The questionable history of Mystery Hill, subsequent ramsacking of rock from the site for Colonial-era and later building and often poorly managed excavations have left much disagreement in the scientific community as to the site's real antiquity. From more recent and better facilitated digs it would seem that this was not a Colonial-era farm, as has been put forth, although the fanciful names given to some of the structures, i.e. The Oracle Chamber, detract from serious archeological consideration. Now a privately owned tourist site, Mystery Hill continues to be studied today.

The so-called Sacrificial Stone at Mystery Hill. The deep groove circumscribing the surface, with a run-off, presumably allowed the 'victim's' blood to be channelled off. (The stick is 1 foot long.)

In 1826, the wooded rise was owned by a farmer named Jonathan Pattee, who built his house amidst the stone ruins as they stood then. The home burned some thirty years later, and the family moved elsewhere, leaving the site to the weather for decades. Locally the area of stone structures and walls became known as Pattee's Caves, and many people believed that farmer Pattee himself spent his time building all these wondrous chambers, for purposes unknown. This is a debatable point, although evidence for Mr. Pattee's utilization of the stones extant on the site is undeniable. Local history also makes vague reference to Pattee as a moonshiner, and that General Lafayette paid him a visit on his last tour of America. In any case, many stones were removed in later years and can be found in still-existing buildings and structures in the nearby towns of Lawrence and Andover, Massachusetts.

America's Stonehenge

In the 1930's the site was purchased by William Goodwin, who did some reconstructing of his own. His motivation, however, was to prove that Irish Culdee monks (who may have established outposts in Iceland) built Mystery Hill as a tenth century Christian monastery, settling in New Hampshire after fleeing Viking raids. Mr. Goodwin's weakly-supported hypothoses were soundly thrashed by archeologists and historians, and further clouded Mystery Hill's origins.

More recent studies have not revealed a precise idea of Mystery Hill's true age and purpose. Interest in astro-archeology has caused many lithic sites to be re-evaluated as possible lunar and solar alignments. Over the years, Mystery Hill has been found to support a number of astronomical alignments along the major standing stones, more than chance should allow. In the past decade, dozens of test pits dug at the site have revealed that in the distant past, about 4,000 years ago, the hilltop was mostly barren and this would certainly make it an ideal place to view the skies. Another oddity noted in more recent years is that most of the larger stones' measurements are divisible by the ancient cubit (20 inches +/- 0.5 inches) and not by feet.

Somewhat north of Mystery Hill, along the Merrimack River Valley, historical accounts tell of other similar stone "cellars" and structures, considered ancient by European colonists because of the apparently long span of disuse and disrepair they noted. Large old trees grew in the midst of many of these areas, and the local native people seemed to know nothing of their purposes, and certainly did not use the structures themselves. This in itself would indicate that the sites were very old, since Native American oral tradition often provides enough factual evidence of historically known events to be believable. These lithic sites, then, would seem to pre-date the living memory of these American Indians.

An 1822 woodcut of the Lochmere, New Hampshire area, showing an area of stone ruin already considered to be of ancient origin. The horseshoe shape certainly echoes that of Stonehenge, in England.

A map of stone placement at Stonehenge, phase 3 iv, at Avebury Plains, England. This stage of the monument was reached about 2000 B.C. (red=sarsens, blue=bluestones)

For bibliography and suggested reading, see Lithic.

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Lithic(entry) / Maine / NEW HAMPSHIRE / Vermont / Massachusetts /

Rhode Island / Connecticut

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