On September 14, 1999, I wrote to J. R. Phillips, Director of the Maine State Museum, expressing dismay over a statement by Dr. William Fitzhugh that was published in the Museum’s summer 1999 newsletter, the Broadside. Fitzhugh, in charge of the Smithsonian exhibit "Vikings: The North American Saga" which opened at the end of April 2000, was quoted as saying, "The Spirit Pond runestone is important because the facts of its fabrication are well known," implying that the Stones are not authentic Norse artifacts. One of the Stones will be "exhibited with other artifacts of dubious origin, such as the Kensington Stone."

I requested that Dr. Phillips ask Dr. Fitzhugh what indeed were the "facts of the fabrication." I outlined the documented facts of the discovery, citing sources on file at the Museum, which demonstrate that there are no facts concerning the fabrication, and offered to share information from an extensive collection of primary source material to help clarify the question.

No answer, not even a cursory acknowledgement of receipt.

Since I have received neither answer nor acknowledgment from Dr. Phillips, on March 6th I appealed directly to Fitzhugh, with my letter to Phillips enclosed, requesting documentation of the "well-known facts" and to ask that the Stones be given a fair evaluation of their authenticity in terms of the facts of their discovery, subsequent investigations and linguistic reevaluation by qualified neutral parties.

Still no reply from either Phillips or Fitzhugh.

I have been assembling material for the last 12 years in anticipation of preparing a monograph addressing the discovery, the excavations at Spirit Pond, translation attempts and later developments. I am unaware of any "facts of its fabrication." If the intent was to charge the finder of the Stones, Walter Elliott, with the fabrication, Dr. Fitzhugh has not examined the evidence.
· Dr. Einar Haugen (then professor of Scandinavian language and linguistics at Harvard), certain that the Stones were a modern hoax, nonetheless reported to Bruce Borque in his report on the Stones dated 5/20/1972, "…He (Walter Elliott) is open and frank, outspoken and humorous, but without educational or intellectual pretensions. It is quite improbable that he could either have conceived or executed a hoax of this nature, though of course one cannot at this point exclude the possibility of complicity."
· Richard Card, a banker and native of Bath, Maine, was made aware of the situation during the early days of excitement by Harold Brown, curator of the Bath Maritime Museum. Card arranged for Haugen to interview Walter and provided a stenographer to record the interview. Dr. Cyrus Gordon of Brandeis, who supported the authenticity of the Stones, also interviewed Walter, as did Dr. James Peterson of the University of Maine, Farmington Archaeology Lab. They both felt that it was extremely unlikely that Walter could have fabricated the Stones. Card’s interest soon led him to become a sort of ombudsman for Walter Elliott and he spent considerable time and effort searching for opinions on the significance of the Stones. In fact, he had made contact with Dr. Haugen before the State intervened. In his correspondence with Card, Haugen as much as admits that he had little time to devote to the Stones, leaving us to wonder how seriously he chose to investigate something that, at the very least, would be highly controversial in the academic sphere. Card, who was neutral on the authenticity of the Stones, has never doubted the circumstances of the find or Walter’s integrity.

Elliott wrote many letters about the Stones, and my material includes copies of a substantial portion of them. Because the Stones were found on State property, the State of Maine soon demanded that Elliott return them to the State. The story, beginning with Elliott’s attempts to find someone to tell him "what they say" and refusal to give up custody of the Stones, the reaction and subsequent legal action of the State of Maine to obtain the Stones, and the "ransom" by paid parties to return the Stones to the State makes a riveting story, but nothing implicates Elliott or provides any suggestion of a possible forger or hoaxer.

If the "ransom" by Lawrence M. C. Smith and Walter’s acceptance of that payment for turning the Stones over to the State is construed as a motive for forgery, the record shows that Walter received one offer of more than triple the amount to sell the Stones, and he told me about several others.

