Pre-Columbian Visitors
Great question has arisen from whence came those aboriginal inhabitants of America? Thomas Jefferson (1787)
Of Madoc and Monitors:
A Trip to Mobile Bay.
"Anno 1170, hee left his Country,
and after a long saile and no lesse patience,
blest, with some happy windes,
they discried land in the Gulph of Mexico,
not farre from Florida, a land affording health,
aire, gold, good water and plenty of Nature's blessings,
by which Prince Madoc was ouer-ioyed and had reason
to account his happy estate superior to his brothers."
— Sir Thomas Herbert,
A Relation of Some Yeares Travaile, Begvnne Anno 1626 (1634)
By Ron Fritze
February 5, 2008
The Alabama Humanities Foundation has a really neat program called Roads Scholars, which sends speakers out to various parts of the state to talk about humanities topics, often related to Alabama. The AHF and the community inviting the speaker split the costs of travel, lodging, and a modest stipend for the speaker. When I received the information about applying to be a Roads Scholar speaker, I decided to submit a proposal to be a speaker and was pleased when it was accepted. I had applied to speak about the myth of Prince Madoc and the Welsh colonization of America in 1170 along with the subsequent reports of Welsh Indians on the frontier.
The story of Prince Madoc has several variations. It starts in the year 1170. Prince Owen of Gwynned in Wales has died, leaving numerous legitimate and illegitimate sons by his various wives and mistresses. Several of these sons desire to succeed their father and a civil war breaks out. Madoc is one of the sons, most likely an illegitimate one. He does not aspire to become the Prince of Gwynned, but he does hope to live to a ripe old age.
Where Oh Where Did Prince Madoc Land?
Deciding to leave Wales, Madoc and some companions take to the sea and sail west. Eventually they reach an unknown but large landmass, which, as we know, was the Americas. There are various suggestions as to where they landed, ranging from Newfoundland to the mouth of the Amazon River. The three most popular locations cited by speculators are around Vera Cruz in Mexico, the mouth of the Mississippi River, and Mobile Bay. Those who advocate a landing at Vera Cruz assert that Madoc was probably the inspiration for the Mexican myths of the white god Quetzalcoatl.
Wherever it was that Madoc landed, he liked what he saw.
Leaving some of his companions behind to start a settlement, Madoc returns to Wales to recruit more colonists for the newly discovered land. Returning to America with a second expedition, he lands either at the mouth of the Mississippi or at Mobile Bay. Initially, the Welsh colonists think the new land is uninhabited, but soon after moving inland, they find that other people are already living there — and the original inhabitants are not at all happy about the arrival of the Welsh settlers.
The Pressure to Move Is Relentless.
According to the Mobile Bay version, the Welsh move north and settle in northern Alabama, northwestern Georgia, and southeastern Tennessee. Faced with hostile Native Americans, the Welsh build fortified settlements, the remnants of which are the Indian mounds we see today. Relentless pressure from the native tribes forces the Welsh to move again and again.
Eventually, so the story goes, they settle in the neighborhood of present-day Louisville, Kentucky. After living there in peace for a while, the Welsh colonists find themselves facing a great confederacy of the Native American tribes, which rises up and attacks them. A great battle takes place on Sand Island in the Ohio River, and the Welsh are defeated with the loss of many warriors. The survivors retreat westward down the Ohio, but at the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi, they turn north and follow the great river to the mouth of the Missouri River. From there they proceed up the Missouri until the reach the vicinity of present day Bismarck. At long last the Welsh settle down to become the original peoples of the Mandan tribe.
In the other version of the tale, where Madoc and his people landed at the mouth of the Mississippi, they are depicted as making their way inland along a more westerly route, but eventually the two versions merge at Louisville and become identical.
Can Anyone Find the Welsh Indians?
The Madoc myth implied that descendants of the Welsh still might be alive somewhere in North America. The idea that the Mandans were originally Welsh developed later. Sighting of Welsh Indians began in the sixteenth century and continued into the early nineteenth century. Well over a dozen tribes were identified as descendants of the Welsh. One of the instructions that President Thomas Jefferson gave to Meriwether Lewis and William Clark was to look for Welsh Indians. They did not find any. Still, many people continue to believe the story of Madoc. It is almost too good not to be true.
There are several places in Alabama associated with stories of the medieval Welsh, including De Soto Falls at Fort Payne and Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee River. As a Roads Scholar, I have accepted invitations to speak at both Fort Payne and Florence, near Muscle Shoals. I would highly recommend visiting both places.
The Mound Museum in Florence is a fine little museum located right next to a rather large mound near the Tennessee River. In the past, the mound was an important ceremonial center. The museum itself possessed a wonderful display of arrowheads and projectile points, some of them from the Clovis culture.
Fort Payne: a Great Little Museum.
Fort Payne is home to the Depot Museum. It is a great little museum located in the old railroad depot, but this is not just any depot — it is one of those really fine examples of Victorian railroad architecture from the late nineteenth century. A nice collection of materials related to the history of Fort Payne and the surrounding area are on display. If you go up into the mountains, you can visit the De Soto Falls, which are also quite beautiful, although in this time of drought in the Southeast, they are sadly depleted of water flow. It is said that De Soto visited them — and Madoc, too.
Another important location for the Madoc myth in Alabama is Fort Morgan, which guards the entrance to Mobile Bay. As I've mentioned, some proponents of the myth of medieval Welsh colonization assert that Prince Madoc and his people first landed at Mobile Bay near the present day location of Fort Morgan. One of the great advocates of the Madoc legend in Alabama was a man named Hatchett Chandler (1882-1967). He was a native of Alabama, a sometime business man, and an amateur historian. Some time after the Second World War, Chandler talked the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution into erecting a plaque commemorating the landing of Prince Madoc in 1170. Although his historical ideas were frequently problematic, Chandler led the effort to secure the preservation of Fort Morgan, which is an important landmark in Alabama and the focal point of one of the Civil War's more dramatic battles.
In Time for the Oysters and Crabs.
The people at the Gulf Shores Tourism Bureau invited me in January to come down and speak at their Adult Activity Center. Once again, Twylia and I were on the road to Gulf Shores. For those of you not familiar with Alabama, where we live in Athens is about as far away from Gulf Shores as you can get in this state. It is a 360-mile drive, but almost all of it is via interstate, so it is not a bad drive. My lecture was scheduled for 10 a.m. on Friday, 18 January 2008, but they wanted me there by about 9:15 to share early coffee and conversation. We drove down the day before, got our motel room (the place allows pets, so we may be going back down with one or more of the dogs), and got some great seafood at the Original Oyster House.
