Druid Hill

The Druid Hill Stone Circle is located off Gumpas Road in Leblanc Park, at the corner of West Meadow and Gumpas, Lowell, Massachusetts.  It is on a promontory long known as Druid’s Hill or Bridget’s Hill.  The circle is located at elevation 140', and is a half mile north of the Merrimack River, elevation 100'.

 

According to archeologist John Pendergast in 1985:

 

"The circle is 114 feet by 62 feet and is more tear-drop or egg-shape than circular.  It falls into a category established by Aubrey Burl known as egg-shape #2.  The circle of stones is on a mound which averages 2 feet in height all of which is on a gently inclining hill.  There are two active springs in the area.

 

"The area appears in historical records as parts of land grants as early as 1629, but passes from Indian land to private ownership lands about twenty years later.  The first European owner, John Webb, sold the land to Thomas Varnum, whose family owned the land well into the 19^th century.  It is unlikely that Puritan Mr. Varnum would name his hill after a pagan Irish Saint.

 

"In 1915, an isolation hospital was constructed near the circle.  It was burned and razed in 1955.  The area is now a municipal park.  The circle of stones is never referred to on maps or any other records. ... Not far from the site here is a stone chamber which has been determined to be a habitation by a Boston University archeological team, but no dates for its construction have been determined."

 

Druid Hill - Photo Courtesy of Edward Bochnak

 

Dorothy Hayden of the American Institute For Archeological Research added in 1987:

 

"The Druid Hill Stone Circle consist of a raised tear-drop shaped mound approximately one meter high [3.2'], 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 (the name Bridget being associated with witches), 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."

 

   Archeological Excavation

In 1985 James Pendergast of the University of Lowell obtained an excavation permit and funding from the Massachusetts Historical Commission to dig the Druid Hill site.  The actual excavation was conducted and performed by the Environmental Archeology Group. 

 

Dorothy Hayden of the American Institute For Archeological Research, some of who's members participated in the dig, reports on the excavation as follows:

 

"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.

 

Druid Hill - Photo Courtesy of Edward Bochnak

 

"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 19^th and early 20^th 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. [23.6"] to 188 cm. [34.6"]. 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. [6"].

 

"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."

 

   My Field Investigations

My interest in the site goes back to 1984 when I spent a considerable time investigating the stones and their story.  The account I was able to piece together - from sources now long lost - was that the stones had originally stood several hundred feet west on the plateau - Druid Hill proper - where the isolation hospital was built in 1915.  (This is approximately where the swimming pool is today.)  Supposedly, the stones were moved to make way for the hospital and placed where they are now, on the slight southeast slope of Druid Hill.

 

According to my sources, the mound and stone arrangement was rebuilt as similarly to the original ground plan as possible.  Interestingly, when the mound and stones were excavated in 1985, it was found that the mound had been constructed "by piling on truck loads of fill," and that the stones were anchored with "paving stones, datable to approximately 1900." 

 

My sources maintained that the original structure was not a "folly" but was supposedly there as long as people could remember.  Why it was moved and not destroyed at the time of the hospital construction is a question that was never answered satisfactorily - or if it was I know longer remember it.  It also seems strange that such an oddity would not show up in historical records, deeds, diary's, or accounts of earlier times. 

 

One rather dubious source spent considerable time trying to convince me that there was a connection between the stones and Aleister Crowley, the turn-of-the-century British ceremonial magician and self-proclaimed "most evil man in the world."  The argument for this - which I can not fully remember - was unlikely, and I did not pursue it.   Mostly it centered around a mysterious Englishman who supposedly had it constructed for god-knows-what, the story growing less believable with each twist of the tale - an apt metaphor for such a ridiculous story. 

 

   It's Not a Circle

The Druid Hill Stone Circle is not a "circle," and there is no "ring" of stones.  Rather, it is an east-west axis tear-drop shape with five stones clumped at the eastern tip, and three stones ranged at the western butt-end.  The entire mound is ringed with a ten foot wide flattened moat-like area of earth, which has been obliterated on the northern side by the access road.  According to Dot Hayden's report on the Environmental Archeology Group's excavation, there is also a low ring of paving stones laid end to end around the mound.  This was discovered under 6 inches of topsoil.  Where this ring is in relation to the ten foot wide flattened area that surrounds the mound is unclear. 

 

Furthermore there are two stones at the western butt-end of the tear-drop that are outside the area of the mound.  The northern one is a flat table-like stone, and the southern one is a seven foot tall needle-shaped stone, which was toppled by vandals around 1988 or 1989.  The Institute considers both these stones "recumbent," but it is unclear to me if the table-like stone was ever standing.  It does not appear to have a shape that can be stood in any other position then the one it is in.

