The Landscape of the Kensington Rune. A Mystery Revealed for the First Time.

Cort Lindahl 4/20/18

Enoch rose to heaven and became Metatron: derived from the Latin mētātor: "one who metes out or marks off a place, a divider and fixer of boundaries", "a measurer."

Information will be exposed here that suggests the Kensington Rune was not left where it was discovered in 1362. Specific early maps of the area expose a trail of intrigue that leads us all the way to Montana. The people who were the first to survey the discovery site of the Kensington Rune for the Minnesota Surveyor General’s office possess a family legacy tied to other historical mysteries similar to the Kensington Rune including Newport Rhode Island and Colonial Virginia. There is even a strong suggestion that people or families from the early history of  Kensington, Connecticut played a large role in the deposition of this stone in Minnesota somewhere near the mid to late eighteenth century. Kensington is an early colonial suburb of Hartford.

A great deal of speculation has surrounded the origins of the Kensington Rune Stone in Douglas County Minnesota. Theories about the stone range from it being an authentic Norse relic left by a band of traveling Knights Templar to a scam perpetrated by the original discoverer of the stone Olof Ohman. Here we will examine how and why neither of these theories are correct. We will also speculate as to who actually may have been behind the deposition of this controversial artifact. Eventually we may understand why the name Kensington is involved as well. This may not be a coincidence.

Many people have espoused the theory that Freemason’s had something to do with the Kensington Rune. This theory may be applied to either of the two main schools of thought that have been put forth to explain the existence of this enigmatic stone. If people in 1362 came then they may have had some of the same values as operative stone masons during that era. Many of their beliefs and concepts were later applied to the organization of more modern Freemasonic values and thought. Later in history as men who were not stone masons were admitted to these guilds they became known of as “Freemason’s.”

In the period starting in the early eighteenth century rituals and organizational aspects of lodges of Freemason’s became more defined and resembles more what a modern Freemason would recognize. Often these rituals were developed and enacted by people like the famous Freemason Albert Pike who is said to have developed many of the values of the modern Scottish Rite in the United States. This Scottish Rite was formed in 1801 in Charleston South Carolina.

Though hints and references to these values being practiced in France and Scotland at an earlier date 1801 is the date of the official formation of what is known of as the Scottish Rite today. Many even speculate that the Scottish Rite was formed as a kind of Freemasonry that supported the exiled Stewart Kings James II, III, and Bonnie Prince Charlie. If true it would support the wider ranging context in these mysteries as discussed in this chapter/article. It may be true that the Stewart’s were responsible for this though many dispute the notion that this is true.

In his book “The Enigmatist Book I; The Runic Mysteries” author Paul Stewart speculates that a more modern Cryptic Rite Freemason may have been behind the Kensington Rune because the numbers mentioned and suggested on the Rune itself have applications to this form of Freemasonry. Mr. Stewart made these claims in 2012 prior to other Rune Stone enthusiasts seemingly coming up with this idea themselves. The Cyrptic Rite is part of the York Rite of Freemasonry and not the Scottish Rite. Kensington Rune advocate Scott Wolter argues for the more ancient origins of the Kensington Rune and has also noted these numbers as being significant to Masonic ideas presented in some of th ritual of the Cryptic Rite.

This author had also speculated in a publication “Geomantic Information Systems Volume I” (published in 2008) that a land surveyor may have been behind the deposition of the Kensington Rune. As time went by I extended this theory to include the First Families of Virginia that had later helped to settle Minnesota as the group of people behind the “hoax” of the Kensington Stone. Still at that time I had not gone into detail about who the person was that may have been involved. This tread of research has led to some startling conclusions if one imagines that more modern Freemason’s may have hidden imagery in the Kensington rune that belays its modern origins.

All of what is revealed here will contribute to my previous writing that states that families descendant of Hartford Connecticut and Virginia first families and their descendants contributed to what may be considered mysteries and legends of America. In some cases, their social and political beliefs may have influenced many strange aspects of early American history leading up to many views held by people today.

This included members of the Taliaferro, Hill, Bacon, Eaton, Lewis, and Clark families among others. Many of these families supported what would come to be known of as the Cavalier and Jacobite cultures of the early colonies. These movements supported the exiled and executed Kings of England, Ireland, and Scotland in the colonies as well as in Britain itself. This is where the secret rite of Freemasonry may have been utilized like an intelligence service in both Jacobite rebellions as well as the American Revolution. A small percentage of Cavilers or Jacobites were indeed Catholic. Interestingly the states of Virginia and Connecticut held claim to land that is now part of Minnesota early in Colonial history. It is notable that people from those two states are the primary players in the following tale.

The possible involvement of the Taliaferro family in the saga of the Kensington Rune may apply. Robert Taliaferro (sometimes Toliver) owner of Wythe House in Williamsburg Virginia is said to have taught Thomas Jefferson the art of architecture. His descendant Lawrence Taliaferro was one of the earliest Indian Land Agents in Minnesota and had great influence in the decisions surrounding which land would go to settlers and which land would go to the Natives. This early to mid-eighteenth century time in Minnesota also saw U.S. army members of the Alexander and Mason families of Virginia carrying out their duties in Minnesota. Mr. Taliaferro’s role in the division of property in Minnesota may also apply to the mystery of the Kensington Rune though no evidence other than his presence in the territory at that time suggests he was involved. Meriwether Lewis’ grandmother was a member of the Taliaferro family.

There are clear genealogy records of members of all of these families not only having an impact on the early development of Minnesota but of Alexandria Minnesota itself which is the current home of the Kensington Rune Stone Museum. The Eaton family alone had direct influence on the development of William and Mary, Harvard and Yale Colleges, The International Peace Garden, as well as Jamestown and Williamsburg Virginia. Though Alexandria is named for one of the early founders of the town it is interesting given the role of the Alexander family of Scotland, their relation to William Alexander first Earl of Stirling and Baron of Nova Scotia, and their family being the namesake of Alexandria Virginia. Alexandria Virginia is home to the George Washington Masonic Memorial that is a replica or inspired by the famous lighthouse of Alexandria Egypt.

The Hill family that may have been involved included James Hill who was originally from Ontario but is related to the Virginia Hills in Scotland and England long ago. In addition, the Virginia Hill family also had associations with the Marquis of Landsdowne in England before and after their immigrating to Virginia. Later in the early 20^th Century one of James Hill’s daughters would even marry directly into the family of the famous Hill/Carter family of Colonia Virginia. The Hill’s created the famous Shirley Plantation not far from Williamsburg and Jamestown.

Samuel Hill had descended from the early Hill’s of Virginia and eventually married James Hill’s daughter Mary Hill. I have written extensively about Samuel Hill’s value of talismanic architecture that is tied into the geographic concepts of the Axis Mundi or place from which to measure that may extend back in time to the Tower of the Winds of ancient Athens and maybe further back to Heliopolis Egypt and other more ancient places. There are also some amazing and mysterious aspects of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Minneapolis funded in part by Hill and his business partner Norman Kittson that serve as a kind of homage to George Washington and his family.

Samuel Hill would go on to build the Maryhill Museum of Art and Stonehenge Replica in Washington State. Samuel is credited with building the first paved road in Washington State. This is an interesting connection as Samuel counts George Washington the namesake of the state as one of his ancestors. Samuel Hill also had some influence on the construction of the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.

In a very real way Samuel was marrying back into his own family that had been separated for hundreds of years at this point. Interestingly Samuel and James Hill’s kin in Alexandria Minnesota had many intermarriages with the Lewis, Clark, and Eaton families of Colonial Virginia after some of these family’s descendants came to the new land of Minnesota in the mid eighteenth century. There would even be relations between the Hill’s and the family of famous French explorer Marquette. This relation to the Marquette family may have contributed later Hill family members rebuilding a medieval chapel brought from Europe on the campus of Marquette University in the early twentieth century (Gertrude Hill/ Gavin).

The Lewis and Clark families of Virginia include relations to the Beale family associated with the Beale treasure as well as family links to the de La Tour family of the first French Acadian Governor Charles de La Tour. Louis de La Tour’s daughter married into the Clark family and he lived about two blocks from Morris’ boarding house in Lynchburg Virginia at the time the Beale Papers were exposed to the public. This may constitute a family link directly to the Kensington Rune, Oak Island Money Pit, Beale Treasure and mystery of Bacon’s Vault in Williamsburg.

The involvement of these storied American names may suggest that many of the mysteries they are associated with are meant to project the concept of a unique American Nationalism. Many of these men had family relations that were members of the Society of the Cincinnati. This group was composed of Revolutionary War officers and one of their male lineal descendants. It may be that this group were also involved in presenting the American ideal in art and literature in the tradition of Dante and Shakespeare. Many members of the Cincinnati were of course Freemasons.

The Society of the Cincinnati also included French and some Polish military officers. This would include Revolutionary War figures Rochambeau, Lafayette, and Pierre L’Enfant known for his design of the mysterious streets of Washington D.C. with the help of Andrew Ellicott. It is amazing how some of the more well-known commentators on the Newport Tower and Kensington Rune completely ignore the Norwegian Romantic Nationalist movement and how it explains the context in which these mysteries were developed intentionally.

James Hill would go on to form the Great Northern Railroad after developing his freight business to include steamboats on the Red River and wagon routes between the Red River Colony of the Hudson’s Bay Company to the north. This would include the development of the Old Red River Trail as a freight route. The Old Red River Trail passes only about a mile and a half south of the discovery site of the Kensington Rune.

This is not enough for us to associate this stone with the Hill family but there is more. Hill’s business relationship with Sir Hugh Allan and Norman Kittson would in turn associate some of his trade empire with the Hudson’s Bay Company. It is curious that Sir Hugh Allan held a distant relation to Edgar Allan Poe who may have been one of the literary figures that worked with the Society of the Cincinnati in promoting an image of the United States. Other famous authors such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and James Fennimore Cooper may have also had similar goals. It is likely that James Fergus who helped to develop Montana and more specifically Lewis and Clark county there was aware of any plan to suggest this imagery of mystery there in relation to Minnesota and further back Virginia and New England.

In a very real way the Kensington Rune may be part of the legacy of these united first families of Virginia and New England that also may include other historical oddities like the Beale Treasure, The Bruton Parish Church Vault, and yes even the Newport Tower-but not in the way many have been taught on television. Everything exposed here points to the Kensington Rune Stone not being an artifact from 1362 but a later manifestation put there for symbolic or even political reasons.

Here we will make a brief examination of the early recordation of the landscape of Douglas County Minnesota including the discovery site of the Kensington Rune and the surrounding area and display how this may support the notion that a group of people who may have held Masonic values and more important family legacies had left the Kensington Rune at the margins of French Louisiana and Rupert’s Land of the Hudson’s Bay Company long after the era of the Norse and Knights Templar. In a way the location of the Kensington Rune pays homage to President Jefferson and his vision in the Louisiana Purchase. Indeed there is one particular place in Virginia where boundary stones that have similar symbols on them to the Kensington Rune are located which may have also contributed to the how’s and why’s of the rune in Minnesota.

The historical boundary marked by the KRS also includes the border of the Red River Colony formed by Hudson’s Bay controlling owner Lord Selkirk (Douglas) in the early Eighteenth century. The Red River Colony’s southern border matched that of the Hudson’s Bay Co. and French Louisiana at that time. This is prior to the era in which the U.S. and Canadian border was set on the 49^th parallel. (4+9=13). The Kensington stone sits at a geographic location that may indicate it was meant to mark the border of the Louisiana Purchase. Note here that the name Douglas is also the name of the county that the Kensington Rune Stone is located in. It may also be possible that the Kensington Stone was placed on this border in an attempt to display how Scandinavian people had defined it prior to the French and English having done so.

Lord Selkirk was a Douglas as Selkirk was a titled name. Douglas or Selkirk was actually related to Virginia Governor of the early eighteenth Century George Hamilton. Hamilton was also a titled name at that time and George’s real last name was Douglas. Note that in Scots Gaelic Douglas means “Blackwater.”

From an interpretive standpoint, the Kensington Stone marks an important boundary in United States history.

