mound”, Andover Guide Spring 2007.
Six Mysterious Stone Structures of New England
Upton, Massachusetts
Stone Chamber
Everyone knows that stone walls cover the New England landscape like honeycombs. But far fewer people know about the region’s hundreds of mysterious stone structures.
In the 1930s, someone estimated that New England had 250,000 miles of stone walls. In the following decades came inventories of the region’s stone structures, which some believed to be ancient.
Some of those ancient stone structures are oriented to the stars and planets. They also stand near megaliths, cairns or dolmens. A few have what are probably stone beds or sacrificial altars.
Speculation now runs rampant about the origins of the mysterious stone structures. Did medieval Irish monks, American Indians or Vikings build them? Or did the English colonists just built them as root cellars?
Most noteworthy, just three Northeast counties account for the majority of stone structures in North America: Putnam County, N.Y.; New London County, Conn.; and Windsor County, Vt.
Massachusetts has the densest concentration of beehive-shaped stone chambers like those built by Culdee monks in Ireland. The state has 105 sites containing stone structures.
Connecticut also has quite a few at 62, New Hampshire has 51 and Vermont has 41. Tiny Rhode Island has only 12 stone structures, but still more than Maine, which has only four.
Some speculate that perhaps ancient voyagers frequently traveled the Merrimack, the Thames and the Connecticut rivers. They then built their stone structures along those routes. More Here: http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/6-mysterious-stone-structures-new-england/
More Stone Wall Information
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E. G. Squier, Antiquities of the State of New York, Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, Vol. II, 1851; p. 145-6: “There are . . . some remains in the State of New Hampshire, which, whatever their origin, are entitled to notice. The subjoined plan of one of these is from a sketch made in 1822 by Jacob B. Moore, Esq., late Librarian of the Historical Society of New York, who has also furnished the accompanying description.
‘According to your request, I send the inclosed sketch and memoranda of an ancient fortification, supposed to have been the work of the Penacook Indians, a once powerful tribe, whose chief seat was in the neighborhood of Concord, New Hampshire. . . . Under the name of Penacooks, were probably included all the Indians inhabiting the valley of the Merrimack, from the great falls at the Amoskeag to the Winnepiseogee Lake, and the great carrying-place on the Pemiqewasset. That they were one and the same tribe, is rendered probable from the exact similarity of relics, which have been found at different places, and from the general resemblance of the remains of ancient fortifications, which have been traced near the lower falls of the Winnepiseogee, in Franklin and Sanbornton, and on the table-land known as the Sugar-Ball Plain in Concord. . . . The accompanying sketch was taken in pencil, on a visit to the spot, in company with the Hon. James Clark and several friends in the month of September, 1822. The remains are on the west side of the Winnepiseogee, near the head of Little Bay, in Sanbornton, New Hampshire. The traces of the walls were at that time easily discerned, although most of the stones had been removed to the mill-dam near at hand, on the river. On approaching the site, we called upon a gentleman (James Gibson) who had lived for many years near the spot, and of whom we learnt the following particulars: He had lived in Sanbornton fifty-two years, and had known the fort some time previous to settling in the place. When he came to the town to reside, the walls were two or three feet high, though in some places they had fallen down, and the whole had evidently much diminished in height, since the first erection. They were about three feet in thickness, constructed of stones outwardly, and filled in with clay, shells, gravel, etc., and such as men in a savage state would be supposed to use for such a purpose. They were placed together with much order and regularity, and when of their primitive height, the walls must have been very strong–at least, sufficiently strong for all the purposes of defence against an enemy to whom the use of firearms was unknown. . . . When the first settlers discovered the fort, there were oak trees of large size standing within the walls. Within the inclosure, and in the mound and vicinity, were found innumerable Indian ornaments, such as crystals cut into rude shapes of diamonds, squares, pyramids, etc., with ornamental pipes of stone and clay–coarse pottery ornamented with various figures–arrowheads, hatchets of stone, and other common implements of peace and war. The small [adjacent] island in the bay appears to have been a burial-place, from the great quantity of bones and other remains disclosed by the plough, when settlements were commenced by the whites. Before the island was cultivated, there were several large excavations resembling cellars or wells discovered, for what purpose constructed or used, can of course be only conjectured. . . . After writing thus far, I addressed a note to the Hon. James Clark, of Franklin, New Hampshire, with inquiries as to the present state of these ruins. Mr. Clark was kind enough at once to make a special visit to the site of the ruins, in company with Mr. Bradford, son of one of the settlers. The following is an extract from his reply:
The remains of the walls are in part plainly to be traced; but the ground since our former examination has been several years ploughed and cultivated, so as to now give a very indistinct view of what they were in our previous visit, when the foundation of the whole could be distinctly traced. No mounds or passage-ways can now be traced. . . . The stones used in these walls were obtained on the ground, and were of such size as one man could lift; they were laid as well as our good walls for fences in the north, and very regular; they were about three feet in thickness and breast high when first discovered. The stones have been used to fill in the dam now adjoining. There were no embankments in the interior. The distance between the outer and inner wall was about sixty feet; the distance from the north to the south wall was about 250 feet, and from the west wall to the river about 220 feet. There were two other walls extending south to Little Bay. . . . The remains of a fortification, apparently of similar construction to that above described, were some years since to be seen on the bluffs east of the Merrimack River, in Concord, on what was formerly known as Sugar-Ball Plain. The walls could readily be traced for some distance, though crumbled nearly to the ground, and overgrown with large trees.’ ”
The sketch referenced above can be viewed below. The green arrow indicates a cairn, while the three red arrows point to the blocking mounds opposite the entrances, a common theme in Mississippian architecture, although usually constructed of earth. The horseshoe design is a common Native religious architectural practice as well. It should be noted that some of the walls (both in the horseshoe and the portion south of it) are parallel, common features in Native wall complexes.
Source: http://nativestones.com/walls.htm
Documentation of Native stone walls
As reported in late 2002 in the NY Times, high-resolution sonar surveys of the Hudson river revealed ancient stone walls: “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 3,000 years old because that was the last time the river’s water levels were low enough to have allowed construction on dry land.” Note this is a conservative age estimate, at least one of the researchers believes a 7,000-year-old age is more likely. Scattered accounts of Native stone walls (a.k.a. “fences”) occur in early records, several of which are reproduced below:
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Carl Bridenbaugh, editor, The Letters of John Pynchon; Vol. 1, 1984; John Pynchon (founder of Springfield, Massachusetts), in a letter to John Winthrop Jr. (then at New Haven, Connecticut), dated Nov. 30, 1654:
“Sir I heare a report of a stonewall and strong fort in it, made all of Stone, which is newly discovered at or neere Pequot, I should be glad to know the truth of it fro yourselfe, here being many strange reports about it.” -
Queen’s “Fort” (a.k.a. Quaipan’s Fort) in Exeter, RI is a massive stone construction of Native American origin, listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1980. The contention that it was a fort makes no sense, it is a religious complex.