As a vacation town, Gulf Shores has lots of places
to eat, most of them quite good. Prior to going to Gulf Shores, many people gave us recommendations about where to eat, but the only restaurant that was mentioned more than once was the Original Oyster House, which was mentioned five times. We decided to check it out — and thoroughly enjoyed our meal. I ordered fried oysters, sautéed shrimp scampi, and stuffed crabs — all very good, but the stuffed crabs were especially tasty.
The next morning we made it to the Adult Activity Center and met several folks who had come for the lecture. At ten, I began my talk, well aware from casual chats and snippets of overheard conversations that I would be speaking to an audience already more than a little familiar with Madoc and the Welsh. I was a little worried that my lecture might be old hat to many of those in attendance, but during the lecture, the auspicious body language and affirmative head nodding of the listeners allayed those worries. At the end, I got a number of good questions. Several people stopped and talked as the meeting was breaking up.
Let's Give 'em the Warm Fuzzies,
Mimimal Reading, and Easy Grading
For those among my readers who are accustomed to teaching the 18 to 22-year-old traditional student, you can probably relate to my occasional feeling that I've either turned into a very boring lecturer, or have aged into an old fogey. These days, teaching undergraduates of the traditional age group, particularly freshman and sophomores, often degenerates into providing warm fuzzies, assigning minimal amounts of reading, and a maximizing of easy grading. It is a proven formula to high student evaluation numbers.
Of course, there are some academic administrators who regard the numbers generated by student evaluations as if they were written by the finger of God on Mount Sinai and handed down as gospel to separate good instructors from bad. This approach is a sign of an administrator who is lazy and who also avoids having their own teaching evaluated, if they teach at all. But I digress. Let me just say this: If you give an organized lecture on the right topic, with a good delivery, to an older, educated audience, you will soon discover that you are interesting, not boring, and smart, not dull — that you are actually someone the audience members want to talk with and learn more from. Be still my heart! Lecturing to an older, educated, and interested audience restoreth your soul as a teacher.
In case you don't know it, ten miles north of Gulf Shores is the town of Foley, home to the Tanger Outlet Mall, a true outlet mall with many good bargains. That is where Twylia wanted to go. I dropped her off, headed back to Gulf Shores, and had a pleasant lunch with some of the people from my lecture who had invited me to join them. They knew of a good place called King Neptune, which features a weekly menu of inexpensive but good lunch specials. I chose Shepherd's Pie with sides of vegetables — it was a nicely done Shepherd's Pie, too. I thoroughly enjoyed an entertaining lunch, and when it was over, I got in the car and drove the twenty miles to Fort Morgan. I had visited the site once before, perhaps fifteen years in the past, but being this close again, I could not pass up visiting the place again.
I Had the Fort All to Myself.
The day started out sunny, but after lunch the sky turned cloudy and the air grew cooler. I had a good jacket, so it was just fine for climbing around an old fort. To my delight I had the fort all to myself until the very end of my tour when two couples arrived. Fort Morgan is in substantially the same condition as it was in 1864 when the Battle of Mobile Bay raged near the end of the Civil War. Built in the 1830s, the fort was upgraded during World War I and prior to World War II to provide platforms for more modern cannons. It is a typical star-shaped structure surrounded by glacis to protect it from enemy cannon fire.
Fort Morgan protected the shipping channel at the entrance to Mobile Bay. In 1864, Mobile, Alabama, was one of the few ports of the Confederacy that had not fallen to the Union Navy. But Rear Admiral David Farragut was interested in changing that situation. He had long placed the capture of Mobile at the top of his list of goals. Mobile, however, was protected not only by Fort Morgan, but also by several lesser forts and batteries, the fearsome ironclad Tennessee, and some small gunboats. The channel was also obstructed by a triple row of floating mines placed to direct enemy ships into the guns of Fort Morgan and the Tennessee.
Admiral Farragut gathered a powerful fleet and a substantial force of troops to land and capture Mobile and its forts. Besides the wooden steam frigates, Farragut also had four monitors in his fleet. The monitors were heavily armored with large cannons mounted in rotating gun turrets. Some of the monitors had one turret, others had two.
Farragut Sails into Battle on the Hartford.
On 9 August 1864, the Union Navy began its assault. The ships approached Fort Morgan in a double line with the monitors in the line closest to Fort Morgan. The line of the wooden frigates was on the outside with the Brooklyn in the lead, followed by Farragut's flagship the Hartford. When the Union vessels came into range, they began to exchange fire with Fort Morgan.
Entering the channel, they began to approach the Tennessee and its escorts. The lead monitor, Tecumseh, was ordered to engage the Tennessee, and its commander, Tunis Craven, was determined to do just that. Unfortunately he steered his ship across the mine field, where it struck a mine and quickly sank, drowning Craven and most of his crew in just a few minutes. The death of the Tecumseh caused the captain of the Brooklyn to lose his nerve. He stopped his ship, halting the frigates' line of battle under the guns of Fort Morgan. Farragut wanted the Brooklyn to keep moving, but seeing that it was not going to move, the Admiral ordered the Hartford to sail around the Brooklyn and across the deadly minefield with the other ships behind him to follow.
Did the Admiral Really Say It?
Victory or defeat hung in the balance for the Union forces. It was at this point that Farragut supposedly barked out, "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" No one in earshot of Farragut that day would later admit to having heard the Admiral utter those exact words — although, in good sailor fashion, Farragut during the heat of the battle surely damned one thing or another a goodly number of times.
Farragut's gamble paid off. He knew that mines frequently became water logged and would not explode. He took a calculated risk, crossing the minefield — and it turned out alright for him and his fleet. The Hartford and the rest of the fleet safely crossed the minefield, although they could hear the mines bumping on the hulls of their ships.
The Union fleet then regrouped while the Tennessee took refuge under the guns of Fort Morgan. Its commander, perhaps emboldened by the earlier sinking of the Tecumseh, decided he just had to engage the Union warships in battle. Out came the Tennessee to fight. The unwieldy Confederate vessel was quickly surrounded by Farragut's armada. Wooden ships rammed it three times without inflicting serious damage. But the monitors closed in, their big cannons blazing, and gave the Tennessee a severe pounding that knocked out many of its guns and destroyed its ability to steer.
The helpless Tennessee was forced to surrender, leaving the city of Mobile virtually without defenses. Farragut had triumphed.
Afterward, when the Confederate minefield was cleared, it turned out that ninety percent of the mines had become water logged. The Tecumseh had the bad luck the strike one of the few remaining live mines, but the rest of the fleet did not. Now when you visit Fort Morgan, there is a red buoy in the ship channel that marks where the Tecumseh went down.