If the stone was meant to mark these political divisions then it would also be referring to the legacies of all of these colonial families as well of that of President Thomas Jefferson. This may also include the Lewis and Clark expedition which is also associated with the legacy of President Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase. Lewis was Jefferson’s secretary and also a close relation of the Prsident’s. I have discussed Lewis and Clark in relation to the mystery that was uncovered in my examination of the Great Northern Railroad and its development.

There are those that would insist “Vikings” had claimed all the land north or south of this watershed as theirs. This would include Rupert’s Land of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Rupert was the son of Elizabeth of Bohemia who was a Stewart from Scotland directly and sister of Charles I. Prince Rupert of the Rhine whom Rupert’s Land is named for is a very interesting character who holds all the family ties related to the Virginia families involved here including the Cavaliers.

There are legends of Prince Rupert and his black dog “familiar” bewitching the enemy. He was also an accomplished inventor, artist, and Naval hero. Prince Rupert was also a commander of the body guard or Cavaliers of Charles I and II. Thomas Beale of Yorktown and Williamsburg Virginia worked under his command as did his son Thomas Beale II prior to the elder Beale’s exile in Virginia after the English Civil War and the beheading of Charles I. More notable here in our studies is that Prince Rupert was the first Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Here is the reason that all University of Virginia sports teams are known of as the “Cavaliers.”

Douglas County Minnesota was named for Civil War era and Lincoln opponent Stephen Arnold Douglas. Stephen Douglas’ family was not only originally from Newport Rhode Island but were also directly related to the same Douglas Scottish family as Lord Selkirk founder of the Red River Colony and controlling owner of the Hudson’s Bay Company during the era in question. In addition, Stephen Arnold Douglas was a direct descendant of Benedict Arnold the elder who the common history states built the Newport Tower. Interestingly Elizabeth Poe mother of Edgar Allan Poe’s maiden name was Elizabeth Arnold and she had come from the very same Arnold family of Newport Rhode Island.

If one examines the famous Newport Tower in Rhode Island many of the same historical concepts of the Norse and Knights Templar have been applied to the origins of this famous structure as in the case of the Kensington Rune. Is it possible that both of these “Norse” sites were intentionally presented to the public in order to promote the bogus idea that Vikings had come to America long ago?

It is interesting to note that all of this speculation based on the Norse coming to New England and later Minnesota was done prior to the discovery of L’ Anse Aux Meadows in Newfoundland. The scope and size of the remains of L’ Anse Aux Meadows is very small and no more than 50-100 people were there for a period of no more than a few years. No other “Viking” sites of this size or importance have been found anywhere else south of L’ Anse Aux Meadows. Further the date range of L’ Anse Aux Meadows is 362 years prior to the date seen on the Kensington Rune.

Others have supposed directional qualities associated with the Newport Tower involving a supposed “solstice alignment.” This may be no coincidence as the octagonal form of the Newport Tower indicates a direction on the globe that leads to the Kensington Rune every day of the year and not just on the solstice. The actual architectural form of the structure indicates a direction on a compass that will lead one to the Kensington stone from that spot.

The promotion of both the Newport Tower and Kensington rune being the result of early Scandinavian explorers also links the two places together in a phenomenon that may have actually been related more to the Norwegian Romantic Nationalist movement than any ancient incursion by Norse peoples or Knights Templar into North America. Note that several cases of “Norse” sites being faked or unduly suggested had occurred long before the time the Kensington Stone was discovered.

People like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow mentioned earlier in association with the Society of the Cincinnati and Eben Horsford seemed to be involved in the suggestion that people had come to North America long before Columbus from the Scandinavian sphere of culture. At this time many influential New Englander’s jumped on the band wagon of supporting the idea that the continent had originally been settled by Norse people who may have assimilated with the Native population.

It is a monumental coincidence that Stephen Arnold Douglas is the namesake of Douglas County Minnesota where the Kensington Rune is located. An actual descendant of Benedict Arnold’s (the elder) family, the person who common history states as the builder of the Newport Tower is the namesake associated with the location of the Kensington Rune. During the nineteenth century calculating an arc extending at 292.5 degrees true north from the Newport Tower and calculating its arc path on the globe was entirely possible if not easy to do. An arc on the globe at this heading from the Newport Tower transects very close to the Kensington Rune. This concept alone links the two places together in a way that proponents could point to as proof of both places authenticity.

It may be that this is one of the reasons the Kensington Stone was placed where it is. The Kensington Rune is also placed at a point that may be interpreted as the border between French Louisiana and Rupert’s Land of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Two additional myths or “lost stone” legends exist on this border including the La Veryendrye rune (Minot ND) legend, and a strange sandstone pillar on the Milk River in Alberta. All of this is also suggestive of many stories associated with the famous Lewis and Clark expedition in the era of President Jefferson.

The art of navigation and cartography’s history dictates that the Kensington Stone is a later manifestation and not from the fourteenth century. During this era it would have been very easy for a trained cartographer or land surveyor to have placed a monument in alignment at a 292.5 heading or bearing from the Newport Tower to Minnesota. A great deal of relative accuracy at this time would even closely match Google Earth digital globe.

The stone is both “pointed to” by the octagonal form (eight arches) of the Newport Tower at a point that marks the margins or border between Hudson’s Bay/Red River Colony holdings and the portion of French Louisiana obtained by the United States later. (and no it doesn’t matter that this three hundred year old structure is not perfectly round after being renovated twice) So the simple construction of a windmill or architectural folly using the suggestion of an octagon in Newport oriented to true north would yield these associations. This means that the tower was likely not even specifically built for this purpose and the entire notion of the Kensington Stone and Tower were cooked up at near the same time. Simply put a rune stone in alignment with the tower and viola we have the Norse in America. Eben Horsford would have liked this scam.

In an octagonal division of 360 degrees the evenly divided angles of 67.50 and 192.5 both are one degree off from matching the angles of sunrise and sunset on the Winter solstice.

This arrangement would have in fact been much more precise and easy to do in the nineteenth century than it would have been for medieval individual from Europe set loose in a strange and foreign land in an era in which this task would have required several years of astronomical observations to execute. This means that in this theory the Kensington Stone was simply placed much later at a point on the globe that was indicated by the orientation with regard to true north of the Newport Tower. There is much more.

Is it possible as stated above that this had been some sort of elaborate plan carried out via the family relations of the early settlers of not only Newport Rhode Island but those in Virginia as well? Both Virginia and Rhode Island were places where many Cavalier body guards of Charles I were exiled to after the English Civil War. Later these same family groups would be among the first to settle in Minnesota. That Is a long and complex question most quickly answered here by the suggestion that the Beale Treasure and Legend of Bacon’s Vault in Virginia had very similar overtones and included the involvement of the same family names. Including the family of James and Samuel Hill.

I mean what in Sam Hill is going on here?

As we will see elements of the elite Boston Brahmins and founding families of Hartford Connecticut may also be involved in this entire scheme. This would include members of the Wright, Bacon, Eaton, Bidwell, and Hill families of Colonial America as time went on.

If someone had actually placed the Kensington Stone where it was later found by Olof Ohman who had done it? There are many candidates with author Paul Stewart suggesting Cyrptic Rite Mason and land surveyor George Washington Cooley being the person behind the stone’s placement. Cooley was also once the Grand Commander of the Crypit Rite in the United States. This is a good theory in that the numbers on the stone seem to match certain elements of the numbers valued by the Cryptic Rite. It may not be too far out to consider that the person who had designed the text or story on the stone had intentionally done this so other Freemasons could recognize that a brother had left this stone for them to ponder.

It seems that Mr. Stewart was the first person to suspect that elements of ritual present in the Cryptic Rite had been applied to numbers seen on the Kensington Rune Stone. It is also amazing that Stewart is that author’s name as that Scottish family is directly involved in the development of this type of lore and historical allegory. Stewart is also a common name.

Amazingly the Public Land Surveying System that was enacted during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson may help us to solve this mystery. The PLSS is based on the famous Mason Dixon line and was used to legally describe property in the United States that had not already been described using English, Spanish, or French methods to accomplish the same thing.

The PLSS and these foreign methods for legally describing property may hold many clues for the historian and records of this activity expose the names of many of the people who first surveyed isolated places on the frontier such as Douglas County and even the specific piece of land where the Kensington Rune was first discovered. All of the mysteries I have studied involve land surveyors, cartographers, and navigators. As from Nicholas Flamel the famous alchemist and mystic “one must become both a pilgrim and pilot.”

The PLSS divides land into Townships that are 36 square miles in size as the norm. Each section within the township is a one mile square numbered from one in the northeast corner descending to Section 36 in the southeast corner of the Township. Each Township is defined as a Township and Range that includes north to south and east to west coordinates to designate the township.

The Kensington Rune is located in Township 127 N and Range 40W (numbers added equals 14). This supplies us with the coordinates that at least gets us to the correct 36 mile square township in the United States. The Kensignton Rune Stone is located in what is known of also as Solem Township. Amazingly if all the numbers are added in each Section 1-36 the total is 666. The number 666 equals the number of talents of gold received by King Solomon each year as tribute or tax revenue in many accounts. Solem and Solomon?

Next, we will observe via historical maps that the land owned by Olof Ohman was part of Section 14 of T127N and R40W (Section14; again the number 14). This division gets us down to the specific square mile of land that his property was located within. Each section is divided in to four divisions which can in turn be divided to smaller division of equal area that refers to quarter sections, sixteenth sections and so on. These designations help in defining legal ownership and description of the property. If Cryptic Rite Mason’s have a numerological bent then they may have appreciated the fact that the numbers of the Township total 14 and that the parcel is located in Section 14 of that Township. Some of these values may dictate that the number 14 is the number of perfection in some unknown way. Thus the importance of the numbers associated with the legal description of the discovery site of the rune stone.

(There are “clewes” above that can be used to debunk the notion this stone is Norse or “Templar.” If not then the person who surveyed this land knew the entire history of this in the mid nineteenth century. Not likely) 

A common description for the point the Kensington Stone was found may include: T127N R40W, Section 14. Located in the NW quarter of the Nw quarter of the SE quarter for example. This designation has never been recorded for the exact point of discovery of the Kensington Rune so this is just an example. This designation though is close to the best estimate of the actual point at which the stone was discovered. It does appear as if the rune was found somewhere near the east to west dividing line of Section 14 possibly at the Meridian that divides the section into quarter quarter sections. All of Olof Ohman’s property was within Section 14 of the Solem Township. It appears that no one present the day the stone was discovered remembers the exact spot where it was found but could point to the general area.

This point would have represented the spot where any PLSS land surveyor or at this time the Surveyor General of Minnesota would have placed a stone marker to denote these divisions. This point on the earth is only about 260 ft. south of the Kensington Rune Stone memorial in Rune Stone Park today. The Kensington Rune may have marked the southeast corner of Olof Ohman’s property as shown on later PLSS maps using the same system. This corner would have been situated on the north to south dividing line of Section 14 the distance of a quarter quarter section to the east of the center of the Section (about 1600 ft.)

This author has witnessed some sections that have no stone markers and others that had each quarter quarter section marked. Many times, a subsequent survey will establish these monuments as the property becomes private or developed by the state or federal government. The placement of these surveyor’s reference points also resembles the tradition of the Terminus stones discussed earlier. In the case of the PLSS sometimes stones do surround the legal division of property laid out by the surveyor. 

This method of the legal description of property also suggests a spiral like pattern when using the template that assists one in defining the smaller quarter sections and further divisions as the parcel gets smaller etc. This creates a visual representation of the famous Fibonacci sequence as discussed in my first book “Geomantic Information Systems Volume I” (2008). It is possible that Thomas Jefferson and others who designed this system had used the imagery of the magic square and “sacred numbers” as part of the PLSS. This would fit with the use of Masonic imagery using the same numbers designated or generated by the PLSS. Benjamin Franklin was known to have a fascination with magic squares and he may have used them as a deciphering tool for codes messages.

Often land surveyors would mark the corner and middle of each section with small stone cairns or an incised stone to mark this location for subsequent surveys which would divide the property even further. In my experience as a cartographer and surveyor many strange stones or piles of stones have been left at these points as references. Stones I have found marking the center of sections include one inscribed with Ogham script from the original Welsh land claimant during the gold rush era as well as monuments that are very tall and elaborate stacked cairns using slabs of lava. The use of Ogham stones and Rune Stones are involved with legally describing property through history in this ancient tradition.

