Turtle Mound
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- A cairn located at 7 Lakeside Circle overlooking Haggetts Pound in West Andover. (Definition of a cairn from dictionary.com: a heap of stones set up as a landmark, monument, or tombstone.)
- Possibly the oldest stone structure in America.
- A pile of granite boulders deliberately stacked on top of each other about 70 feet long and 15 feet wide. The stones range in size from pebbles to 3 tons.
- From above the mound is roughly shaped like a turtle.
- It is contains two cave-like chambers of either side and a rock-lined tunnel that cuts through one end of the mound. The chambers are about eight feet in diameter and ten feet high inside.
- Frank Glynn in, a Yale archeologist, found a layer of human bones mixed with charcoal indicating an ancient ceremonial and cremation. (1951)
- Glynn found stone artifacts : spear points, axe heads, hammer stones, and drills which he dates at 3000 B.C.
- Radiocarbon dating the charcoal sets the date at 2000 B.C.
- One of the owners of the property, a M. Harnois, built a shrine to a saint on the site in 1914. Evidence of Harnois' shrine still exists.
See
- Andover Guide Spring 2007, "A Look at Andover Turtle Mound" by Tom Draheim
- Ruins of Great Ireland in New England, Andover Room R 973.11 Goo, pages 102 to 108.
- NEARA Newsletter (New England Antiquities Research Association Newsletter), December 1969. This is found in the Andover Vertical File under architecture.
- NEARA Site Report Sheet. This is found in the Andover Vertical File under architecture.