How Wondrous the Eye of Imagination.
Standing on the ramparts of the fort on a mild winter's day in 2008, a person with an imagination and an eye toward history can't avoid wondering what it must have been like to have been there on that violent summer day in 1864, either on a ship caught up in the smoke and splash of the naval battle, or high above in Fort Morgan with the cannons booming. Meanwhile, poor Prince Madoc's plaque is relegated to a storage shelf, no longer on display in the Fort Morgan museum. The park service staff are apparently a bit embarrassed by it, which is too bad. While the plaque commemorates a non-event of pseudohistory, it is also a fascinating artifact of local folklore.
Mounds, Madoc, the Slick Pig,
and a Civil War Battlefield Park:
Peregrinating
With Jeremy Black
By Ron Fritze from Athens, Alabama
Jeremy Black visited the Athens State University campus last autumn to deliver a lecture, The Politics of James Bond, a subject about which he has written a book. It was a good talk, entertainingly delivered with lots of interesting insights and anecdotes. Jeremy, a good friend, stayed at my home. In our planning we had set aside a Saturday to do a road-trip. I suggested that we drive up to Manchester, Tennessee, to visit the Old Stone Fort Park and then head up to Murfreesboro to explore the Stones River Battlefield Park. Jeremy is a military historian and had never been to Stones River, so he was up for the trip.
Starting the day with a nice breakfast, we left my home south of Athens a bit after 9 o’clock, motoring up I-65. Problem: Jeremy and I talk non-stop. Result: I missed the exit to our first destination at Lynchburg, the famous home of Jack Daniels. Solution: We traveled about ten miles further north and had to cut back cross-country on the side roads. It turned out just fine as we saw a lot of pleasant rolling hills and wooded countryside. Passing the Jack Daniels distillery, we elected not to stop. Lynchburg is dry . . . Yes, I said dry! You can buy a souvenir bottle of the product, but that's it. We weren’t interested.
In a little while we reached Manchester. To reach Old Stone you have to drive through a considerable stretch of densely populated area, tempting one to think they might have missed the park entrance. I had been there five years earlier so I knew we had to keep driving.
Visitors Center at Old Stone Fort Park
You'll Have to Look Elsewhere
To Find the Landing Base
For Ancient Aliens.
Old Stone Fort Park has a camping area and various hiking paths, but we wanted to see the ancient works. The smartly done visitors center features thoughtful and attractive displays with excellent information about the various phases of pre-Columbian Native American cultures. Like many Moundbuilder complexes, Old Stone Fort has been identified by some as a fortification built by Prince Madoc of Gwynned’s people about 1200. Others have suggested the Vikings. Neither is true, but it would be nice for the visitor’s center to devote a modest display to discussing the myth of Madoc and the Welsh Indians — and then debunking it.
I know from personal experience that the Tennessee Park Service staff are well aware of the Madoc myth. During my first visit there I discussed it with the very knowledgeable female ranger who was working the information desk that day. She also told me that the Visitor Center library has a pretty good collection of Madoc related books. It’s a different story at the center’s bookstore. Although they sell a wide variety of texts about the archaeology and anthropology of North America and the Southeast, they don’t carry any Madoc books. In my opinion, the Tennessee Park Service, along with other park services, needs to recognize the existence of myths and educate the public that stories like Madoc are well and truly myths, not history.
Once outside, we walked the area containing the mound complex. Old Stone Fort is not a big, hill-like mound shaped like a pyramid. The pyramid-shaped temple mounds are characteristic of the Mississippian culture of North America that flourished from 800-1500 AD. Old Stone Fort is a Middle Woodland mound about 2,000 years old. Archaeologists think it was built over a period of up to 400 years between the dates of 40-400 AD. The Woodland culture is also referred to as the Hopewell Culture, whose peoples built burial mounds and ceremonial mounds. Old Stone Fort is a ceremonial mound with an astronomical alignment that is only partially understood — but definitely not a landing base for ancient aliens.
Ceremonial Entrance to Old Stone Fort
For the Spirit and Not for War
The name Old Stone Fort derives from the assumption of early American settlers that it was an abandoned fort. Its location contributes to this assumption. The mound works are located on a high bluff on a peninsula formed by the coming together of the Big Duck and Little Duck Rivers. Ancient Native Americans built an earthen wall with a stone core around the perimeter of the bluff. The earthen wall is not very tall and would not have deterred attackers. This bears out the suggestion that the mound complex was ceremonial.
Leaving the visitor center, we passed through a series of mounds forming an entry way. Once this gateway was passed, we entered a large meadow that served as the ceremonial center. But the park’s path takes visitors around the perimeter of the mound wall. The path covers a mile and quarter with various side paths that can be explored at the discretion of the visitor.
Jeremy and I followed the main path and took most of the diversions as well. The autumn leaves were beginning to change into red and yellow hues, providing a mellow contrast to the lingering green of summer — not the best of fall colors, given the absence of a heavy frost to date, but nevertheless becoming to the eye. There were other people walking the path, which was rougher and more rutted than I remembered from my first visit. Later I checked with the park ranger, and she confirmed there had been some erosion due to the drought retarding ground cover plants. About three-quarters around the mound wall, we climbed down to take a look at Big Falls and Blue Falls on the Big Duck River. The whooshing sound from the falling water was peaceful and relaxing.
Ruins of the Hickerson and Wooten Paper Mill
This Paper Trail
Leads Away from Madoc.
Next along the path was the Hickerson and Wooten Paper Mill. The surviving ruins of the mill are mostly walls of rough stones. Initially, given that the first wall was overgrown with moss and other vegetation, I wasn’t sure whether it was natural or man-made. With so much shale in the geology of this part of the Big Duck River, you see a lot of stones with straight lines, and some of the formations have the appearance of steps. A look on the other side of that first wall made it clear that the structure was man-made. Of course, for a convinced Madocian, the structure could have been all that was left of a Welsh castle keep. Unfortunately for that same convinced Madocian, the existence of the paper mill is too well documented for an interpretation of the ruins as medieval Welsh to be the even the slightest bit credible.
Soon we were back at the visitor center and anxious to get on the road again. With I-24 nearby, we were swiftly on our way to the Slick Pig on East Main in Murfreesboro near the Middle Tennessee State University campus. The barbeque joint was highly recommended to us by Bob and Laurie Glenn.