Strangely if one compares the size and shape of Olof Ohman’s property it conforms the size and dimensions of two and a half quarter quarter sections. The best description of the original location of discovery of the Kensington Stone seems to put it somewhere very near to or on the southeast corner of Olof Ohman’s property. Is it possible someone used the PLSS to place the Kensington Rune where it was originally found by Olof Ohman and sons?

Mr. Ohman would not have been the one to leave a marker in this position. This would have been done by the original surveyor who used the township and range system to divide the property as more people began to settle and use this region of Minnesota. Of course, it is possible that Ohman found a stone cairn marking this point and replaced it with the bogus rune as this point may have been already marked and designated his personal property.  Still something does not ring true with regard to Ohman being behind this scheme.

This may be illustrated by the fact that later Freemason’s in the area had a plan to build an obelisk similar to the Washington Monument on this property to commemorate the discovery of the rune. Though this monument was never built it is still interesting and applicable to our story here. The fact that there was a desire to build such a monument contributes to the notion that all of this may have been arranged by a more modern Freemason’s who were part of an exclusive family heritage in the first place. The reason’s this monument was not built may also expose that these Mason’s did not have faith in the authenticity of the stone.

The construction of such an elaborate and expensive monument may also indicate that people such as James Hill and the Ames family of Minnesota would have been interested in such a monument. Later in his career as we shall see even the land surveyor who recorded this township using the PLSS may have even been in a powerful positon in Minnesota politics are various times. If this monument had been built it also would have been “pointed to” by the Newport Tower just as the rune stone is.

In this case we are fortunate to have access to the earliest map drawn of the location of the discovery of the Kensington Rune. The PLSS (enacted in 1785) was used to help define and draw this map and helped the early inhabitants of the area legally define their property. The Minnesota Surveyor General’s office had recorded this township first in 1861 then again in 1866. The map does include property divisions and dots on the map where measurements were taken at points where monuments, stones, or cairns would have been left to aid other surveyors. This possibly includes the point at which the Kensington Stone had been discovered.

The original map does include the names of the surveyors who collected this information originally. One of them named George B. Wright has very direct and impressive connections to the Hill family and the development of Fergus Falls Minnesota a few years after this map was first compiled and plotted. This man holds all the same pedigree as Chico founder John Bidwell whose family intermarried with his in the development of Hartford Connecticut and the surrounding New England region in colonial times.

George B. Wright is not credited with naming of the actual waterfall named Fergus Falls but he is the founder of the town of Fergus Falls. Mr. Wright’s family relations are very impressive and include many Wright family members in upstate New York and Vermont in addition to Massachusetts. John Bidwell’s family is present in all of these places and in others as the country expanded westward.

In what is likely not a coincidence James Fergus the namesake of the town of Fergus Falls was also a close friend and business associate of James Hill. Mr. Fergus even played a major role in the establishment of Lewis and Clark County in Montana. This relates to previous work I have published linking the trail of the Beale Treasure all the way to Montana with clues being apparent at many Great Northern Railroad stops. One decipherment of the Beale Treasure location by Paul Smith seems to include place names that are stops along the Great Northern Railroad at various points along its route extending all the way to Dallas Oregon.

John Bidwell founder of Chico California and George Wright have many things in common. They are distantly related to each other via the First Families of Hartford Connecticut. They both founded small towns that are unique and thrive to this day. They were both land surveyors and navigators. Finally, they both had a large influence on the development of their respective states during the same era. Both men were indeed related with other very impressive family members who accomplished a great deal in the establishment of the United States of America. It is also possible that both men had been Freemason’s who had created their own “New Jerusalems.”

As in the case of Colonial Virginia and Hartford Connecticut these family relations would include none other than the same family that had produced Sir Francis Bacon. It is amazing these two men hold distant family relations from early Hartford Connecticut. This is also suggestive of Mr. Wrights distant family ties not only to other important colonial families involved. The names Bacon and Bidwell appear on the Hartford Founder’s Monument.

Everything from this point on will expose the same course of events that this author believes contributed to the installation of the Kensington Rune where it was found for specific reasons.

The earliest map of the location of the Kensington Rune was analogous to a modern USGS topographic quadrangle. It is part of T127N and R40W defined in Section 14; Mer. 5. This map used surveying observations by two men who are named on the map. This includes men named David Charlton and George B. Wright. None of the following family relations were found in association with Mr. Charlton though he has a large part to play later in this story.

Note here also that the number 14 is considered the “number of perfection” in the Cryptic Rite scheme of numerology. Some people that speculate as to the Masonic overtones of the stone inferring this number in association with numbers mentioned as part of the narrative read on the Kensington Rune.

If true then it is clear that the men who designated this township and section as the deposition point of the rune had known this information and placed the stone in an area associated with the number 14 in both the total of the numbers of the Solem township (T127N,R40W totals 14) and Section 14 of that township in which the stone is located. Somehow the sacred numbers seen on the Kensington Rune are also reflected in its legal description using a system that was only developed in 1785. The Meridian to which the Solem Township is associated or tied into is Mer. 5 which may also have significance. All of the imagery of the PLSS with regard to this area was not applied unitl 1861 at the earliest. Are we to assume that people knew a rune was there and somehow made the numbers match. Almost impossible to do given the scope of the PLSS.

This would in turn suggest that it was highly unlikely that the stone had been left by people in 1362 who would have no influence on the placement of these numbers in association with the legal description of the location of the stone in 1861 when these numbers were first assigned to this township. The numbers associated with a township are also based on the datum or meridian from which the township is tied into. In this case Mer. 5 (Meridian). The world Meridian is interesting in that it also refers to True North and the Pole Star. The Pole Star is also known of as the Stella Maris or Star of Mary. In this context, it is interesting that the word MERidian may also refer to the Stella Maris. Ave Maria deliver us from evil! Is the AVM on the Kensington stone also pointing us to the Pole Star?

All of this activity would have been designed by the Minnesota Surveyor General’s office and not any ancient Knights Templar who supposedly came to Minnesota. The same logic that dictates the numbers mentioned on the Kensington Rune are significant to Freemasonry also is equally suggested in the numbers associated with the legal description of the Property where the stone was originally found. Logic would dictate this to be true. No one came to T127N R40W, Section 14 in 1362.

The alternate theory to this would have been that people like Cooley and Wright had known this and manipulated the numbers to match where they knew a rune was located. This is suggestive in much more of a grand fashion that other later people had placed the stone with its “14” imagery in a context in which the legal description of its location also matched these numbers. None of this supports the notion that the story and date suggested on the KRS is in fact accurate or real.

Ultimately the stone was likely placed in an area where the numbers would match the ones they had encoded into the rune itself at a point on earth that could be interpreted as being “pointed to” by the Newport Tower. It would have been a very sneaky and monumental task for someone to have manipulated the PLSS so the numbers of a single point on earth would match the presence of an ancient stone. Just does not make sense.

Alternately it would have been very easy for men who laid out the township with surveying instruments n 1861 or 1866 to have calculated these associations. It may be that the stone was placed in this area intentionally much later. The fact that the Newport Tower was touted as being of Norse origins as early as 1838 with the Kensington Stone being found in 1898 suggest that both mysteries had intentionally been tied together to promote the same bogus idea.

It appears the sacred numbers on the Kensington Stone match the equally sacred numbers displayed in the legal description of the property where it was discovered. What a coincidence. If one believes the numbers suggested on the KRS are legitimately applied Freemasonic concepts then the fact that the Township and Range numbers also adhere to this idea would totally and completely call into question that this stone was deposited there in 1362. If you don’t believe the township and range numbers are sacred how could the ones on the stone be sacred as well? I can hear proponents of the stone’s more ancient pedigree screaming “coincidence” already. Hold onto your hats people.

If the stone was designed with Cryptic Rite concepts built in what are the odds it would be located in an area where these same numbers were applied to it via a complex system over five hundred years later? Something is not right about this whole thing. The task of manipulating the entire system of township and range in the northwest United States to match the location of a rune with Cryptic Rite imagery on it is a monumental task that eclipses the production of the stone itself a thousand fold. It is more likely the location of the stone was selected after these numbers were applied to the Solem Township. It is also likely that the name Solem was somehow intentionally applied to the township by someone who was aware of all of this.

Interestingly there may be a geographic correlation between the discovery site of the Kensington Stone and the Solem Church nearby. The Solem Church were Olof Ohman is interred in the churchyard is exactly due west of the said discovery site of the stone. In other words, they may be at the same latitude or very close.

The alignment of the Church and site of discovery of the Kensington Rune suggests the arrangement of a “New Jerusalem” array of architecture. This is interesting in that the Newport Tower and the way it originally aligned with Benedict Arnold’s home and grave also suggests what may be termed a New Jerusalem. The array of architecture in Williamsburg including the College of William and Mary, the Bruton Parish Church, Governor’s Mansion, octagonal Powder Magazine, and Colonial Capitol is also an early example of the New Jerusalem or New Atlantis concept at work in early America. Interestingly the octagonal Powder Magazine in Williamsburg “points to” the Newport Tower on the globe and in turn the Newport Tower “points to” the Kensington Rune Stone. Whacky.

Here in the township of Solem or Solomon someone took the time to align the church and the strange rune stone in the same fashion. King Solomon is virtually the inventor or the first to create a Jerusalem much less a New Jerusalem. This is representative of the subtle notion that this array is meant to draw pilgrims. In a very real way it has with the creation of a county park associated with the discovery site of the stone. The subsequent plans to build an obelisk on the site of discovery also is suggestive of a New Jerusalem array. If an obelisk had been built on the site the hope was that it would have drawn tourists to the area in addition to commemorating the discovery site of the stone.

The array of stone and church is reminiscent of other arrangement that were done by someone who was aware of the concept of what a New Jerusalem or New Atlantis would have meant. Either way we are being told a story that involves Solomon and Enoch just by the use of the name of Solem Township and the presence of a strange stone and church also named Solem. This name of course is part of the original name of what people ususally refer to as the “Knights Templar.” Their full given name is “Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon also sometimes known as the Order of Solomon’s Temple. These alternate names would include also apply to the modern form of the Knights Templar in Minnesota.

People like George B. Wright, James Hill, Samuel Hill, and of course their contemporary Minnesota congressman and Senator Ignatius Loyola Donnelly may have been aware of the concept of what a New Jerusalem represented. Of course, Donnelly is also famous for his pseudo-historical writing involving Atlantis and the works of Shakespeare. Donnelly was even a contemporary congressman of John Bidwell from Chico California during this era. Bidwell had created his own New Jerusalem there as well. Mr. George B. Wright and his extended family including geologist and antiquarian George Frederick Wright were of course closely related to John Bidwell and their family had even developed in the very same region that Bidwell’s had originally.

Donnelly could have easily been exposed to the concept of a New Atlantis or New Jerusalem in his studies of Shakespeare. To Donnelly’s credit he is among the first to speculate that Sir Francis Bacon had been involved in the works of Shakespeare. This is ironic given our surveyor George B. Wright’s connections to the real family of Sir Francis Bacon as well as the role of subsequent members of the extended Bacon family in many such similar stories. It is odd somehow that Donnelly’s name never pops up in the history of the Kensington Rune since he was so involved in what would be considered alternate history in today’s world at that time.

If the Kensington Rune was arrayed as part of a New Jerusalem in association with the Solem or “Solomon” Church then it would also in turn not support the notion that the Kensington Rune had been left by Knights Templar from Scandinavia in the fourteenth century. This could have only been done by later people as the Solem Church was not built until 1892. There are a variety of factors that show how people in early Minnesota would have been aware of this concept from places like Newport, Williamsburg, and even Washington D.C. in the era in question. Many of the people that were settling Minnesota in the late nineteenth century had come from places that had already displayed these concepts. At this point in history many arrays of architecture in state capitols had also mimicked the form of a New Jerusalem. This may be one reason the name of Stephen Arnold Douglas is associated with Douglas County in name.