In my study of the Stones, I wondered if someone associated with Lawrence M. C. Smith (who gave the land where the Stones were found to the State) may have been involved with some kind of hoax. Smith, a noted philanthropist and map collector, felt that the Stones were authentic based on cartographic evidence. This trail of inquiry led to a dead end. J. Louis Bauer, a NEARA colleague, ran a title search of all the property on the west and north side of Spirit Pond back into the early 19th century. I have studied the history of Phippsburg and Small Point, and have mapped the Spirit Pond area showing the features originally mapped by Dr. Robert French, geologist at U.S.M., and added a number of house and outbuilding foundations from what I believe was the McIntire farm. In all of this, I have found no evidence of anyone associated with the area who could possibly have had the knowledge (even minimal knowledge of runic usage and Old Norse vocabulary) to fabricate the inscription stone or to have acted in complicity with Walter Elliott. In other words, I have found nothing that has even hinted at a candidate for hoaxer, to say nothing of providing the documentation of the facts of fabrication.

In my written discussions of the Stones, I have diligently been as accurate as possible and tried not to make unsubstantiated statements. As an amateur historian-linguist, I feel this is necessary. I assume that professionals operate under the same standards. The statement by Dr. Fitzhugh appears to ignore standards of accuracy and rigor of research.

Even though the "official" position of Maine State Museum and the Smithsonian Institution is one of fraud, I had hoped for at least a fair hearing for the Stones. Nearly thirty years have passed since Dr. Haugen’s assessment. His evaluation was based on the assumption that the Stones were purported to date 1010 AD, and that identifiable language was impossible for that date. I agreed completely with that evaluation. I have spent the last ten years studying Classical Old Norse, with a special concentration on Norse poetry. More recently, I have been expanding my studies to include the changes in grammar and syntax that evolved into modern Scandinavian languages. My latest sleuthing in the medieval documents of the Diplomarium Norvegicum (now on the web) is uncovering clues that lead me to suspect the Stones might date from the mid 14th century, which is consistent with the language of the Stones and the carbon 14 dating (1405 +/- 70) of the charcoal found in the sod houses on the edge of the pond that were excavated in 1972-73. This excavation was conducted by NEARA under the jurisdiction of the State Parks Department, with John Briggs representing the State, and Harold Brown the Bath Maritime Museum. Although the unfolding evidence is circumstantial, it is compelling. It is also interesting to note that the map stone clearly portrays the mouth of the Kennebec, although not oriented to the north as in conventional modern maps. It also identifies the pond as a "hop," a very specific Norse word for a pond that is salt water at flood and fresh at ebb tide, thereby describing the likely conditions of the pond in late medieval times. Perhaps, as guardians of the Stones, the Museum should be more cautious in making claims that are by no means unassailable.

My request to J. R. Phillips was a plea not to dismiss the Spirit Pond Stones as fakes or hoaxes, but to leave the door open—perhaps even encourage responsible study of them. The Stones deserve a fair evaluation of their authenticity, both in terms of the facts of their discovery, subsequent investigation by Haugen, and a reconsideration of the linguistic evidence by qualified neutral parties. The Spirit Pond Stones must not be categorized as fraudulent in the upcoming Viking Exhibit without further investigation.

I find it interesting that only one Stone is proposed for the exhibit, and the article does not say which one. It seems that all three Stones should be included, or at least the map stone and the long inscription stone, as two equally important elements of the same assemblage.

The Viking Exhibit presents an ideal opportunity to reexamine the extent of Norse presence in North America. In light of Kirsten Seaver’s excellent book The Frozen Echo, the time is ripe to take the opportunity to consider the parallel evidence that complements her research. This would put the Smithsonian Institution in the vanguard of the inevitable acceptance of wider pre-Columbian Norse contact, and would keep the Institution current with the unfolding circumpolar migration theories of anthropologist Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution.

We feel that it is of utmost importance that this important exhibit not open with a gross misstatement of fact. If anyone would want to join in the appeal for a fair hearing and reconsideration of the Stones, please write directly to Dr. William Fitzhugh, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560-0106 or contact me at 207-822-8155 or krosspt@lincoln.midcoast.com.