The Slick Pig is an unprepossessing place with marvelous food. We tried wings and coleslaw, both extremely good. I’ll be stopping there again at the first opportunity — and I suggest you do the same. Jeremy is a fan of non-chain American food, and he would second my recommendation most heartily. He would also inform you (and I can back him up on this) that barbeque is non-existent in England. One caution though, based on the political things posted on the walls: I suspect Rush Limbaugh would love the place. Hey, that’s what makes America a great country. Everybody gets to have any opinion they want. Some, like Rush, even get to bray daily on talk radio.
You Won't Find this Pig in England.
You Know, It's the Place
With the Big Old Cannons....
Next we made our way to the Stones River Battlefield Park. The owner of the Slick Pig gave us good directions, which were rendered for naught by a train parked on the tracks and blocking the street we needed cross. Trying an alternate route, we asked a couple of teen-aged boys for directions, which were distressingly vague and tentative. These two were clearly not fascinated by the history of their hometown. Later, seeing a gas station, I pulled in and filled up. Uncharacteristically, I asked for more directions (someone help Twylia, she’s fainted!) from the teenager with a pony-tail who was manning the cash register. He seemed brighter than the other two guys but confessed to be ashamed to not know for sure. After a bit of discussion, we came to an agreement that the battlefield park was the place with the cannons and a military cemetery. That got him focused. His directions were good, helped by the fact we were almost there anyway. Still, the history teachers of Murfreesboro have a lot to answer for. Those kids don’t seem to know much about the most significant event in their town’s history. O tempora, o mores!
The Stones River Battlefield Park has a very good visitor’s center. We went through the exhibits and got a map from the ranger at the information desk. My ancestor, Jacob Spräu, served with the 101st Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which fought its second battle of the war at Murfreesboro. It was not a good day for them. They were on picket duty when the Confederate Army attacked. A portion of their position was overrun, resulting in the capture of a goodly number of the regiment. I have looked through the 101st’s regimental history. Its roster is peppered with references to members who were paroled or sent to Libby or Andersonville prisons. Many of those in the prisoner of war camps died there. Jacob avoided that fate and also managed not to get wounded. Later, he would not be so lucky. At Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge he was wounded in both of those battles.
A Union Cannon on Display at Stones River.
This Pajama Party Turned Sour.
The 101st’s problem was part of the general problem that bedeviled the Union Army for most of the first day of the Battle of Stones River on 31 December 1862. The Confederate Army attacked the Union Army’s right flank, consisting of Alexander McCook’s Corps, and rolled it back, including the 101st. Embarrassingly, the Union troops were caught at breakfast. Some were in pajamas, repeating a lack-of-readiness problem that characterized two earlier Union near-disasters at Fort Donelson and Shiloh.
Eventually, Confederate forces encountered stubborn rearguard resistance that blunted their attack. Meanwhile, William B. Hazen’s brigade held its ground, making it the only Union unit to stand fast that day. The rest of the Union right flank was bent back to the right of Hazen’s. There, some 30,000 Union troops with cannons lined up and finally halted the Confederate attack with massive firepower. With both sides suffering heavy casualties, Confederate commander Braxton Bragg expected Union commander William Rosecrans to retreat to Nashville. Instead, much to Bragg’s surprise, Rosecrans held his ground.
Confederate attacks on the following days failed to move the Union position, while a Union counter-attack forced part of the left wing of the Confederate Army out of its position. Bragg withdrew from the battlefield, leaving Rosecrans the technical victory. When it was over, the battle left 23,000 soldiers of both sides killed, wounded, or captured. At a tactical level the Battle of Stones River was a draw. Strategically, it gave the Union cause a big morale boost.
The Hazen Monument
They Held Their Ground.
Much of the battlefield of Stones River is located on private property. The ill-fated 101st Ohio’s original position is located on such private land to the west of the park. The bulk of the current battlefield park is focused on the area where Hazen’s brigade held their ground and where the rest of the Union right flank took up their final position and stopped the Confederate advance. The Park Service is buying more land. They are also adding to the facility.
Jeremy and I walked a circuit path around the existing battlefield park that is very nice and pretty well marked, although some detailed maps of the battle would be helpful. Lots of people were walking the path that day including joggers and dog-walkers. It was a pleasant, sunny day. After finishing the circuit, we visited the monument erected by Hazen’s Brigade, which is purported to be the oldest surviving Civil War memorial. The Stones River Battlefield Park is constantly improving. If you have never visited the park, I strongly recommend checking it out. It is worth a visit. And if five or more years have passed since your last visit, I suggest giving it another look. A lot has changed.
Our route back home to Huntsville followed a scenic path along country roads, capping a very nice day. The interesting and unexpected development was that Old Stone Fort beat out Stones River as Jeremy’s favorite. We both liked the Slick Pig and I suspect will nostalgically recall the fine food until we get to try it again. Gotta go.
The Bluebird Of History (And Pseudohistory)
May Be In Your Own Backyard:
Newark Holy Stones, Mounds
These works are so complicated, that it is impossible to give anything like a comprehensible description of them.
— Ephraim Squier and Edwin Davis
commenting on the Newark Mounds (1847).
By Ron Fritze from Athens, Alabama
Last year I wrote an essay about the history of the Newark Holy Stones. They are thought by some to be relicts of ancient Hebrews who migrated to the region that we now know as the state of Ohio. I can understand immigrating to Ohio. That is exactly what some of my ancestors did when they came to America. It’s a beautiful and bountiful region.
The story of the ancient Hebrews and their relicts is not so pretty. Mainstream scholars consider the Holy Stones to belong to the phenomenon of archaeological hoaxes that were common in nineteenth century America. For those who consider evidence important in establishing fact and truth, mainstream scholars certainly have the best argument. With them, I think the Newark Holy Stones are relicts of an antebellum hoax and not artifacts of pre-Columbian Jewish settlers in the Americas.
At the same time, fake or genuine, the Newark Holy Stones are important artifacts and well worth visiting.
This summer I had an opportunity to see the Holy Stones. I had driven up to Indiana to visit my Mom and we decided to make a day trip over to Coshocton, Ohio, the home of the Newark Holy Stones. Coshocton is about an hour’s drive to the northeast of Columbus. It is located in pleasant, hilly country that is heavily wooded. During the temperate summer the landscape is a glorious deep green, which particularly caught my attention since six weeks earlier I had experienced the dry, dusty brown of Egypt with its blast furnace temperatures.
Exterior of the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum
History and Pseudohistory on Display
The Holy Stones are on exhibit in the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum in historic Roscoe Village. A visit to the Johnson-Humrickhouse is very much recommended for those interested in local history and some interesting artifacts from the pseudohistory of North America.