There is no proof Ignatius Donnelly was involved in the Kensington Rune yet it is curious that he never commented on the existence of the Kensington Rune in his life as it was found five years prior to his passing in the state he served so well as a politician. This after penning books that had used Norse mythology to illustrate his theory of a comet hitting the earth in antiquity (Ragnorok). Are we to assume that historian Donnelly had never heard how people thought the Newport Tower was of Norse origins? This does not seem likely as this theory had been espoused since about 1838 by people like Carl Christian Rafn, Ole Bull, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Though this may point distantly to Ohman’s involvement it may point more to someone associated with the church other than him who had arranged all of this as well. It may also indicate that the stone’s location was dictated by the position of the church thus limiting the date of deposition of the stone to at least the construction date of the Church. The Solem Church was built in 1892 though the congregation had existed since 1867 just one year or less after Mr. Wright had visited the area as part of his surveying duties. This would indicate that settlement and land division for these private owners began soon after.

The Solem Church even seems to be oriented in an east to west fashion thus “pointing to” the discovery site of the KRS. An arc on the globe plotted eastward from the church at the orientation of the structure leads to the point just south of the modern KRS monument in Rune Stone Park seen today. This is said to be the closest estimate to the site of the discovery of the Kensington Rune. The Church “points to” the corner of Ohman’s property where a surveying stone may have originally been placed and later the rune.

The name of the Solem Lutheran Church is also interesting in light of how the numbers on the Kensington Stone may be related to Cryptic Rite Masonry. The township of 127N, 40W is also known of as the Solem Township. The word “Solem” refers in turn to the name “Solomon.” Solem appears to be an Anglo-Saxon name for Solomon. It is interesting that this array includes what may be termed “Solomonic” or “Enochian” imagery to related the message on the Kensington Stone. This also may relate to how each numeral of a Section marked in a township from 1-36 when added equals 666 in turn associated in lore by some with King Solomon himself.

Both Enochian and Solomonic concepts are important to the Royal Arch Degrees and Cryptic Rite of Freemasonry. In fact this version of the story of the Kensington Rune is beginning to resemble the Enochian overtones of the famous Money Pit at Oak Island Nova Scotia. Is it possible that both of these famous mysteries were put there using Masonic imagery meant for initiates alone? It appears that the Kensington Rune Stone was found in the Township of “Solomon!” Amazingly there are even characters in both the story of the Money Pit and the Kensington rune in common. Chapter 2 coming up will even reveal a man named Enoch who is directly involved.

“At King Solomon’s direction, three Intendants of the Building worked together to lower themselves through all nine arches, retrieved the ancient treasure and presented it to Solomon. He recognized its profound significance and rewarded them for their courageous diligence by conferring upon them the title of Royal Arch Mason’s.”

(The Royal Arch of Solomon (13deg.); The Influence of Wonder on Scottish Rite Freemasonry by Mark C. Phillips, 32deg, KSA; p.3:  https://guthriescottishrite.org/wp-content/college/Lodge%20of%20Perfection/13th/Phillips%2C%20Mark%2C%20Influence%20of%20Wonder%20on%20Scottish%20Rite%20Freemasonry.pdf?x95102)

The above reference to the nine arches includes the entrance being covered by a strange stone.

The use of a boundary stone is also very interesting given the Masonic overtones speculated with regard to the Kensington Rune. In Roman terms a boundary stone was known of as a “Terminus.” This refers to Jupiter Terminus the god of boundary stones and divisions. In the Greek cultural sphere these stones are known as “Horos” and refer to Zeus Horos. The tradition of rune stones in Scandinavia may adhere to this concept in many ways. The boundaries that Termini mark were not always political or regional. These stones were also used to mark the boundaries of sacred precincts and other portions of land that were important to spiritual concerns.

This concept later in history led to boundary stones being used as part of the way the area of the College of William and Mary was defined early in American history. Later Andrew Ellicott and Benjamin Bennaker would place Termini encircling the original boundaries of the District of Columbia that still remain today. Eventually President Jefferson would place to stone surveyor’s piers along the White House Meridian in Washington D.C. thus also adhering to this tradition. Perhaps the tradition of the Terminus is why so many land surveyors and cartographers seem to be involved in mysteries like the Kensington Rune.

The placement of boundary stones in ancient Rome involved a ceremony very similar to what may be termed the Masonic laying of the corner stone ritual. In the Masonic sense the cornerstone or the stone that the builders refused is anointed with corn, wine, and oil prior to its installation. The Roman ceremony for the installation of a Terminus or boundary stone involves a burnt sacrifice being placed beneath the stone where it is installed and then it is anointed with corn, wine, and oil.

Given this it is interesting that the KRS may have marked the “corner” of Olof Ohman’s property in a Masonic tradition extending all the way back to the Greeks, Byzantines, and Roman’s if not further. The concept of the Terminus or boundary stone may contribute further to the Solomonic or Enochian overtones suggested by the use of the name “Solem” in relation to the landscape surrounding the Kensington Rune. Of course it is possible that this stone was placed in order to confound and confuse those that already had a value of such things.

Both the Temple of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount itself were likely defined by Terminus or boundary stones of this type. Interestingly the campus of the College of William and Mary was defined by boundary stones at its time of establishment that display a logo or sigil that resembles both the Auspice of Mary i.e. “AVM” and includes what may be interpreted as the odd X rune seen on the Kensington stone. The Auspice of Mary symbol and the logo of the College of William and Mary also closely resembles the classic Masonic compass and square design.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if the ashes of a prominent person such as George Washington or Thomas Jefferson were beneath the cornerstones of the White House or United States Capitol? Terminus stones are somewhat analogous to a cornerstone in this context. Were someone’s ashes included beneath the Kensington Rune? Of course, our Masonic forefathers would not have sacrificed people to include in the Terminus ceremony but may have viewed it as an honor to have one’s remains installed with an important cornerstone or Terminus. The Terminus is also similar to the later tradition of headstones or tombstones to mark one’s grave.

In a very real way the Kensington Rune seems to be leading us through a sort of Masonic initiation that is even indicated by the name of the township in which the stone is located and the name of the Solem Church. Here we are being shown imagery including King Solomon, Enoch, and the Terminus. All of these concepts are valued by modern Freemason’s including the era in which the stone was installed in the late nineteenth century.

The definition of the Terminus as applied to the Kensington Rune itself may also contribute to this concept. The imagery in the landscape around the Kensington stone may hold important clues as to the true nature of the stone. This scheme fits the same pattern exposed in the Beale Treasure Legend, The Oak Island Money Pit, and The Bruton Parish Church Vault mystery in Williamsburg. It is starting to appear as if there is a great deal more to what is going on in Solem township with regard to the “Rune” than previously thought. All of those other mysteries include what may be considered Terminus stones as part of their mystique. All of these mysteries are linked together. It’s all about the New Atlantis people.

Amazingly Mr. Wright, the second land surveyor to visit the area and contribute to the original 1861 map drawn by Charleton may give us more information and even link us to other similar mysteries. The family heritage and business dealings of one George B. Wright may hold the key to real understanding of what the Kensington Rune Stone represents. This was the man who visited the area in 1866 thus adding the calculations seen in red on the township map in question. George B. Wright’s name appears on the map as the person who visited in 1866. Mr. Wright holds an impressive pedigree that includes direct family relations to many people that this author has documented in being involved in the establishment of myths, legends and lore that help to define both their family legacies, the American ideal, and Freemasonic overtones.

Mr. Wright is considered the founder of Fergus Falls Minnesota that served as a stop associated with James Hill’s railroad Empire. Interestingly this author has written of Mr. Hill’s railroad interests in relation to the famous Beale Treasure legend of Virginia. Mr. Wright holds a direct relation to the family of Chico California founder John Bidwell, The Eaton family of Alexandria Minnesota, the Lewis and Clark families as well as the famous descendant family of the same Bacon’s that Sir Francis was from. Though Mr. Wright and Mr. Hill were noted associates they were sometimes enemies as well. Mr. Wright is even direct kin of famous late nineteenth and early twentieth century geologist Newton Winchell who espoused the authenticity of the stone early on.

The Bacon’s of early Chico and Butte County California seemed to have been involved in similar activities in the region and are related to the Wright family directly via the original members of the family that came to the Oakland area during the late nineteenth Century. Of course, John Bidwell is the founder of Chico and in part Butte County California as well. The lives of both Wright and Bidwell also resemble that of Thomas Jefferson in many ways. The Wrights, Bidwell’s, and Bacon’s of early Hartford all held intermarriages in their families at an early date. These family associations seem to have been valued and kept track of by this family group.

Given this it is interesting how James Fergus the namesake of Fergus Falls was a close associate of Mr. Hill’s. James Fergus later played a large role in the development of not only Montana but Lewis and Clark county as stated above. Fergus County Montana is named for James Fergus. This has an amazing crossover to the clues exposed in my examination of the Beale Treasure in association with the Great Northern Railroad in Montana. All of this imagery adds up to a possible reference to the Lewis and Clark expedition as well as the accomplishments of Thomas Jefferson from a book I published in 2016.

Might this same group have created a similar mystery in Montana or other points west? Some of the imagery at the railroad stations mentioned in this narrative even include elaborate artwork and structural elements that may serve as clues in the overall scheme. Transportation hubs such as the Denver Airport display what many consider hidden information to this day. Many classic railroad stations include interpretive imagery that was popular in the era in which they were built. An examination of some Great Northern railroad stations does reveal imagery that may serve as clues in the overall view of what is going on.

Note here that all of these connections involve direct intermarriage with Bacon family members whose lineage includes a direct association with Sir Francis Bacon’s family. There is no “Seven degrees of Kevin Bacon” involved in this family story though he seems to be descendant of a member of the Fenwick’s Colony of New Jersey Bacons who are directly related to Sir Francis Bacon and another cousin of his also named Sir Francis Bacon whose life overlapped with the famous Sir Francis though he was much younger. In Virginia, similar relations to the two Nathaniel Bacon’s provide these same family links with two of their descendants Edmund, and William working for President Jefferson at Monticello. All the Bacon’s discussed here are named Bacon due to their relation to this family.

This is amazing in that the man who drew and compiled information for the very first map to have been produced by the Minnesota Surveyor General displaying the site of discovery of the Kensington Stone had a direct family relation that included this very same Bacon family. In fact there were several intermarriages between the Wright and Bacon families documented in the appendix below. This also includes distant family links to the famous Wright Brothers who are famous for their early aeronautical accomplishments. It is possible that Mr. Wright had even suspected that the French had left boundary stones in this region and may have been searching for them. Could Wright and his cohorts have been designing a “New Atlantis” that included a Rune Terminus?

It is likely that these later Bacon family members were aware of their heritage and valued this association to one degree or another. It does not suggest that they were figures that had the same notoriety but that they valued their name and may have contributed to these “mysteries” out of regard for their family legacies. Some of the families they married into also seemed to value a connection to the Bacon family of the United States.

Given other aspects of this mystery exposed in my books “The Geographic Mysteries of Sir Francis Bacon” and “The Arcadian Mysteries of Oak Island; Oak Island, Shugborough Hall, and Rennes le Chateau Revealed” we may start to see how and why the Kensington Rune Stone is not an authentic artifact of any incursion into Minnesota on the part of the original Knights Templar or any people actually associated with Scandinavia.

Again, all of this is a product of the Romantic Nationalist movement that involved Eben Horsford, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as well as other prominent figures of the time. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow not only had direct associations and heritage with this group of people but he was also close friends to two Norwegian men who would have a direct impact on the development of these myths. These men’s zeal involving proving a Scandinavian connection to the discovery by Europeans of North America may have led someone with these views to have installed the Kensington Stone in the specific place it had been found.

His friendship with both Ole Bull and Carl Christian Rafn displays how Longfellow was a part of a movement meant to degrade the accomplishments of Christopher Columbus in favor of a Norse discovery of America. Bull was a famous violinist who was close to Longfellow. He attempted to create a Norwegian colony in Pennsylvania in the mid nineteenth century. Of course, Rafn is the first person to document suspicions that the Newport Tower was of Norse origins. They may have viewed a Scandinavian claim to America as fitting their Nationalist views of both Scandinavia and the young United States at that time. It is also interesting that another Bull family played a key role in the development of Newport Rhode Island.