 

A significant unreported feature of the mound is that it has large low symbols on its top built of earth.  There is a large crescent shape that cradles a circular shape.  The circle is approximately nine feet in diameter, and the crescent about 4 feet wide at it widest point, and about 20 feet from tip to tip.  The crescent is towards the western butt-end of the mound, and the circle is in the middle of the mound.  The height of the symbols, back in 1984, was about 1" tall.  The symbol shapes are suggestive of the sun and a crescent moon. 

 

Due to weathering, however, the circle and crescent shapes can only be readily discerned in late winter/early spring in slanting light when the snow is gone and the earth is hard and frozen. 

 

The 11 small black circles are stones

The inner oval is a mound, outer oval is extent of moat.

The Crescent and large circle are moon and sun symbols.

 

 

   Weird Experiences at Druid Hill

My original interest in Druid Hill back in 1984 is perhaps a bit frou-frou in hindsight.  Having visited Mystery Hill ("America's Stonehenge") and liking the theory that the Celts had colonized New England and created lithic structures, I was very pleased to believe that the Druid Hill structure was a mystical Celtic artifact.  In this mind-frame, I would often meditate at the stones (as best I could - the place was crawling with playground kids on Big Wheels).  But I do not recall any especially unusual experiences in doing so. 

 

However, one occasion bears the merit of the telling.  Myself and two friends had gone to the park and visited the stones one autumn evening in 1984.  For reasons unclear to me at this point we engaged in the following activity:  I stood in the center of the mound on the circle and did a special meditation while my two friends stood off to the side to observe.  I can't imagine meditation as a spectator sport, but there you have it.  Only golf could be worse.  As far as I recall, I experienced nothing untoward or unusual during the meditation, which really didn't last for more than 10 minutes.  However, upon rejoining my friends, they were all agog with the revelation that I had "disappeared" for a goodly length of time - upwards of 20 to 30 seconds.  They described it that I simply disappeared for half a minute and then reappeared - blinked out and blinked back in later.  Again, I did not experience anything of that nature from my vantage point. 

 

Being quite impressed with myself, I invited my brother-in-law who lived in Lowell to take a look at the mound on November 5 of the same year.  While there I asked him to stand to the side of the mound and observe me and report on anything that might happen.  I then scurried to the circle in the middle of the mound and did my special meditation, again for about 10 minutes.  He had no prior knowledge of what had happened previously or what I was doing.  And yet, he quite excitedly reported that I had vanished instantly and later reappeared, only to fade out slowly and fade back in again. 

 

My brother-in-law has since passed away, but I have kept in touch with one of the initial episode people (Scurv Dawg), and he swears on his Scurv Dawg honor to this day that I really did disappear.  I have no idea what actually happened those two nights, but as far as I know, I have never "disappeared" since, although there have been plenty of times I wish I could have. 

 

I have also kept an ear to the wall over the years for any other odd happenings at Druid Hill, but have heard of none.

 

   Ouija Boards

And while I'm at it, I can't help but note the superficial resemblance between the shape of the mound and a ouija board planchette.  They are both the same shape, the stones are in the same positions as the planchette's tripod legs, the center circle resembles the viewing hole, and they both have a mystic symbol: the crescent on the mound, and the circle-star on the planchette.

 

  

Mound                        Planchette

 

The first commercial ouija board was patented and in production by 1891, well positioned to capitalize on the spiritualism craze that exploded in the 1860's.  The commercially sold ouija boards may well have been the inspiration of the mound design.  Certainly, the timeframe fits.  Ouija boards were sold beginning in 1891, and the mound was dated to approximately 1900.    (Ouija board History)

 

However intriguing this visual resemblance is, I can not think of a single reason other than eccentricity to create such an expensive monument to the Ouija Board, nor how such an outrageous effort in 1900 era Lowell could have gone unremarked and unremembered. 

 

And this is a good point - if it is of the 1900 era construction that the excavation indicates, then how did such an oddity go unremarked and unremembered?  Perhaps some time spent in the archives of the Lowell newspaper of the day would reveal a mention or two of its construction. 

 

   Conclusions / Questions

My opinion today about Druid Hill pretty much squares with Dot Hayden's account of the Environmental Archeology Group's findings: that it is a turn of the century folly built for reasons unknown.  I have not been able to track down the sources that presented me with Druid Hill information back in 1984.  So, as suggestive as these accounts are, I don't feel that without finding them again and asking them to go on record and/or document their stories, that these accounts are currently worth more than travelers tales.  I feel that the excavation was reasonable proof that the site is a modern construction. 