When you drive into Coshocton, be sure to follow the signs to Roscoe Village, not to downtown Coshocton. Roscoe Village is a collection of historic buildings and little shops. Because a canal once flowed through Coshocton, they display a replica of a canal boat. The one I saw was a cargo-carrier, built to be piled high with goods. It also served as a home for the canal boatman and his family. I wished that they had displayed a passenger boat, too. From what I have read, travel on a canal boat, though slow, was quite comfortable and the meals served to passengers were supposed to be excellent.
Model of a Canal Boat at Roscoe Village
The Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum turned out to be a modern two story building and quite a nice facility. It is probably best known for its exhibit of the Newark Holy Stones, but it also features nice collections of artifacts from Ohio’s various moundbuilder cultures, along with items from frontier and late nineteenth-century Ohio. There is also a display of other Native American artifacts from the Plains and Southwestern tribes, including some Kachina dolls that have nothing to do with Ohio and the Coshocton region. Also having no connection to Ohio history, extensive collections of Chinese and Japanese artifacts are on display in a gallery on the second floor.
An Eclectic Array Whets the Palate
Of History Buffs and Collectors.
These off-topic collections reflect the passions of the museum’s Johnson-Humrickhouse family benefactors. The Johnson brothers, David and John, like many well-to-do Americans, collected for a hobby. They were lesser versions of Edward Ayer, the Chicago businessman, whose collection of artifacts and books about Native Americans have so enriched the Newberry Library and the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Besides its archaeological and historical exhibits, the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum supports the art and culture in the Coshocton area.
The Newark Holy Stones formed part of the collection of David Johnson, who purchased them in 1861 because he thought they were authentic. He later changed his mind and attempted to sell them, but found that there was no one willing to buy for an amount close to what he paid for them. So he held on to them and they form part of the donation made by the Johnson brothers. Full size replicas of the Holy Stones are available for purchase.
At the museum, the Holy Stones are located on a large landing where the stairs lead to the second-floor terminate. Many visitors to the museum come especially to see the Holy Stones – and a significant number of these tourists believe the stones are authentic. The exhibit takes an even-handed approach that neither affirms nor denies the authenticity of stones, although Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum has hosted conferences that have questioned their genuineness.
The Holy Stones consist of the Key Stone, the Decalogue Stone with a stone box to contain it, and a stone bowl. Other supposed Hebrew artifacts were found in the Newark mounds, but they were immediately denounced as fakes and have been lost.
A Newark mound rises in the foreground.
The Encroaching City
Coshocton is about a thirty-minute drive from Newark, the home of the mounds where the Holy Stones were found. Newark is a pleasant, prosperous town, which I suspect has become something of a bedroom community for people working in Columbus.
Only a portion of the original Newark mounds have survived because the growth of the town has engulfed them. The Hopewell Culture built the mounds about 2,000 years ago. They are considered to be the largest geometrical complex ever built. What survives is the Great Circle Mound, which once served as the location of the Licking County Fairgrounds and is now a lovely park. There is an impressive visitor center with some informative displays and videos. The day we visited, some young boys were doing wheelies on a smaller ridge of mound. I was taking some pictures of it and I suspected they were not supposed to be riding on the mound. They took off when I got them in a picture.
Squier and Davis’s survey shows the complexity and,
in terms of mid-nineteenth-century archaeological knowledge,
incomprehensible nature of the Newark Mounds.
A bit over a mile away from the Great Circle Mound is the remaining major survival of the Newark Mounds — the Octagon complex, an octagon-shaped mound connected to circular mound. You get there by driving through a largely residential neighborhood. The Octagon mounds were built for calendrical purposes to track celestial movements through the seasons. At the moment, the Octagon works are part of the Moundbuilders Country Club. Originally the city of Newark wanted to make the mounds a park but lacked the money. A group of the more well-to-do residents wanted the land for a golf course. So in 1911 the city leased the complex to the country club on the condition that the land remain open to the public.
So, if you visit these mounds, you should be prepared to dodge flying golf balls and speeding golf carts. Although the Licking County Commission transferred the ownership of the land to the Ohio Historical Society, the Moundbuilder Country Club was granted such a long lease that the Octagon complex will not truly return to being public property during the lifetime of most of us.
As one of the archaeologists on a video shown in the visitor center complained, Ohio has the richest collection of ancient mounds in the entire United States and the weakest laws protecting antiquities. But don’t let that deter you from visiting Newark — lovely town, great mounds. Check it out.
More Mounds
If mounds interest you, I would also recommend visiting the mound complex at Chillicothe, the Fort Ancient Mound, the Great Serpent Mound, and the Fort Hill Mound — all in southern Ohio.
The Chillicothe site recently came into the possession of the National Park Service. When I visited it, the park was in transition. It is also worth seeing the nearby Scioto River.
Fort Ancient, along with the Great Serpent and Fort Hill, are operated by the Ohio Historical Society, which does a wonderful job. Fort Ancient is a great place for a picnic and a good walk.
The Great Serpent is located in a pretty setting, but its purpose remains ill understood.
The most isolated of these mounds is Fort Hill, but it is really worth the trip for the adventurous among us. When you drive up to the park at Fort Hill, you’ll find a small visitor center with clean restrooms and a hand pump that dispenses fresh, cool water. Fort Hill is literally located on a hill — and a steep one at that. There is a hiking path that takes about two hours to do. The hike is not for anyone unaccustomed to exercise but is well worth the effort. What is unique about Fort Hill is that it is overgrown by large, old trees. It appeared to me that the land had never been cleared for farming, which is not surprising given the roughness of the topography. Visiting Fort Hill allows the traveler to see the mounds through the eyes of the amateur archaeologists Ephraim Squier and Edwin Davis, who surveyed the mounds during the 1840s.
As Robert Louis Stevenson said of the lower Midwest in 1879, “All through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, or for as much as I saw of them from the train, and in my waking moments, it was rich and various and breathed in an elegance peculiar to itself.”
An exhibit at the Interpretative Center of the Falls of Ohio State Park in Jeffersonville, Indiana, places one of Prince Madoc's warriors into the symbolic tableau of local history.
Our Search for the Facts Places Myth against Legend
In the Annals of Early America.
Tales of a Prince and Adventures
In Pre-Columbian North America
"When Kentucky was a part of Virginia there was a tradition widespread and generally believed that a Welsh prince by the name of Madoc planted a colony of his countrymen in America about the year 1170. This colony was believed to have been located for some time at the Falls of the Ohio, where, after it grew strong and became offensive to the more numerous aborigines, it was attacked with overwhelming numbers and nearly all members slaughtered."