Interestingly Longfellow’s personal notes contain speculation as to if the Newport Tower is Norse a year before Rafn published his findings. Longfellow’s notes on this subject also has him searching for rationales as to why he could present the tower as being Norse making it obvious he may have held alternate motives for promoting such an idea. Longfellow’s poem “A Skeleton in Armor” may have been the result of his speculation and friendship with these two men. Longfellow also wrote many other poems with Norse imagery.

“Based on Longfellow’s letters and journal entries, we must conclude that his concept of what he would write changed over time. In his first journal entry on the subject, dated 3 May 1838, his proposed subject was: “the deeds of the first bold Viking who crossed to this Western world with storm-spirits and development-machinery underwater.” But it was his visit to the skeleton in the Fall River museum in the summer of 1838 that gave Longfellow the idea of somehow connecting the skeleton with the nearby “Round Tower at Newport” and making these a part of his projected Viking Poem (The Complete Poetical Works 651).”

(“In Search of First contact; The Vikings of Vinland, the Peoples of the Dawnland, and the Anglo-American Anxiety of Discovery.” by Annette Kolodny. p. 162)

Remember this is at a time when only the Norse sagas suggested that Vikings had come to the region. As this was prior to the discovery of L’ Anse Aux Meadows then we may assume that their motives were to simply infer or influence people into believing that New England and Minnesota had been visited by the Norse in the distant past without any real evidence. At this time it seems the Newport Tower was the best evidence they could come up with. It is only in more recent times that people have come to associate the Newport  Tower and Kensington Stone directly. All of this was likely arranged in response to the promotion of the Newport Tower being of Norse and now “Templar” origins.

It is more than a coincidence that the same family group is involved in both Minnesota and Newport including an additional contingent of Bacon descendants and First Families of Virginia who also seem to be involved in whatever is going on. Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha” and portions of “The Musician’s Tale” also known as the “The Saga of King Olaf” include imagery and very similar stories to what is seen on the Kensington Rune Stone.

The “Song of Hiawatha” even takes place in Minnesota and refers to white bearded men arriving in large vessels. The “Saga of King Olaf” has many portions that involve the word “skerry” and combat that is similar to that suggested on the Kensington Stone. This era also included the 1862 “Indian wars” in Minnesota that saw many settlers and Native Americans losing their lives in what was essentially a struggle to control the region. This may have contributed to the idea that Native American’s had killed the men mentioned on the Kensington Stone. 1862 also marks a year when many Minnesotan’s moved to Montana as part of the gold rush there.

Amazingly a neighborhood of Minneapolis would become known of as “Longfellow” with Mr. Fish even building a replica of Longfellow’s residence in Boston known of as Craigie House. This home had also served as Washington’s headquarters during the battle of Bunker Hill in the American Revolution. Longfellow held a pedigree that may have made him a direct member of the Society of the Cincinnati. He was known to have owned specific china and place settings that were only available to members.

In past works I have identified the association between Longfellow and both the Oak Island Money Pit and Newport Tower. The “Saga of King Olaf” not only contains the first name of Olof Ohman but also plays a very important role in the overall mystery related to the Newport Tower. Portions of either of these Longfellow poems may have helped to inspire the Norse overtones of what is starting to appear as an initiatory activity on the part of Minnesota Freemasons. The Saga of King Olaf also partially takes place on the Isles of Scilly in England. The Isles of Scilly also served as the location of the last stand of the Cavaliers of Charles I in the English Civil War.

George B. Wright does hold some amazing family connections to people who helped to establish the York Rite of Freemasonry and Knights Templar in Minnesota. His wife’s maiden name as (Serina) Ames. The Ames family have contributed a great deal to the creation of the United States and representative art and imagery that also suggests their role.  The Ames family of Minnesota included the first two Grand Commanders of Minnesota Knights Templar which in turn were associated with the Cryptic Rite that author Stewart suggests was part of the reasons why he suspected Cooley of being behind the deposition of the stone. Still Cooley could have been the one who influenced those that worked for him to enact the plan if there was one. Mr. Cooley does not hold the family legacy that the other players in this saga possess. After all George Cooley’s middle name was Washington.

In addition, the Ames brothers of Massachusetts who owned the eastern half of the Transcontinental Railroad built a strange pyramid in Wyoming known as the Ames Pyramid. This strange monument features bas relief carvings of the two men. It sits alone in the sage desert near Laramie Wyoming at the highest point of the original grade of the railroad they built. A sprawling town once occupied the area near the monument. The town dwindled and the people moved away after the grade was moved some distance away later thus eventually leaving this strange pyramid in the middle of nowhere. This monument likely represents a “mystery” similar to that seen on the Kensington Rune.

The Ames family also once owned a company that was known for making statuary, cannons, and Masonic Regalia including swords, medals, and uniforms. Some famous monuments such as the Minute Man statue at the Lexington and Concord bridge, Ben Franklin, and George Washington were created by the Ames Sword Company. The Ames Company even created the bronze cast doors for the east wing of the United States Capitol in Washington D.C. Surely a company like this could have created a rune stone if they had a mind to for example.

All along the course of the history of these colonial family groups monuments and mysteries are left in their wake. This includes many storied legends of hidden vaults and lost treasures that seem to have Masonic overtones yet related only to these gentry family groups. It was almost as if they were leaving a pathway that displayed their unique history and contributions while at the same time adhering to Masonic lore and mythology.

One possible reason for these contrived mysteries may be to keep alive certain ideas and neglected history. This is similar to mysteries created by Charlemagne and other royal interests possibly for similar reasons. The initiate studies the mystery first inspired by lost riches or hidden history and eventually is exposed to a narrative of real history and who was involved. Many times, in early America these people were Freemason’s from the first families of New England and Virginia. In order to understand the Kensington Rune for example an in depth survey of Minnesota history is required to understand it fully. Many people completely skip over the historical context of where an item is found.

Other similar mysteries of course include the Oak Island Money pit, The Bruton Parish Church Vault in Williamsburg, and the Beale treasure of Virginia. None of these lost treasure mysteries are what they appear to be.

There are many links to the family groups in Minnesota when one studies these questions leading to the assumption that we are indeed seeing a kind of real National Treasure as suggested in the movies of the same name. In turn, it is likely that no real vaults beyond those built by this group of people exist and those were contrived to match the story at hand. This also includes the strange and enigmatic Moncure Pyramid in North Dakota. The Moncure family has close relations to many first families of Virginia and their American family originates in Northern Virginia. This activity may also include the International Peace Garden on the border of the United States and Canada. Samuel Hill in addition to his Stonehenge replica built the Peace Arch on the border between British Columbia and Washington State prior to the construction of the Peace Garden.

Naturally successful descendants of the first families wanted people to be interested in the early history of the colonies and United States. A good bait to lure one into doing this would include visions of lost treasures, hidden vaults, and biblical relics. Lost information and funerary overtones are part of many of these stories including the Kensington Runestone. These concepts are even part of Rosicrucian lore that also contributed to some of the Masonic concepts seen in these mysteries. Hidden things are a very powerful lure to many leading them to an education they never suspected. It may be that initiated Freemason’s would recognize much of this imagery as their own.

In part two we will some even more amazing connections between our land surveyor George B. Wright and other amazing historical and prehistoric sites in the United States.

 

The T127N R40W Map of the location of the KRS from 1861 amended 1866 by George B. Wright.

Below. A later map of the same area including Olof Ohman’s property showing the Solem (Solomon) Church: 

Part 2: The La Verendrye Stone and the Strange Sandstone Pillar on the Milk River and the family of George B. Wright as part of the Saga. The La Verendrye stone as a rationale as to the authenticity of the KRS. 

In the last chapter three “lost stone legends” all situated adjacent to the border of French Louisiana and Rupert’s Land of the Hudson’s Bay Company were discussed. This same border would have later been important to American interests after the time of the Louisiana Purchase by President Jefferson. Eventually Jefferson would send Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery to the west to survey some of the newly acquired regions and find a way to the Oregon Territory in order to claim that region for the United States.

Here the story of still another lost stone will help to expose the truth about the Kensington Rune and the involvement of the family of land surveyor George B. Wright. The lost “Verendrye” stone has been speculated to be part of two separate sagas both of which conform to the border of Rupert’s Land and French Louisiana. It appears as if the La Verendrye Stone was found near Minot, North Dakota where there are many sandstone pillars as described in the only narrative source that exists that suggests the existence of a strange stone. Later a sandstone pillar with Ogham and Hebrew script on the Milk River in Alberta is suspected by some to have once held this strange stone. This strange pillar may also have some significance as having been used as a Terminus or Boundary Stone.

The Milk River was named by Meriwether Lewis during the famous Lewis and Clark expedition. Lewis described the river in his journal giving us the reasons why he chose this name.

"the water of this river possesses a peculiar whiteness, being about the colour of a cup of tea with the admixture of a tablespoonfull of milk. from the colour of its water we called it Milk river."

The Corps of Discovery encountered the Milk River where it meets the Missouri River several hundred miles away from where Writing on Stones Park is today in southern Alberta, Canada. Writing on Stones Park is only five to eight miles north of the U.S. and Canada border today. Even so it is likely that Lewis and Clark were aware that the northwest margin of the Louisiana Purchase was located somewhere very near where the park is today. It is entirely possible that the sandstone pillar with Ogham script incised on its trunk may be a border marker for this land.

Though there is no record of Lewis and Clark traveling to this location on their sojourn it is interesting to note that Lewis was of Welsh descent where Ogham is commonly used to mark land boundaries. Since the Milk River is south flowing into the Missouri River its course would have marked the northern extent of French claim to this region. The north flowing watershed of the Hudson’s Bay itself defined the property of the HBC or Rupert’s Land.

This sandstone pillar is present near Writing on Stones Park only about five miles north of the U.S. and Canada border in the Province of Alberta. Strangely the location of this “hoodoo” or sandstone pillar is situated such that it may have been used to mark the border between French Louisiana and Rupert’s Land of the Hudson’s Bay Company also considered the domain of England. Later this same border would mark the extent of the Louisiana Purchase of the United States as well prior to the border being agreed upon as the 49^th parallel as we see today.

This sandstone pillar includes Ogham script and a great deal of what may be graffiti left by early explorers, trappers, and likely even later settlers. It is adjacent to Writing on Stones Park that has many examples of Native rock art thus the name of the park. Ogham does have a use as being included on boundary stones in Wales and Ireland back into antiquity. What many modern alternate historians fail to note is how this practice extended to later in history and is actually seen on some land claim boundary stones in North America. Just because this pillar has Ogham on it this does not mean it was ancient. It may indicate that use of this sandstone pillar as a boundary marker and not a repository for a lost stone.

Given this there is no evidence available as to the date range the inscriptions on this pillar were made and there is no datable material culture associated. There is an alcove carved into this pillar that researcher Louis Buff Parry insists once held a stone though again there is no narrative from the elder La Verendrye beyond Kalm’s account or his sons noting the existence of this pillar or any of them having retrieved a stone from the alcove in the pillar.

The story of the pillar and alcove come from a third party that had interviewed the elder La Verendrye and not from any documentation supplied by he or his sons. Parry believes the famous Stone of Destiny that all Scots monarchs were crowned on once occupied the alcove in the pillar and that is now hidden somewhere on the estate of the Anson family in England known as Shugborough Hall. Nothing exposed here says Mr. Parry is wrong though nothing has been found at Shugborough to date.

All of this is based on the explorations and travels of the elder La Verendrye and his two sons in the 1730’s. In 1748 famous French explorer of Canada Pierre Gaultier de Varrenes et de la Verendrye discussed with Linnean Society and Swedish botanist Pehr Kalm his discovery of a strange stone about a foot long that had strange incised characters on its surface. La Verendrye then states the stone was found in an alcove affixed to a pillar of stone and eventually was sent to Jesuit Missionaries in Montreal and subsequently shipped back to France finally coming into the possession of the Count de Maurepas. As stated this narrative was recorded by Swedish naturalist and Linnean Society member Pehr Kalm and recorded in volume II of “Travels” authored by him.

