Druid Hill: Three Views of Standing Stones
Photo Tour
Photos by Edward Bochnak (text edited by Dan Boudillion)
New England Antiquities Research Association
Druid Hill: Three Views of Standing Stones
Photo TourPhotos by Edward Bochnak (text edited by Dan Boudillion)
Site Visit: Summer 2004
Druid Hill
Editors note: the following article was originally published in the American Institute For Archeological Research's magazine On Site in 1987. The organization is defunct, and I have not been able to locate the author Dorothy Hayden.
The Druid Hill Story
By Dorothy L. Hayden
On Site: A publication of the American Institute For Archeological Research, Inc.
Volume One, Number Three, June 1987
History
In a public park in Lowell, Massachusetts, incongruently flanked by modern play ground equipment and a swimming pool, sits an enigmatic stone circle looking as old as Time itself. James Pendergast [of Lowell University], the Institute’s Chief Archeologist, who has excavated in the British Isles, became intrigued with this construction.
The Druid Hill Stone Circle consist of a raised tear-drop shaped mound approximately one meter high, with a dozen monoliths ranged about it in a pattern typical of stone circles all over the British Isles. At the western end, on level ground below the raised mound, lies a large flat “recumbent” stone and top the southwest stands a huge "outlier" monolith, both typical of European stone circle construction.
No written recode of who built this mound and megalithic complex, when or why it was built, appears to exist. In the memory of elderly residents of the vicinity it has "always been there." Coupled with this are the tantalizing references in old documents, first to Bridget’s Hill, and then to Druid Hill.
The locality of Druid Hill has an odd history; first mentioned as field pasture on the edge of an Indian reservation in 1659, it was acquired by Samuel Varnum in 1667 and remained in his family for 250 years. In 1906 a health camp was built on land directly adjacent to the stone circle site. By 1916 work was begun upon a (tuberculosis) isolation hospital on the land next to the stone circle site. This isolation hospital was opened in 1918 (two years before schedule because of the devastating influenza epidemic that was raging through the area at the time). The hospital was razed in 1953 ands the land became a public park. This part of the site's history is fairly well documented, but there is never any mention of the standing stones.
Basically, there are two logical possibilities: the stone circle could have been built as a "folly" or "fraud" in post-colonial times; or it could have been built in pre-Columbian times by either indigenous Amerindians or by Europeans.
Archeology Dig
A great deal of time and effort went into preliminary research, securing funding and obtaining personnel for the proposed Druid Hill Dig. Eventually all requirements were met and an excavation permit was issued. On May 4, 1985 a grid was laid out and excavation was begun by a group consisting of students, volunteers, Institute Members and technical advisors. For eight consecutive Saturdays we dug in sunshine and in rain. Druid Hill finally began to yield up some of its secrets.
Beneath a tough layer of sod the soil held a great quantity of artifacts. At first, twentieth century trash, so typical of a public park. Next came bits and pieces of china, bottle glass and fragments of clay pipes; all dateable to the 19th and early 20th centuries. Mixed in were fragments of laboratory glass which appeared to date from the time when the site was occupied by the isolation hospital.
Pits driven into the center of the mound reveled thick layers of striation containing ashes, burned rubbish, cinders etc., indicating that the mound itself had been created by piling on truck loads of fill and perhaps also scraping fill into it from nearby locations.
Pits were excavated to depths of from 60 cm. to 188 cm. and all ended abruptly in sterile sand which appeared to be the ancient outwash of glacial till from the nearby Merrimack River.
Finally a pit was driven beneath the monolith designated Number One. Carefully the soil was scraped away to reveal a socket of paving stones, datable to approximately 1900, in which the base of the monolith rested. Excavation of several of the other monoliths revealed the same pattern; sockets made of paving stones. Under the outlier stone a red brick had been used to chink a cavity between the paving stone props and the irregular base of the standing stone.
Also several pits driven around the perimeter of the mound disclosed an odd little wall consisting of paving stones laid end to end, on edge in a single file around much of the mound at a depth of 15 cm.
Conclusions
The answer to the riddle of the stone circle seemed evident. The mound was created and the monolith were undoubtedly set in their present position in the paving stone sockets within a few years of the turn of the last century. By whom and for what purpose is still unknown.
Editor's Note:
The Druid Hill excavation was not an American Institute For Archeological Research event as it may seem from the above article. Rather, it was conceived and coordinated by James Pendergast of the University of Lowell (who was also an advisor for the Institute, hence his reference in the article). James independently obtained the excavation permit and funding from the Massachusetts Historical Commission, and had the actual dig conducted and performed by the Environmental Archeology Group. Some Institute members did participate in the excavation, but it was not an Institute organized event.
The Environmental Archeology Group included:
Dr. Gorman - Principal Investigator
John Pendergast – Project Archeologist
Dr. Virginia Ross – Geology, Topology, and Flora
Charles Panagiotakos – Hydrology
Edward McManus – Metal Conservator
Dr. Richard Warren – Archaeoastronomy
Ronald Dalton – Chief Excavator
Email Edward Bochnak: ejb.video@netzero.net
Copyright © 2004 & 2005 by Edward Bochnak
New England Antiquities Research Association