— Reuben Durrett,
Traditions of the Earliest Visits of Foreigners to North America,
Filson Club Publications no. 23
(Louisville,KY: John P. Morton Company, 1908), p. 1.
By Ronald Fritze
Posted on June 14, 2011, from Athens, Alabama
I recently had an opportunity to visit the Falls of the Ohio State Park in Jeffersonville, Indiana. At this point, some of you are asking, “Falls of the Ohio?” And some of you are asking, “Where’s Jeffersonville, Indiana?” Let me start with Jeffersonville. It is across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky, along with New Albany and Clarksville. As for the Falls of the Ohio, they are located right there at Louisville and Jeffersonville. You should not think of them as great towering creations like Niagara Falls. They are, or were, a series of rapids, sort of like the rapids at Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee River or the cataracts on the Nile.
The Ohio River has long been regarded as a very picturesque river. The name “Ohio” derives from an Iroquois word meaning “good river.” The early American settlers of the Ohio River considered it to be a good river — navigable for its entire length, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Cairo, Illinois, except at the Falls of the Ohio, where the river experiences a 26-foot drop over the course of two and a half miles of rapids.
During parts of the year, the rapids were navigable, but at other times, boats would have to portage, hence the location of Louisville and Jeffersonville. This point in the river was a strategic bottleneck for traffic. As Americans settled the Ohio Valley, various projects to dam the river and build locks to make it navigable to larger boats were gradually completed. As a result of these improvements, most of the old rapids are permanently covered with water behind a dam.
The Now and The Then
Are on Display at a Great Park.
If you want to visit the Falls of the Ohio, you’ll find a lovely state park with a great interpretive center. To get there, just get on I-65 and take Exit 0 on the Indiana side of the river. Signs will direct you to the park. The day I visited, the weather at the Falls was nice and sunny, although there was a nasty front moving across the central states. The park is located on the river side of the levee. Its grounds are very pleasant with walkways and overlooks for viewing the Ohio River. If you ever visit there, I suggest bringing a picnic lunch if the weather is pleasant. Next to the Interpretive Center is an observation deck for the river and the remaining rapids.
The river was up the day of my visit. You could see a lot of flotsam and jetsam on the banks. The park has paths for hiking, access to fishing, and camp grounds for picnics and overnight stays. You can also take wooden stairs down to the river to look around, although signs warn you to head for high ground if you hear sirens, which signal they are opening a spillway on the dam — the water can get deep very quickly. Exciting stuff.
What they don’t want you to do is fossil hunt. Hundreds of millions of years ago, the limestone of the falls were an ancient seabed, creating a wealth of fossils of prehistoric shell fish. It is supposed to be the richest site for Devonian fossils in the world. Another interesting piece of history is that in 1803 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark began their great expedition to explore the Louisiana Territory from the Falls of the Ohio. An additional attraction is the homestead of George Rogers Clark, the Revolutionary War military leader and the older brother of William Clark. His house is quite near the park, but I did not get to visit it because the high water had flooded the grounds around the house. Not a problem. I enjoyed my visit to the Falls of the Ohio, so I will be back.
The park has a fine modern Interpretive Center. It is a sort of museum with exhibits on various topics. Some of the displays deal with the natural history of the plants and animals of the Ohio Valley. Other exhibits deal with its abundant fossils. Some cover topics related to the early scientists who studied this area. There are also presentations about the ice ages and prehistoric mammals. In fact, when you first enter the Interpretive Center you see a big display with a mammoth skeleton as the centerpiece. Other cases deal with the pre-Columbian Indians, the historic Indians, the early explorers and settlers of the Ohio Valley, and the economy and river transportation on the Ohio River during the nineteenth century — fascinating stuff and well presented.
We Arrive at the Intersection
of Myth, Legend, and Pseudo-history.
Remember, I am a guy who is interested in pseudo-history, so maybe it’s time we strayed from all this talk about “real” history into the realm of invented knowledge. According to advance notice, the Interpretive Center was supposed to have an exhibit concerning Prince Madoc and the settlement of North America by some medieval Welsh. Was there really such an exhibit? I made my way through the museum, keeping an eye open for it as I enjoyed the other exhibits. Turning a corner, I found what I was seeking: a display case titled “Myths and Legends,” containing materials related to the myth of Prince Madoc.
Keep in mind, I am calling it the myth of Madoc, not the legend of Madoc. Although myth and legend are frequently used interchangeably (which I think is what the Interpretive Center has done), the two words have precise and distinct definitions when used in a scholarly sense. Myth refers to a made-up story that has no basis in historical events. Legends are stories about past events that have a historical basis. A famous example of this use of legend is the Trojan War. It was long thought to be a myth, a made–up story with no basis in history. Then the amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schleimann did some excavating in Turkey and discovered the site of Troy. He found that the city had been sacked and burned at about the right time to be equated with Homer’s Trojan War. Most scholars agree with me about Madoc, but other people think the story is a legend that reflects actual historical events.
Where do the Falls of the Ohio come into the myth of Madoc? The Interpretive Center’s exhibit tells the story in a nutshell, but I’ll take the time here to present an expanded version of the myth.
A Civil War in Wales
Leads the Prince Westward
To an Unknown Land.
Madoc was one of the many sons of Owen Gwynedd, the ruler of northern Wales. When Owen died in 1169, a vicious civil war broke out among his sons. Not wanting to become a victim of fratricide, Madoc decided to go on a long ocean cruise with some of his followers. Sailing west, they found an unknown land and liked what they saw. So Madoc returned to Wales to organize a settlement in the new country. A second and possibly a third voyage followed. There are many suggestions for where Madoc landed. Two are specifically connected to the Falls of the Ohio.
In one version, Madoc sailed up the mouth of the Mississippi River and entered the Ohio, finally stopping at the Falls of the Ohio. The other version has the Welsh explorers land at Mobile Bay near the location of Fort Morgan. Moving inland and northward, they established a nice kingdom in northern Alabama and Georgia and in southeastern Tennessee. Being civilized, Christian and white, the Welsh were very successful, but their success aroused the jealousy and fear of the neighboring tribes of much more primitive Native Americans. A war breaks out and the outnumbered Welsh are forced to retreat to the north.
At this point, the fleeing Welsh reach the Ohio River, where somehow the two versions of Madocian lore begin to merge. The Welsh settle around the Falls of the Ohio and create a second successful kingdom — unless they came up the Mississippi, in which case this would be their first kingdom. Unfortunately, those pesky and primitive Native Americans just can’t stand the Welsh being so successful, so war breaks out. Still outnumbered, the Welsh made a stand on Sand Island by Louisville and are defeated. The remnant retreated down the Ohio and then up the Mississippi to the Missouri River. They are harried up the river until it is finally safe to settle down, at which point they evolve into what became the tribe of the Mandans.
