6 minute read
Surveying the Mystery of NH's 'Stonehenge'
Salem hilltop offers prime spot for viewing celestial events
STORY & PHOTOS BY MARSHALL HUDSON
I’m travelling south on Interstate 93, quite happy not to be going north. Traffic in the northbound lane is bumper-to-bumper and barely crawling, packed with people heading north to see the total eclipse. I’m also headed to see the eclipse, but unlike most observers, I’m southbound. I’ll witness this rare planetary alignment at the curious hilltop in Salem, N.H., known as “America’s Stonehenge.”
America’s Stonehenge, formerly known as “Mystery Hill,” is a unique place to observe astronomical alignments and celestial events. Similar to other ancient sites around the world, upright stones at America’s Stonehenge are strategically placed to align with astronomical events such as solstices and equinoxes. Other rocks are positioned to point to significant stars such as Polaris, the north star.
This 30-acre hilltop has for many years puzzled archaeologists, astronomers and historians. It contains numerous standing stones, stone chambers, stone tables and serpentine stone walls. The upright stones create an accurate astronomical calendar that can be used to predict solar and lunar events. Perhaps the unknown builders also accounted for this solar eclipse and something unexpected will be revealed today?
At the center of the site, adjacent to the “oracle chamber” and the rock slab “sacrificial table,” I’ve set up an old surveyor transit containing a large magnetic compass. When I aim the transit crosshairs at the upright rock said to be in alignment with Polaris and then float the compass needle… it points to “North 14° 30’ East.”
Calculating the adjustment for magnetic declination using today’s date and the latitude and longitude, I determine my bearing needs to be adjusted by negative 14 degrees and 10 minutes. That is precise enough to be spooky. Whoever positioned these monoliths had an understanding of polar north and was not using a compass. Like Stonehenge in England, America’s Stonehenge must have been built by a culture well-versed in astronomy.
Inside the oracle chamber is a hidden room containing what is believed to be a speaking tube. Words spoken into this tube emit from beneath the sacrificial table. Perhaps this was done for eerie effect by a hidden priest or shaman during a religious ceremony. The sacrificial table has channels carved into the stone, thought to have been used for carrying away the blood of the sacrificed.
Skeptics point out that similarly grooved stone tables were used by early New England colonists to drain away the lye while making soap, or for pressing apples to make cider, or for butchering hogs. But these theories don’t explain the hidden room and speaking tube.
There are several theories as to who built America’s Stonehenge, including ancient seafaring cultures such as Vikings, Phoenicians or Celts, who navigated by the sun and stars. Irish Culdee monks, Indigenous Native Americans and early colonial settlers are also named in theories about possible builders. Inca, Maya, and Aztec cultures from Central and South America worshiped a sun god, performed sacrifices and possessed stone construction skills. Could they have wandered this far north in the ancient past? Other theories include a 20th century hoax, visitors from outer space, or another dimension.
Radiocarbon dating analyses indicate a period of human occupation on the hilltop about 4,000 years ago. Some archaeologists believe this is evidence of a Native American presence and not that of Bronze Age sailors from across the sea. Native Americans did have an interest in celestial alignments, and it can be demonstrated that they occupied Mystery Hill in more recent history based on artifacts unearthed at the site. But were they the builders of this elaborate stonework?
In 1802, the Pattee family settled on the hilltop and built a home amid the ruins. Records indicate several generations of Pattees resided here throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Pattee family members were Revolutionary War soldiers, town officials, farmers and humble shoemakers. Abolitionist Jonathan Pattee used their hilltop home as a stop on the Underground Railroad and hid runaway slaves in his cellar. Some archeologists believe the Pattee family is responsible for all the stonework on this site. There is evidence that the family constructed some stone cellar walls and stone-lined wells, and perhaps used some of the chambers as root cellars. They also sold quarried stone from the site, so they were moving rocks around to suit their purposes, but science suggests the site pre-dates the Pattees.
Owner Dennis Stone believes the site is some 4,000 years old and the work of Native Americans, or perhaps ancient Europeans who arrived here thousands of years before Columbus. Supporting this theory are various inscriptions found in rocks throughout the site and identified by Dr. Barry Fell of Harvard University as Ogham, Phoenician and Iberian Punic script. Skeptics point out that these alphabets are composed largely of straight lines and suggest they could have been made by early farmers scratching a horsedrawn plow over field rocks.
In a continuing effort to find answers, Stone has welcomed new technology including lidar mapping, DNA testing of bones, ground penetrating radar, carbon dating, optically stimulated luminescence dating, ultraviolet luminosity research, archeoastronomy and archaeological digs that sift the site for artifacts. There are also ongoing studies of historic photographs and research into the Pattee family. Perhaps someday the secrets of America’s Stonehenge will be revealed.
I’m in alignment with Stone’s thinking. Too much backbreaking labor has been done here for this to be a hoax. After the surveying measurements I took, I don’t believe it was constructed by a colonial family trying to carve a farm out of a rocky hilltop. As a surveyor, it’s been my experience that early New Hampshire settlers followed magnetic compass bearings when laying out their lots and ranges. They also built their stone walls in straight lines following property boundaries, or as enclosures to contain domestic animals. Neither is what I’m seeing now.
This site is too far south for the eclipse to have been noteworthy, but I was able to observe it with solar glasses. Disappointingly, nothing eerie or unexpected was revealed. Maybe I’ll come back for the summer solstice on June 20 — I’m told the sunrise and sunset over each monolith is something special I need to witness. Now, however, I’m heading for home in the open and moving I-93 northbound lane, quite happy not to be in the crawling bumper-to-bumper traffic going south.