 

However, not everyone at the American Institute For Archeological Research felt that the 1985 Environmental Archeology Group's excavation closed the door on the origins of the site.  Dorothy Hayden concludes her article as follows:

 

"The story should end there.  But there are some among us who are not completely satisfied with this verdict.  Questions remain unanswered.  Why do the monoliths themselves show such extensive weathering; sufficient for a geologist to estimate that they have been exposed to the elements in their present form for a thousand years.  Why is the working of the stones so crude and ancient in appearance?  And who had the knowledge, and went to the trouble to recreate, a typical Celtic stone circle complete with many astronomical alignments common to them?

 

"Also, why the cryptic references to the site as Druid Hill long before the stone circle was ever set in its present position?  There is one more tantalizing fact: the Varnum family, who acquired this tract of land in 1667, had a reputation for buying property on which there already existed at the time of purchase strange stone constructions of unknown origin. 

 

"For some of us, the riddle remains unanswered."

 

   Maps

These are various maps and aerial photos of the Druid Hill Stone Circle location.  Note that the site borders on the Indian Reservation in the 1659 map.  Also, the Isolation Hospital in the 1941 map is in the same place as the pool is now (1987 map) - exactly as my source said it was.  (However, this doesn't prove that the circle was previously at the hospital/pool location.)

 

Also, the maps appear to show that the road to the Isolation Hospital - with the exception of the street entrance - follows the same route today as it did then.  Bearing in mind that the "moat" around the mound has the access road running through its northern length, this would indicate that the mound was there before the road.

 

 

Land Grants in Lowell 1659 - 1693

Druid Hill is marked with an "X"

Note that the site was in an area marked at the time Indian Reservation.

 

 

1893 Topographical Map - Druid Hill Stone Circle in Red

 

 

1941 Topographic Map - Druid Hill Stone Circle Marked in Red

structure to left of the circle is the hospital

 

 

1987 Topographical Map - Druid Hill Stone Circle Marked in Red

black dot to left of the circle is the pool

 

 

1987 Aerial Photo of Leblanc Park - Druid Hill Stone Circle in Red

 

   Links

The Institute of Urban Speleologic Studies & Archeology's Druid Hill Webpage.
   Abandoned, strange, historic, haunted & just plain interesting places

 

Standing-Stone Cluster in Eastern Massachusetts

   Science Frontiers Online No. 40: Jul-Aug 1985

 

   Documents

The following are documents that pertain to Druid Hill. 

 

The quotes by John Pendergast are from:

 

On Site: A publication of the American Institute For Archeological Research, Inc.

The Druid Hill Stone Circle In The Context of Early Western European Literature

By John Pendergast

Volume One, Number Two, August, 1985

 

The quotes by Dorothy Hayden are from:

 

On Site: A publication of the American Institute For Archeological Research, Inc.

The Druid Hill Story

By Dorothy L. Hayden

Volume One, Number Three, June 1987

 

The American Institute For Archeological Research is now defunct.  Dorothy Hayden is deceased, and I can not locate John Pendergast. 

 

The full transcript of The Druid Hill Story by Dorothy L. Hayden is as follows:

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 (the name Bridget being associated with witches), 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.

 

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 19^th and early 20^th 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.

 

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.

 

The story should end there.  But there are some among us who are not completely satisfied with this verdict.  Questions remain unanswered.  Why do the monoliths themselves show such extensive weathering; sufficient for a geologist to estimate that they have been exposed to the elements in their present form for a thousand years.  Why is the working of the stones so crude and ancient in appearance?  And who had the knowledge, and went to the trouble to recreate, a typical Celtic stone circle complete with many astronomical alignments common to them?

 

Also, why the cryptic references to the site as Druid Hill long before the stone circle was ever set in its present position?  There is one more tantalizing fact: the Varnum family, who acquired this tract of land in 1667, had a reputation for buying property on which there already existed at the time of purchase strange stone constructions of unknown origin.  For some of us, the riddle remains unanswered.

About the American Institute For Archeological Research:

The now defunct American Institute For Archeological Research, run by Leon Morrill and Dot Hayden, was an early 1980's disgruntled offshoot of James Whittall's Early Sites Research Society (now defunct) and the New England Antiquities Research Association.

 

Although the text of Dot Hayden's Report makes it seem as though the Druid Hill excavation was an Institute organized event, this is incorrect.  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

James Whittall's (Early Sites Research Society) impressions of Druid Hill:

"Driving up the roadway into LeBlanc Park in February 1984, I saw a sight I had not seen since my travels in the British Isles. Situated on a mound was a cluster of weathered megalithic stones. I was filled with disbelief -- it just couldn't be -- someone was having fun with my senses; Western Europe, yes, but here, in Massachusetts, no. The reality of the scene before me was very difficult to focus on, the parallel with sites I had seen in Scotland and Ireland was astonishing."

James P. Whittall II: A Cluster of Standing Stones on Druid Hill, Lowell, Massachusetts  Early Sites Research Society Bulletin, 11:19, No. 1, 1984.

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