Show Us the Evidence.
What is the evidence for a medieval Welsh presence at the Falls of the Ohio? The search for an answer leads us into a rich realm of frontier folklore and tall tales. No reliable and authenticated archaeological evidence exists, and the voyage of Madoc left no documentary trail dating from the twelfth century for historians to study. Surviving documentary evidence only begins in the sixteenth century, and it was produced by people who were hardly objective or disinterested.
Furthermore, the sixteenth century documents do not supply any of the details included in the above narrative. In the myth of Madoc, the Native Americans seem to be primitive savages, which bespeaks the myth’s origins in a frontier America where giving the aboriginal inhabitants credit for any virtues or accomplishments was rare. If Madoc actually had visited North America after 1170, he would have encountered the complex and civilized chiefdoms of the early centuries of the Mississippian culture. In fact, the Welsh fleeing their defeat at the Falls of the Ohio would have had to pass by the great urban center at Cahokia, the biggest city to have existed in pre-Columbian North America. These people were not nasty brutes armed with bows and arrows and sporting Mohawk haircuts.
Supporters of the historicity of the medieval Welsh discovery and settlement of North America will make claims about the existence of allegedly authentic artifacts. There are claims that the remains of armored Welsh warriors have been dug up on Sand Island. In 1799, there was supposedly a discovery of the armored bodies of six Welshmen at Jeffersonville, Indiana, but the story cannot be satisfactorily confirmed and the armor is nowhere to be found.
A Welsh fortification was supposedly located on the peninsula known as the “Devil’s Backbone” where Fourteen Mile Creek flows into the Ohio River. This site is near Charlestown, Indiana. Unfortunately the building of the Big Four Railroad Bridge between 1888 and 1895 resulted in the destruction of the stone walls. Later an amusement park named Rose Island was built on the same location during the 1920s, further clouding any archaeological evidence that might have remained.
Armor and Coins, So They Claim,
Lead All the Way Back to Madoc's Men.
The exhibit in the Interpretative Center focuses on two artifacts. The first artifact is a set of medieval Persian armor. A man named John Brady discovered some Persian armor during 1898 while walking to work in Louisville. Experts from the Smithsonian Institution and the Field Museum of Chicago confirmed that it was authentic Persian armor, but they could not say how it ended up buried in at the Falls of the Ohio. Supporters of the Madoc story suggest that a medieval Welsh crusader brought it back home after he finished his time in the Holy Land. The armor later ended up traveling to America with Madoc’s people. Again, misfortune struck this artifact as it was stolen from the Brady family in 1968 and has never been recovered. Only pictures taken by the Brady family remain. The idea of a medieval Welsh crusader bringing Persian armor to America just seems somewhat tenuous to me.
The second artifact is a cache of Roman coins unearthed in 1963. A small pile of coins was uncovered during a construction project in New Albany, Indiana. The coins date from the reigns of Maximus I and Claudius II, respectively 235 and 268 AD. Madocians suggest that one of the Welsh warriors was carrying these coins and lost them during the great struggle with the Native Americans of the Ohio valley. While it is possible than a Welshman was carrying 900-year-old coins with him to America, it is more probable that some hapless coin collector lost the treasures much later, and that in1963 they were found. That is what the Interpretive Center’s exhibit suggests, and rightly so.
Now if you are interested in a more detailed recounting of these sorts of evidence from a Madocian point of view, see Dana Olson, The Legend of Prince Madoc, Discoverer of America in 1170 A.D. and the History of the Welsh Colonists, also Known as the White Indians or the Moon-Eyed People (Jeffersonville, IN: Olson Enterprises, 1987).
You have probably noticed that substantial artifacts left by medieval Welsh settlers have an unbroken record of being found and then lost again. These circumstances do not provide a solid foundation for proving that Prince Madoc ever visited America and established a colony. At the same time, I applaud the staff of the Falls of the Ohio Park for including a Madoc exhibit in their collection. It is an evenhanded presentation, which means it will please neither convinced Madocians nor fierce skeptics. That is always the sign of a good compromise.
Don't Be Embarrassed.
Have Some Fun with It All.
Myths such as the story of Madoc abound. They form a part of the history and folklore of a locality and even a nation. As such they need to be studied and talked about. Park services have tended to try and ignore things like the Madoc myth. These myths are viewed as an embarrassment. That is certainly the case of the museum at Fort Morgan in Mobile Bay. They really need to have an exhibit that says up front that many people have believed and continue to believe that Madoc and his followers landed here at Mobile Bay, but while it is a fun story, there is no serious evidence that it is a true story.
Apart from the Madoc exhibit, the myth of the medieval Welsh gets a prominent display at one other place in the Interpretive Center. Remember the big display in the entrance, the one featuring the mammoth? In addition to the mammoth, there is a Devonian era shark, a Paleo-Indian with a spear and atlatl, a buffalo, some beaver building a lodge — and, kneeling at the side, a bearded blonde man in medieval clothing and a helmet. He is one of Madoc’s warriors. I like it.
My recommendation for anyone passing north or south on I-65 through Louisville is to stop and enjoy the Falls of the Ohio. It is a beautiful park and a place full of natural history and human history.
Pre-Columbian Explorers of the Americas
Ancient Hebrews in Ohio?*
On the Borderline Between Science and a Clever Hoax.
By Dr. Ronald Fritze
". . . some one has been trying to hoax me . . ."
— David Wyrick, 13 April 1863
The prehistory of the Americas is a murky and contentious subject. All sorts of conflicting and contradictory theories speculate about how the Americas were peopled and who might have visited them before 1492. Even now in the early years of the twenty-first century, there is much that is unclear about how and when humans first arrived in the Americas.
Archaeologists possess many scientific tools for studying the past, including precise and practiced techniques for excavating a site. They employ radio-carbon dating, tree-ring dating (known as dendrochronology), pollen testing, and analysis of the DNA of ancient bones. They remove ice cores from Greenland glaciers and capture pollen from remote and exotic locations, subjecting the samples to detailed and informed analysis.
Doubts and Disagreements Persist.
Despite all this technology and refined scientific method, doubts and disagreements persist and even multiply. Yet, it is increasingly accepted among those who ponder such matters that humans were in the Americas at least 15,000 years before twenty-first century man. It is also clear that the ancestors of the modern Native Americans were Asian in their origins, although which groups of modern Asian they are related to remains unclear or in dispute.