Amazingly Kalm’s questioning of the elder La Verendrye is the only existent source that ever mentions this strange stone. No one else but La Verendrye has ever claimed to have seen this stone and that is based on Kalm’s narrative alone. No one in France has ever noted seeing this stone. There is no record of La Verendrye’s sons who also undertook missions of discovery without their father ever having noted or seen the stone. La Verendrye’s sons are recorded as being the first to see the Rocky Mountains though the point at which this occurred was never accurately recorded with some claiming this happening near what is today Yellowstone Park and others claiming this occurred in Alberta somewhere near the upper reaches of the Milk River.

It is amazing that an entire mythology and elaborate history of this stone has been speculated by past and more modern authors and historians given the scant description and story present in Pehr Kalm’s “Travels.” As we will see Kalm does not even take the time to make sure he spelled La Verendyre’s name correctly. Below is the portion of text from Kalm’s book that pertains to the stone:

“In later times there have, however, been found a few marks of antiquity, from which it may be conjectured, that North America was formerly inhabited by a nation more versed in science, and more civilized, than that which the Europeans found on their arrival here; or that a great military expedition was undertaken to this continent, from these known parts of the world.

This is confirmed by an account which I received from Mr. de Verandriere, who has commanded the expedition to the South Sea in person, of which I shall presently give an account. I have heard it repeated by others, who have been eye witnesses of everything that happened on that occasion. Some years before I came into Canada, the governor general Chevalier de Beauharnois, gave Mr. de Verandriere an order to go from Canada, with a number of people, on an expedition across North America to the south sea, in order to examine how far those two places are distant from each other, and to find out what advantages might accrue to Canada, or Louisiana, from a communication with that ocean. They set out on horseback from Montreal, and went as much due west as they could, on account of the lakes, rivers, and mountains, which fell in their way. As they came far into the country, beyond many nations, they sometimes met with large tracts of land free from wood, but covered with a kind of very tall grass, for the Space of some days journey. Many of these fields were everywhere covered with furrows, as if they had been ploughed and sown formerly. It is to be observed, that the nations, which now inhabit North America, could not cultivate the land in this manner, because they never made use of horses, oxen, ploughs, or any instruments of husbandry, nor had they ever seen a plough before the Europeans came to them. In two or three places, at a considerable distance from each, our travelers met with impressions of the feet of grown people and children in a rock; but this seems to have been no more Lufus Naturae. When they came far to the west, where, to the best of the knowledge, no Frenchman, or European had ever been, they found in one place in the woods, and again on a large plain, great pillars of stone, leaning upon each other. The pillars consisted of one single stone each, and the Frenchmen could not but suppose, that they had been erected by human hands. Sometimes they have found such stones laid upon one another, and as it were, formed into a wall. In some of those places where they found such stones, they could not find any other forts of stone. They have not been able to discover any character, or writing, upon any of these stones, thought have made a very careful search after them. At last they met with a large stone, like a pillar, an in it a smaller stone was fixed, which was covered on both sides with unknown characters. This stone, which was about a foot of French measure in length, and between four or five inches broad, they broke loose, and carried to Canada with them, from whence it was sent to France, to the Secretary of State, the count of Maurepas. What become of it afterwards is unknown to them, but they think it is yet preserved in his collection. Several of the Jesuits, who have seen and handled this stone in Canada, unanimously affirm, that the letters on it are the same with shows of those which in the books, containing accounts of Tartaria, are called Tatarian characters; and that on comparing both together, they found them perfectly alike withstanding the question which the French on the south sea expedition asked there concerning the when, and by whom those pillars were erected? What their traditions and sentiments concerning them were? Who had wrote the characters? What was meant by them? What kind of letter they were? In what language were they written? And other circumstances; yet they could never get the least explications, the Indians being as ignorant of all those things as the French themselves. All they could say was, that these stones had been in those places time immemorial.  The places where the pillars stood were near nine hundred French miles westward of Montreal. The Chief intention of this journey, vis. To come to the South Sea, and to examine it distance from Canada, was never attained on this occasion.”

The above narrative is absolutely the only time recorded anywhere that anyone had ever even seen this stone. There are no more accounts or descriptions of this stone other than in the above narrative. How and why later writers and researches embellished this story is almost incomprehensible given the reliability and points of view displayed in Pehr Kalm’s book which is the only source of proof of this stone’s existence. Later in this story we will see how victims of the Kensington Rune hoax also attempted to link the Verendrye Stone to their concept of Vikings having left the Kensington Stone. Their take was that the “Tartaric writing” noted by the Jesuit Missionaries was wrong and that it was in fact Norse runes! This after they or anyone else never actually having seen this artifact! Some of the individuals involved there seem to lead us back to our land surveyor George B. Wright.

It is at this point in the saga that it may be interesting that Pehr Kalm is Swedish. Here is a Swedish national espousing theories that would later be echoed by many subsequent researchers that suggest European people had come to this region at a time prior to Columbus. This seems to presage the Norwegian Romantic Nationalist movement that poet Longfellow, Horsford, Ole Bull, and Carl Rafn were also later associated with. Kalm is knocking at the door of delegitimizing the accomplishments of Columbus many years prior to the time when this would become a fad throughout the entire eighteenth century. Kalm was also careful to state that Native Americans were too ignorant to understand what was going on. The legend of this stone also feeds into other narratives having ancient Welshmen being the seed of the local Native tribes.

Mr. Kalm may have been aware that the Norse Sagas indicated a settlement somewhere south of Greenland in their text. Kalm’s “Travels” date of publishing in 1768 for Volume I and 1771 for Volume 2 may have had an impact on this school of thought that has never been considered before. Here we are also seeing the early distant warning of other similar phenomena such as the Kensignton Rune and Newport Tower. Pehr Kalm’s work is very similar to many theories and historical oddities presented in popular media in recent times. It is surprising that no one has attempted to link all these mysteries to aliens yet.  

Here we should compare the descriptions of Pehr Kalm’s interview of the elder La Verendrye to the accounts of American James Doty who visited what would be Writing on Stones Park in 1855.

“…at a place called “the Writings,” which i had often heard spoken of by the Indians as a locality where white men had many years ago written upon the rocks….a range of Sandstone rocks….are carved with rude hieroglyphics and representations of men, horses, guns, bas, shields, etc. in the usual Indian style. No doubt this has been done by wandering war parties , who’ve here recounted their “coups” in feats of war, and horse stealing, and inscribed them upon the rocks in the same manner as they are often seen painted on their “Medicine Robes,: and the lining of lodges. Were there ever upon these rocks writings done by the hands of white men, time has long since obliterated them. (Doty 1966:19)”

Book goes on to say:

“Doty’s references to “white men” responsible for the “writings” are curious; this information was apparently obtained from his Niitsitapi guides. While Doty takes the reference at face value, a likelier explanation is that his informants were referring to Naapi, a central spiritual figure of the Niitsitapi mythology. In Niitsitapi language Naapi means “Old Man” although according to Grinnell “its meaning is often loosely given as white.” This may have been referring to elders white hair and beards. p21.

Of interest is the fact that the Wright family is related to the Doty family in early colonial Kensington Connecticut. This will come into context a little later.

All of this information about the La Verendrye stone and the sandstone pillar is applicable to our study of the Kensington Rune here. In fact, the mere rumor of this stone will expose many things about some of the people who supported the notion that the Kensington Rune was authentic in print. Let’s see what the connections are between some of the individuals involved in basically hyping the stone as being authentic in the early twentieth century.

There is an article in one issue or Volume X of The Records of the Past Society that actually has Kensington Stone Norse proponent Hjalmar R. Holand traveling to France in search of the La Verendrye stone. The original story of the stone suggests it was taken to France and given to the Comte Maurepas. Later is was said to have ended up in a museum in Rouen France only to be lost in the bombing of that city in World War II. Such was their desire to prove the authenticity of the Kensington Rune that they would go to the expense and trouble of actually travelling to France to find a stone only mentioned in this one unreliable if not embellished narrative. Holand’s search for this stone was prior to World War II and he did come up empty in his quest.

It is clear from Kalm’s writing that he held a preconceived notion that European people had been to North America long ago and had left this stone. The portion of the narrative from his book above even begins with him speculating that a technically superior race had been there prior to the Natives. In fact some of what Kalm is promoting sounds frighteningly similar to doctrines of the Mormon faith that support the very same ideas that Kalm writes about nearly a hundred years prior to the establishment of that faith. (“Records of the Past Vol. 10; Article: “The Kensington Rune Stone Abroad;” Author Hjalmar R. Holand p. 260; Editors; Henry Mason Baum, Frederick Bennett Wright, George Frederick Wright; Volume X 1911 Published by the Records of the Past Society; Washington D.C.)

In the previous chapter we discussed the legacy of George B. Wright the man who surveyed the property that would become Olof Ohman’s where the Kensington Stone would be discovered. Here we see the publication that includes Kensington Stone proponent Hjalmar Holand’s view supporting the Scandinavian origins of the stone. The publication “Records of the Past” was published by the “Records of Past Society” journal that is in turn edited by two of George B. Wrights direct family members Frederick Bennet Wright and his son George Frederick Wright. This is an odd coincidence. Or is it?

Two of surveyor and founder of Fergus Falls Minnesota George B. Wright’s direct relations are actively involved in convincing the public that the Kensington Rune is an authentic artifact from 1362. These are the direct relatives of the man listed as the surveyor on the map of T127N, R40W Section 14 in which the Kensington stone was later found. In the process, they are even attempting to link the very unsubstantiated story of the La Verendrye stone to also being a Norse artifact in order to bolster their thesis of the Scandinavian origins of the Kensington Rune to 1362. What are the odds? Speculation would dictate that it is possible these men were all working together for a specific reason that extended beyond their direct family ties. It is also possible that only some of them were aware of the truth and had influenced others like Holand with regard to espousing the stone’s authenticity. 

George Frederick Wright was also onetime President of the Ohio Archaeological Society and he played a prominent role in defining sites like Serpent Mound, Chillicothe, and the Newark Earthworks for the same time. Though it is not clear it is named for Mr. Wright the “Wright” Square portion of the Newark Earthworks may have been named for a woman that was related to him. The “Wright Square” is in fact part of the earthworks including a large circular feature connected to a squared off octagonal feature. This combined feature of the Newark Earthworks by coincidence or design “points to” the Great Pyramid of Giza on the globe. Some scholars have also associated this feature with the measurement of the lunar calendar.

George Frederick Wright had travelled the world extensively and visited many far flung places on the globe travelling extensively in Europe, Asia, and the America’s. This man during this era related to our land surveyor George B. Wright had the knowledge, background, and associates to have known about Scandianavian Runes and how they were made. From his writings and life it is clear he was in a unique position to view recent and prehistory with an informed point of view. Still his journal from the Records of the Past society is full of analysis of history that fits the mold of Ignatius Donnelly and what may be considered alternate history today. Overall this indicates the public’s ability to believe things that would later be proven false as these historical disciplines advanced through time.

It is clear via genealogical records that both Mr. Wrights were from the same branch of the Wright family from western Vermont near the shores of Lake Placid. Still another George B. Wright from this family went on to be a Master of the Cryptic Rite of New York! This coming directly from Masonic publications in 1925. Though our second George B. Wright is from another generation his involvement in the Cryptic Rite of New York is curious given the theories of author Paul Stewart stating the numbers on the Kensington Stone refer to the Cryptic Rite as do the township and range coordinates and section number from the location of discovery of the stone. It is likely the Wright family members discussed here were Freemasons.

These factors involving the Wright family when examined from afar suggest that the entire thing was intentionally scammed or that these people wanted to believe the Norse in America angle so desperately they would use people like Kalm as a valid source. The fact that they are all so closely related is also highly suspicious. We can’t ignore the fact that the land surveyor who visited the site of Olof Ohman’s future farm and discovery site of the Kensington Rune Stone was a member of the very same family. Also interesting is how the legal description of the property itself contains overtones valued by the Cryptic Rite just as proponents of the authenticity of the stone tout how the numbers present in the narrative on the stone contains the very same imagery. Both the legal description of the land and narrative on the stone boil down to the number of perfection 14.

