The so-called “Westford Knight” is a carving of unconfirmed origin in Ledgerock on the hill approaching Westford Center from Stony Brook. Easily visible in contrast with the rock’s natural features is a man-made carving of what could be a medieval sword.
The origins of the carving are highly debated. According to one account, the first Europeans to reach Westford were part of an expedition led by Prince Henry Sinclair, of Scotland. This voyage would have reached the New World in about 1400 A.D. The “Westford Knight” would then be an effigy for one of the expedition who died nearby. One can imagine the carvings to be seen as a picture of the Knight, complete with a sword.
The Clan Gunn Society of North America has more information about Prince Henry Sinclair’s voyage and the possible connection with the Westford Knight.
Legend has it that a Scottish earl named Henry Sinclair took a crew of explorers and discovered America in 1398, a whole century before Christopher Columbus. According to the story, they explored regions of Nova Scotia and New England. Some even claim that the evidence of that is the grave of one of their fallen in what is now Westford, MA, a town northwest of Boston near the New Hampshire state line.
Unveiling of the Westford Knight Monument
The Westford Knight by Kyle Roffman
Podcast- Prince Henry Sinclair
David Christiana and his sculpture of the Westford Knight
To view the Westford Knight carving in Westford Massachusetts, take I-495 to Exit 32, Boston Road. Then go west on Boston Road toward Westford Center. Just before the Westford Common, turn right onto Lincoln Street and go straight onto Main St. Just past Roudenbush Community Center, bear left onto Depot St, and the Westford Knight carving is about 100 yards down Depot St on the right. You can park in the Abbot School parking lot, and walk back up Depot to see the stone carving of the Westford Knight.
A digital guide to the Westford Knight
Fact or hoax?
WESTFORD — For 50 years, the legend of the Westford Knight has enraptured local history buffs.
The legend — that an expedition party led by Scottish Prince Henry Sinclair traveled through town in 1398 — has many skeptics, but supporters of the theory that someone in the expedition party carved two stones in town may soon receive some validation.
A Minnesota-based forensic geologist who has done some concrete structural analysis work in the wake of the Big Dig accident and the Pentagon immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks has agreed to study minerals from one of the stones to determine the likely age of the carvings.
“It’s either a modern hoax or it’s not,” according to Scott Wolter of St. Paul-based American Petrographic Services. “If it’s old, that means everything in the inscription must be true.”
Wolter visited Westford twice last fall to observe the two rocks — the Boat Stone, now on display in a casing at the J.V. Fletcher Library, and the Westford Knight, in a fenced-off area near the Abbot School.
Members of the 9-year-old Westford Knight Committee are planning to ask the town for approval to ship the Boat Stone to Wolter in St. Paul within the next few months, committee co-coordinators Virginia Kimball and David Brody confirmed.
Either the committee or town would need to pay the approximately $1,000 shipping fee, but Wolter’s services would be donated.
“We’re kind of excited about this,” Kimball said. “I have always said that if the Legend of the Westford Knight is ever validated historically, the rock in Westford will make Plymouth Rock look like a pebble. If he dates this to the 14th century, we’re ready to go, baby.”
The Westford Knight is still located where it was found and appears to show the effigy of a knight in full armor, wearing a helmet, mail and surcoat. The legend’s supporters believe that the Westford Knight stone clearly shows the arms of the Scottish Gunn Clan and that it honors a fallen soldier from the expedition party who belongs to the clan.
The legend, if true, would jibe with an account by another person from the expedition party, Antonio Zeno, supposedly contained in correspondence to his brother, Carlo, in Venice and published in the 1500s by the former man’s great-great-grandson.
The Boat Stone was supposedly found by the Westford Highway Department near Route 40 in Graniteville in the early 1950s. Its markings include a 14th century-style boat, an arrow and what looks like the number 184.
Detractors insist that the carvings are either a hoax or are merely formed by natural weathering.
David K. Schafer, the curatorial assistant for archaeology at Harvard’s Peabody Museum, studied the carvings and believes that only what appears to be the sword handle on the Westford Knight Stone is a punch carving, with the rest being naturally formed scratches caused by glaciation. He theorized that the punch carving could have been made as recently as the late 1800s, long after Europeans had settled Westford.
But detractors had similar opinions before Wolter conducted a groundbreaking survey on a stone in Alexandria, Minn., two years ago. Through forensic tests and comparisons with old gravestone carvings in Maine, Wolter determined that the carvings on the Kensington Rune Stone predate American Colonial settlements in the area by at least 200 years, eliminating the plausibility of a hoax.
Wolter said his first task will be to determine the glacial age of the Westford Boat Stone. To do so, he will take a small sample of the stone — about 1 inch in diameter — and cut it into thin sheets that can be studied with something called a polarized light microscope. By identifying the mineral constituents in the rock with the microscope, “we can understand how that rock is going to weather,” he said.
Wolter will then study the fresh surfaces exposed when he cuts the sample to determine how the exposure affects the minerals in the stone. That will help him determine more specifically the age of the carvings.
Brody said if the boat stone can also be determined to predate American colonial settlements in Westford, its carvings would be authenticated.
“We know the Native Americans didn’t have the tools to do this,” he said.
Kimball and Brody are also waiting to hear the final results of a Newport, R.I., excavation completed last month. If evidence is found that the Newport Tower dates to pre-Colombian times, it would also bolster their belief that other such sites exist in New England.
While the archaeology firm that conducted the tests in Rhode Island, the Tempe, Ariz.-based Chronognostic, has not yet reported findings, Kimball said it is still studying evidence.
“I suspect they’re taking things back to study carefully,” she said. “In archaeological digs, they have to be very careful what they announce. They have to substantiate their findings so they’re not ridiculed.”
Originally Published: Lowell SUN, January 15, 2007 at 12:00 AM EST