How the first Americans got here is also unclear. Many archaeologists strongly suspect that the route followed by the first Americans now lies under water due to the melting of the great glaciers of the Ice Age, which significantly raised the level of the world's oceans.
At the same time, others speculate that some early Americans could have arrived by sea via drift voyages across the north and south Pacific and along the prehistoric ice sheet of the North Atlantic during the last Ice Age.
Today, the peopling of the Americas remains a blurred subject.
Speculation about the Peopling of America.
During the nineteenth century, the systematic methodologies of archaeology were in their infancy. Modern scientific techniques were undreamed of until the middle of the twentieth century. As a result, speculation was rife about the peopling of the Americas — and much of it was pretty wild stuff.
One of the most fascinating episodes of archaeological speculation in the nineteenth century focused on Ohio and other parts of the lower Midwest, which were peppered with ancient mounds. Most of these mounds greatly predated the historic tribes of Native Americans living in the area, so the question arose: Who built the mounds and other earthworks? Another question: What was the purpose of the mounds and earthworks?
Given the prevailing viewpoint that all natives were savages, no one among the thinkers of the day wanted to give the Native Americans credit for the mounds. Instead, they attributed the mysterious structures to ancient or medieval colonists from Israel (Judah), Carthage, Ireland, Wales, or even Atlantis.
The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
Among these various suggestions for Moundbuilder genealogy, the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel became a particularly popular candidate. After all, the lost tribes must have ended up somewhere. Why not Ohio? — and who in the world had the authority to say otherwise? Existing knowledge of American prehistory in 1860 being largely speculative, there were no scientific methodologies or detailed studies to turn that speculation into plausible theory, or into discredited nonsense.
The problem was not confined to academic archaeology, an infant discipline with few practitioners. North American prehistory was also bedeviled by fraudulent artifacts and clever hoaxes.
While most of these fraudulent artifacts have been thoroughly debunked and discredited, often more than once, they remain subject to periodic rehabilitation by intellectual speculators in search of a hook for the latest alternative theory of the peopling of the Americas. People forget — and an old idea can be resurrected to become "genuine proof" for the speculators of a new generation.
The First Holy Stone Is Discovered.
A good example of this phenomenon is the Newark Holy Stones. The amateur archaeologist David Wyrick discovered the first Holy Stone while digging in a mound near Newark, Ohio, on 29 June 1860. This artifact is known as the Keystone and is inscribed with Hebrew phrases.
While some people greeted Wyrick's discovery with enthusiasm, others were highly skeptical of its authenticity from the beginning. Critics pointed out that the Hebrew letters on the Keystone were relatively modern, which meant it could not be a two-thousand-year-old artifact purported to prove that the Ten Lost Tribes had reached Ohio and built its many mounds.
Wyrick, although pummeled by critics and suffering from self-doubt, continued to dig in neighboring mounds. Among many of his neighbors, he was a figure of derision. Then on 1 November 1860, Wyrick, while in the company of others, uncovered a second Newark Holy Stone while digging at the Great Stone Mound near Jacksontown, Ohio. This artifact became known as the Decalogue Stone and featured an inscription of the Ten Commandments as well as a carving of the figure of Moses.
Too Many Errors.
Interestingly, the Decalogue Stone answered the objections made to the Keystone. It was inscribed in what appeared to be truly ancient Hebrew characters. However, questions about its authenticity arose almost immediately. There were simply too many errors in the transcription of the Ten Commandments. The depiction of Moses was also entirely uncharacteristic of ancient Hebrew practice.
Unlike other spurious artifacts of American prehistory — the Davenport Tablets are a good example of this category — the Newark Holy Stones from their very discovery were never widely accepted as genuine.
If ancient Hebrews did not fashion the Newark Holy Stones, who did? Nobody knows for sure. For someone to fake the Holy Stones, a particular set of skills and knowledge was needed. The hoaxer had to possess a reasonably good knowledge of Hebrew and also had to be a stone-carver.
Was Wyrick the Culprit?
Wyrick, who suffered from chronic ill health and severe financial problems, committed suicide on 15 April 1864. Some suggested that his failure to acquire wealth through the Holy Stones and the infamy that arose around them helped drive the man to take his own life. A Hebrew Bible and slates with Hebrew lettering carved on them were found among his effects after his death. This evidence convinced many people at the time that Wyrick was the culprit.
The problem, however, is that Wyrick lacked both the necessary knowledge of Hebrew and the skill to carve the stones convincingly. It has been suggested Wyrick actually possessed the Hebrew Bible and the stone carving materials so that he could test for himself whether it was easy to fake the Holy Stones. Given the crudity of his own stone carvings, he probably concluded that the construction of a fake that appeared as plausible as the Holy Stones was a rather difficult task. Also, most of his neighbors considered Wyrick to be a sincere and honorable man, who also happened to be gullible and eccentric.
If Wyrick did not construct the Holy Stones, then who did?
Some have suggested Dr. John H. Nicol, a local doctor of somewhat dubious reputation. He may have been trying to make a fool of the hapless Wyrick. While his contemporaries may have considered him to have been nasty enough to have done such a thing, they did not credit him with the intelligence to have pulled off the hoax.
Wrangling over the Institution of Slavery.
Much more plausible is the suggestion that a local Episcopalian minister, John W. McCarty, conspired with stone cutter Elijah Sutton to carry out the hoax. Together the two men possessed the necessary skills. They also had a motive based in ideology.
If accepted as authentic, the Newark Holy Stones would have undercut the theories of polygenesis, or multiple creations of humans, that were being promoted by adherents of scientific racism in the American school of ethnology. These theories were used to justify the institution of slavery. Its antithesis, monogenesis, which was based on the single creation narrative of the Bible, promoted the unity of humanity and positioned slavery as an inhuman and immoral institution.
Abolitionists were supporters of monogenesis, and McCarty was a supporter of abolitionism. This sort of anti- and pro-slavery agitation was the most contentious of social topics in 1860 -- an issue so explosive that it resulted in the outbreak of the Civil War less than a year later. The Civil War and its destruction of slavery, along with the publication of Darwin's evolutionary theories in 1859, rendered polygenesis both moot. It became an untenable theory.
Final and Definitive Answers? No.
In spite of the fact that the Newark Holy Stones were widely considered to be fakes at the time, belief in their authenticity persisted and even grew as the twentieth century progressed. It is true that scientific advances in the field of archaeology have answered many questions about the human past. It is also true that science is not capable of providing final and definitive answers to the fringe theories of alternative archaeology.
Meanwhile, the Newark Holy Stones are on display at the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum in Coshocton, Ohio, for visitors to see and to enjoy.