This entire scenario fits the involvement of all the early colonial families in propagating myths and legends that often include lost stones, treasures, and vaults. All in turn conforming to established aspects of Freemasonry and their family legacies. The same family of George B. Wright land surveyor also seemed to be in control of one of the premier publications and organizations that supported the idea of all this being true! It is amazing that these men are coming from the same region that the family of John Bidwell, Martin Van Buren, and James Fenimore Cooper also came from in turn having developed from the first founders of Hartford Connecticut.

A great deal of the hype surrounding both the La Verendrye and Kensington Stone is now beginning to resemble nothing but propaganda that supports notions similar to the Norwegian Romantic Nationalist movement and not serious academic analysis. It is possible that like Pehr Kalm these men had already decided to themselves that Native American’s were not capable of building settlements that included earthen mounds or developing a political system on their own thus in turn degrading the common notion of Columbus being the discoverer of North America. It must have been some European Vikings or Knights Templar that came over and taught them every civilized thing they knew.

Again, all of this predates the discovery of L’ Anse Aux Meadows Viking site in Newfoundland. Why would intelligent people like George Frederick Wright, Frederick Bennet Wright, and others take so much stock in an obviously biased narrative such as that of Pehr Kalm’s?

It is also notable that George Frederick Wright was associated with Harvard Botanist Asa Gray who was also a later member of the Linnean society as were Pehr Kalm, Alexander Von Humboldt, and Thomas Jefferson. I have written in my prior work about Chico California and Mt. Shasta including how Asa Gray was one of the people who accompanied John Bidwell, Annie Ellicott Bidwell, John Muir, and Darwin’s brother in law J.D. Hooker on a 1870’s trip to Mt. Shasta. Note that in the last chapter it was exposed how John Bidwell and surveyor George B. Wright were related thus also relating Bidwell to George Frederick Wright and Frederick Bennett Wright.

During this trip it is noted that J.D. Hooker shared stories comparing Mt. Shasta to the mountains in India and Tibet he had seen during his trip there in the 1840’s. This may be the first application of what would come to be known as “New Age” lore to Mt. Shasta and also fits the pattern of historical views that are such wishful thinking they border on the intentional creation of mythology that supports a specific nationalist narrative. Asa Gray was present when this was happening! J.D. Hooker is a family relation of Thomas Hooker who is credited with founding Hartford Connecticut.

Both the development of lore surrounding a rune stone in Minnesota and the “Sacred” Mountain of Mt. Shasta parallel each other in their final result of twisting history to support a specific ideal. It is also noted that George Frederick Wright was a proponent of Christian Darwinism thus displaying why he was associated with Asa Gray of the Linnean Society. Darwin himself was also a member. Interestingly the New Age lore of Mt. Shasta was being developed at near the same time Mr. Ohman discovered the Kensington Rune. We may be looking at two places where specific narratives were developed for specific reasons having nothing to do with the truth.

This is absolutely an amazing connection that supports the notion that the Kensington Stone was contrived during the late nineteenth century by this group of people. This is also during an era in which George B. Wright our surveyor would have been aware of publications such as those created by his kin George Frederick Wright.

Everything about this screams that the Kensington Rune Stone is in fact not authentic and that very likely Olof Ohman had no clue as to what was going on when he found this stone. It may be that Ohman had even been somehow selected by people who knew of his interest in history and his cultural heritage from Forsa Sweden where he had undoubtedly seen and learned about runes as part of his cultural heritage. He may have been picked to “find” the stone somehow. The Forsa Ring Rune is said to be the earliest legal document in Sweden and even has characters that are similar to the strange X seen on the Kensington Rune.

It is also obvious given these men’s interest in antiquities at this time that they would have had the monetary resources and knowledge of runes to have produced an artifact like the Kensington Rune. Among these family associations are men who in built Cathedrals, pyramids and Stonehenge replicas due to their fascination with antiquities. The same people had access to virtually unlimited resources and had in two cases rebuilt medieval chapels dismantled and brought to the United States to be reassembled. But of course they wouldn’t have had the resources to have the Kensingotn Rune produced.

This entire scenario also casts further doubt on the narrative of Pehr Kalm telling a story about La Verendrye finding a stone that he never noted to anyone else but Pehr Kalm. There are no records of the elder La Verendrye or any of his sons discussing the existence of an inscribed stone they had found but this narrative from Kalm’s “Travels Vol. II.”

People like George Frederick Wright and others association with studying and documenting antiquities in their published journals may have exposed them to enough information to have produced this stone anywhere in Minnesota where this kind of Greywhacke stone was found and also to move it to a location that held all the numerological associations that may have been valued seen on the Kensington Stone itself as espoused by author Paul Stewart in his book “The Enigmatist Vol. I.”

George Frederick Wright’s grandfather was even named Enoch Wright and he was from Pittsfield Massachusetts where my friend Matthew McGurn has uncovered a mystery with many of the same overtones as the Newport Tower and Kensington Rune Stone. Matthew’s enigma even includes a full size reproduction of the Newport Tower, Hebrew script and land once owned by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow! This story is starting to come together in a big way suggesting that many of these lost treasure and stone myths are exactly that; legends. Given this it is amazing that his name was Enoch as all the imagery on the stone invokes ideas associated with Enoch and Solomon as does the name of Solem Township.

Enoch Wright’s family plot in Pittsfield Massachusetts is marked with a large native boulder that includes his epitaph as well as several of his offspring’s memorials. The Stone of Enoch marking the grave of Enoch Wright and family. It is interesting that he or his family chose this imagery for his burial marker given our later descendant George B. Wright’s surveying of the land where one of the most famous stones in America was found later. Interestingly the grave marker of our geologist antiquarian George Frederick Wright is also marked with a native stone that includes and attached plaque. It seems George Frederick was paying homage to Enoch in this manner. Is it possible that the Wright family valued some kind of “stone mania?” This may be a natural association with the character of Enoch which may include cornerstones, keystones, and foundations stones. In this case it may even involve the Kensington Rune Stone.

One of the earliest academic proponents of the authenticity of the Kensington Rune would include geologist Newton Horace Winchell. Newton Horace Winchell’s hometown North Eastern, New York was less than thirty miles from Pittsfield Massachusetts the home of Enoch Wright. In fact this very Winchell family has direct family ties to the family of Enoch and Solomon Wright of this region. North Eastern, New York (North Eastern is the name of the town) is located very near where the borders of New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut meet. Winchell is also related via family intermarriage to the same Bacon family of New England that is related to the Wright family. This is a very interesting connection also leading us to the Winchell’s being involed in other similar activities in New England that resemble the conundrum of the Kensington Rune Stone. Who knew? Newton Horace Winchell was the first geologist to examine and “confirm” the authenticity of the Kensington stone.

Winchell’s examination of the stone seems to agree with later geologist’s analysis of the Kensington Rune. Many of the stone proponents today frequently cite Winchell’s work in support of his own analysis that includes the authenticity of the 1362 date seen on the rune. Winchell was from the region of New York just west of Pittsfield, Massachusetts where Enoch Wright was from. Winchell was directly related to both Enoch and George B. Wright the young surveyor whose name appears on one of the earliest maps of the discovery site of the stone. Again, Pittsfield is home to a mystery that includes a full-scale reproduction of the Newport Tower. At several turns the extended story related to the Kensington Stone has both Enochian and Solomonic overtones. The fact that Winchell comes from this very family group is somewhat suspicious.

This is in fact true. Winchell’s family was from the same upstate region of New York that the Wright family was from. Included in the Winchell genealogy is over eight direct intermarriages between the two families! The Winchell family also includes two intermarriages with the very same Bacon family that intermarried with the Wrights and Bidwell’s as discussed earlier. Winchell’s son Alexander was even once the Chancellor of Masonic College in Alabama. There is no obvious record stating if Newton was a Freemason.

Interestingly Newton Winchell was also once President of the Minnesota Historical Society just after the time Nathaniel P. Langford held the same position. Winchell even published his views of the Kensington Stone in the Society’s journal. Newton’s relation to George of course also includes one of the other big player’s that promoted the authenticity of the Kensington Rune in print in their journal one George Frederick Wright. The same family relation exists between all the Wrights of New York and the Winchell family.

Though there is evidence that Winchell had diagnosed the stone as being a real artifact from 1362 it is clear that he was going along with others that he may have known were part of his extended family and ancestry. His analysis took into account the weathering of the stone and lack of given components in relation to being buried at its time of discovery. His analysis is rational and does not take license as he may have if he was part of a scam of some sort. In the end his analysis did confirm the ancient origins of the stone in his mind. Note that Winchell also considered himself an archaeologist though it is not clear if he had ever been trained in that art.

Is it possible that we are looking at some sort of academic conspiracy to intentionally promote this rune as authentic by a specific family group that has some associations with Cryptic Rite of Freemasonry? While there is no definite answer to that we would have to consider it questionable that so many members of the same family were involved from the early mapping of the discovery site to later promoting the stone’s authenticity in the more official capacity of the Minnesota Historical Society and journals of George Frederick Wright and Frederick Bennett Wright.

Undoubtedly Winchell was also at least acquainted with Ignatius Donnelly as they had published articles in the same journals. Again it is odd that Donnelly never chimed in on the Kensington controversy since he was still alive when the stone was found.

Critics of many different mystery stories often point to people trying to promote the region in which these conundrums occur as part of the reason any of this is done in the first place. This fits hand in glove with a promotion of a given cultural or nationalist spin on such phenomena. Secondly other similar stories such as Renne le Chateau, the Oak Island Money Pit, Jamestown, and Williamsburg are all tourist destinations that bring a great deal of revenue into those regions while informing visitors of local history they would not otherwise be exposed to. Soon we will see how all of this connects us to early goings on in the Great State of Montana as well.

Given this it is amazing that an entire state and associated educational apparatus would attempt to say that people had come to Minnesota in 1362 based on the discovery of a single stone or artifact. No other authentic material culture has been identified as being “Norse” in Minnesota. This is also reflective of their desire to interpret the La Vernendrye stone as having runes inscribed on it when no one has ever even seen the stone. We only have a good story suggesting the existence of a stone. Proponents that wish to suggest that geologic analysis of the stone proves its antiquity simply have not used a science that has proven a variety of other rock art or stones relative ages of creation based on the inscriptions in the stone is not yet a valid. This technique is not a well-established method valued by archaeologists and anthropologists at this time. The use of geology to prove this simply does not work especially in the light of what is being exposed here.

Really the real true story of how the Kensington Rune came to be is far more interesting and revealing than any Norse or “Templar” incursion into North America in the fourteenth century. The Knights Templar in fact were not known to exist in Scandinavia. Some Templars may have joined the Teutonic Order after the dissolution of their order but there were no original Knights Templar Commandrys in Scandinavia. Though Knights Templar were scarce in Scandinavia Cistercian monks were common.

With this in mind it is revealing that this same crew Winchell was associated with wanted to use the La Verendrye stone as evidence though no one is ever recorded having seen the stone except the elder La Verendrye. Kalm is perfectly happy to let the reader believe that the sandstone pillars seen along the Missouri River and other rivers of the north including the Milk River were man made columns that were sometimes used as elements of larger forts even though he had never seen any of these things himself. Of course, in subsequent times no such man made structures were encountered. The Lewis and Clark expedition would later follow in some of the same footsteps established by the La Verendrye’s and none of these cultural manifestations are noted in their narrative of the region.

From Kalm’s description, it appears the La Verendrye’s may have retrieved a strange stone that was somehow set into one of the pillars they encountered. Kalm’s narrative specifically states that no inscriptions or rock art was noted on any of the sandstone pillars and how the La Verendrye’s searched for such things thoroughly. This certainly does not match the assumption made by some researchers that this stone was found not near Minot North Dakota but in a sandstone pillar on the upper Milk River. The sandstone pillar on the Milk River includes several inscriptions including one in Ogham.

In addition, if the footnotes for this section of Kalm’s book are examined he associates the stone with Kublai Khan’s incursions into North America and further in his book discusses how the Chinese came to the West Coast long ago. Kalm’s entire book is so full of fanciful interpretations of antiquities that we may be given a window in the way people in the mid eighteenth century viewed the history of North America.

