Turtle Mound

• 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.

Andover Guide, “Turtle Mound," by Tom Draheim, page 15 .....click to enlarge

Eleanor 16:16, November 3, 2006 (EST) back to Main Page