It is almost as if they viewed this new land as a blank canvas on which to paint false or outrageous claims that fit their cultural identities. It is also possible that the enemies of the new United States were trying to instill false notions of history into the mind of the American public for their own reasons. The entire big picture story of these kinds of activities do include the presence of intelligence gathering organizations from both the United States and European countries.

The above footnote from Pehr Kalm’s narrative of the La Verendrye Stone is almost comical by modern standards. Given the fact that the Jesuit Priests said the script on the stone was “Tartaric” Kalm feels just fine about attributing the stone and “columns” to Kublai Khan. This is the man we trust to have supplied the only link to this artifact? This is who Hjalmar R. Holand, and proponents of the authenticity of the Kensington Rune Stone choose to believe even basing their entire theories on this one narrative by him? It is difficult to believe. That stone is never mentioned in any narrative by anyone except Von Humboldt who was simply referring to what Kalm had written.

This new information is going to be ignored by all the more modern proponents of the Kensington Stone and will be mocked by other critics as well. All the while ignoring the fact that all three accounts including that of the Kensington Stone, the La Verendrye Stone, and Sandstone pillar on the Milk River all conform to the boundary of French Louisiana, The Louisiana Purchase, and Rupert’s Land of the Hudson’s Bay Company. All of this is suggestive that all three of these legends were intentionally contrived based on Termini or boundary stones that had been left by the French or Hudson’s Bay Company during the early to mid-nineteenth century. It is possible that there is no La Verendrye stone and this was all cooked up using only the imagery of these concepts.

In the case of the Kensington Stone it appears that this may have happened after 1861 to 1866 the date on the Solem Township map where the KRS is located. It is also very possible that these stones and legends of stones were left by American interests in surveying the boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase at some point. This would indeed fit the profile of many cultural views of the era being a result of Romantic Nationalism meant to give the young country a storied identity that they lacked in comparison to their European cohorts.

This fact is ignored in flights of fancy involving Norse or “Templars” coming to Minnesota in the fourteenth century and leaving the stone to mark their territory. One would be left to ponder if they were trying to erase any sign that the French had been involved in defining and exploring these very same borderlands in addition to English and Scottish people associated with the Hudson’s Bay Company. It would be anathema for any Kensington Stone authenticity proponent to admit the stone is located on this border. Countless other surveyors had also spent time in the region including English land surveyor Carver and Hudson’s Bay Company surveyor Thompson who was considered to be a master of his craft in that era.

This is simply mind boggling that anyone would not do the research done here and come to the conclusion that is was all a scam in the vein of the Norwegian Romantic Nationalist movement or a similar movement associated with defining American history in a way that appealed to people that did not like the idea the Christopher Columbus had “discovered” America. This would also contribute to the nationalist character of the Scandinavian population of Minnesota that began in the mid nineteenth century. There is also a chance this entire thing was cooked up to take advantage of any ethnic or political group this would appeal to. The same could be said of the Cryptic Rite imagery involved in this mystery and others. Someone from another country with knowledge of the same tenets could have left this for any number of reasons or simply as a bad joke. This region was subject to the same back and forth between the French and English that Nova Soctia a.k.a. Acaidia had been subjected to.

Here above we have seen a preponderance of evidence that people had faked a rune and placed it on the property of Olof Ohman at some point between 1861 and 1898 when Mr. Ohman discovered the stone. This era in the United States saw many aspects of how people had twisted history to suit their spiritual, social, and political needs. This is also evident in the advent of many new ways of thought.

In past works I have written about “Poet of the Sierras” Joaquin Miller in California. Many aspects of his life show him to have been on the edge of many social movements that occurred later such as the Beat Generation and Psychedelic movements of the San Francisco Bay area. Amazingly this same era of Minnesota history gives us one of the most well known alternative historians in the world whose popularity and ideas are echoed by many modern writers and personalities such as Graham Hancock, Neo-Nazi Frank Joseph and many others.

The thoughts and writing of Minnesota congressman of the mid to late nineteenth century Ignatius Donnelly are very similar to the writings of Helena P. Blavatsky who founded the Theosoophical Society along with the Wright family’s relation from early Hartford Connecticut Henry Steel Olcott. John Bidwell of Chico is also related to Olcott. This would also put George B. Wright in a family related group that includes Joseph Smith the founder of the Mormon faith and Harvey Spencer Lewis who founded the American Rosicrucian Order in San Jose California. Harvey Spencer Lewis is also distantly related to the Lewis family of Minnesota discussed here.

Amazingly many of Donnelly’s theories about Atlantis, Mu, and Lemmuria were very popular in his day. Donnelly was always keen to think of alternate ways history may have occurred much in the same way many of his contemporaries did. Donnelly also crafted his alternate beliefs into an attempt at early communal living in Minnesota in the 1850’s. In this way his legacy does resemble that of Joaquin Millers who was also a free thinker and espoused some points of view similar to those of Donnelly’s that would today be considered “New Age.”

Both Miller and Donnelly wrote about the native myths and legends of Mt. Shasta. Donnelly even refers to the Native American creation myths of Mt. Shasta in his book “The Destruction of Atlantis: Ragnarok, or the Age of Fire and Gravel” (1883).  This again is very interesting given the connections we found to John Bidwell, Asa Gray, J.D. Hooker, Annie Bidwell, and John Muir’s trip to Mt Shasta in 1877 as discussed earlier. It is entirely possible that Asa Gray discussed all this with his friend and cohort George Frederick Wright.

This trip included John Bidwell founder of Chico, U.S. Congressman Presidential candidate, and General in the California Militia related to several what would be considered “New Age” figures in his family tree. Asa Gray Harvard botanist and Linnean Society member associated with George Frederick Wright publisher of the antiquities journal touting the authenticity of the Kensington Stone. J.D. Hooker botanist, early traveler to Tibet and northern India in the late 1840’s and brother in law of Charles Darwin. Annie Bidwell a.k.a. Annie Ellicott Kennedy Washington D.C. resident, related to Andrew Ellicott the land surveyor who laid out the boundaries and streets of Washington D.C. resulting in a similar if somewhat smaller plan being used to plan the town of Chico California. Last but not least famous naturalist author and poet John Muir. John Bidwell’s term as U.S. congressman coincided with Oakes Ames of Massachusetts (Ames Pyramid) and Ignatius Donnelly’s tenure as congressman from Minnesota. The two may have even at least met each other. John Bidwell and John Muir were close friends with Muir visiting Chico several times and Bidwell even building the author a boat in which he floated down the Sacramento River all the way to Stockton, California.

Donnelly’s views on Atlantis and alternate history still misleads people today with all of its nineteenth century charm, and manipulative social and political overtones. Many aspects of his writing seem to have been inspired by the theosophical concepts of Blavatsky and others who materialized history out of thin air with no proof or academic background to do so. During this era the only information available to many of these people was from a University library or their vivid imaginations. Many of them did not have access to large libraries and had to be content with books they could borrow or obtain via the mail. Many of these people only had elementary educations in history when they were young and from that time on it was open season on the truth using their imagination and popular sources like Blavatsky with no scholarship at all being involved.

Again as in the case of Pehr Kalm later people choose to believe the far out theories of Donnelly and Blavatsky because it either fits their view of history or their new age spiritual beliefs. It is interesting that Pehr Kalm did consider himself a rational scientist and still held the speculative beliefs he had. In that era Alexander Von Humboldt displayed a great deal more rationality resulting in his opinions more resembling the common history we see today.

There is nothing wrong with the New Age ideals yet many adherents just can’t live with what standard history dictates with regard to their beliefs. Apparently, some of them are willing to simply make up history to suit their agenda. This is the very same concept behind the Nationalist movements of the nineteenth century extending even to the current era (2018). All along the way this bogus history cooked up as “fake news” in the nineteenth century is used to manipulate people into believing whatever is beneficial to the people presenting this to the public. Though people were far more literate on the average in the nineteenth century this same twisting of the truth and facts continues in the modern world via television and the internet. If many of these people’s views on past history were taken away they would in the end resemble nothing but common racists. The manufactured history they believe in simply gives them something to hide behind that resembles rational thought.

Unfortunately, it may be that even the creation of the Kensington Rune Stone has fallen into this category. A vastly more fascinating and historically pertinent story is being ignored in favor of a fairy tale that states people from Scandinavia came to Minnesota in the fourteenth century and left a rune stone for us to ponder. The fact that Scandinavian people could add elements of the Cryptic Rite message on a stone that old is preposterous.

At the same time the notion that this was an object from antiquity bolstered the notion that white people had come to America long ago and affected Native American culture to the degree that these same people want to infer that Native American’s were really the product of white people coming long ago. It just does not make any rational sense and is in reality a great insult to the great cultures of Native America and elsewhere. This entire notion is a relic left over from historical events like the Dakota Indian war of 1862 which saw the death of many settlers in Minnesota.

Given the above evidence it is going to be hard for people to state that the Kensington Rune displays elements of Cyrptic Rite Freemasonry without addressing the similarity in the numbers of the legal description of the stone’s location of discovery as well as the people’s names present on the map. I can almost hear them now saying it is just a coincidence or doesn’t matter. More than likely this information will simply be ignored by them because that would fit the historical pattern of how people who disagree are treated by them. It may be easy to belive that the stone was coincidentally located in section 14 but the thread of information exposed by George B. Wrights name on that map is suspicious at best.

It is fun to ponder whether Ignatius Donnelly was aware of the Kensington Rune and the odds are he was though no record of this exists. He was still alive when the stone was found and was in his prime in Minnesota as Mr. Wright surveyed the property that would eventually come to be owned by Olof Ohman. One thing is for sure. If a record exists stating Donnelly believed the Norse came to Minnesota prior to the discovery of the Kensington Stone a great pall of further suspicion would be cast upon this contrived historical relic.

It is clear that Donnelly was aware of Norse culture in the naming of his book “The Destruction of Atlantis: Ragnarok, or the Age of Fire and Gravel” which refers to Norse mythological explanation for the 12,000 year old comet that struck the earth causing great cataclysms thus explaining his alternate historical beliefs. Really it is kind of odd he never seemed to have commented on the notion that the Norse came to Minnesota when this notion was very popular during his life. 

Part 3: David Charlton, Nathaniel P. Langford, and the origins of Montana Freemasonry.

It seems that all through this story we have some family and Masonic connections linking many of he major names involved. So far the Wright Family of New York and Vermont that seemed to have developed in association with Hartford Founding families seems to be a common thread. Is it possible that there are more relations that we have overlooked?

The presence of George B. Wright’s name as surveyor in 1866 on the township and range map of the discovery of site of the Kensington Rune exposed a great deal associated with both the Kensington mystery and others. Surveying onsite for this map apparently began in 1861 when a man named David Charlton visited the land. His name is listed just above George B. Wright’s with that date listed to note when he was there. Research into the identity or genealogy of this man did not turn up any useful information. The Charlton family name is not found in any of the prominent lineages associated with happenings in Minnesota or any of the other important places studied in relation to this strange history. Additional information found regarding Mr.Charlton did relate to the history of Freemasonry. It appears that Charlton would be part of two sagas that are important to the development of Freemasonry in Minnesota and Montana.

It is clear over time that many people from Minnesota went to the Montana Territory and helped to create the that great state. It seems that there is a single event in Montana history that names a man named David Charlton who came west to Montana as part of what is known of as the Fisk Expedition. Below is the only trace that could be found of this man and it is likely this is the same person.

“As a leader of the Corp of Discovery, Meriwether Lewis was the first known Freemason to enter what would become Montana in 1805. The first meeting of Masons in Montana on September 23, 1862, when three brethren with the first Fisk expedition camped near the summit of the Rocky Mountains performed the ritual of opening and closing a lodge. They were Nathaniel P. Langford, David Charlton and George Gere, all Minnesota freemasons.”

(http://gifts.gwmemorial.org/glotm/2014-07-montana.php; The website of the George Washington Masonic Memorial “Grand Lodge of the Month July 2014”)

Though information about Charlton is scant this link is amazing considering all of the related information we could gather about George B. Wright and his associations to whatever was going on in T127N, R40W Meridian 5 also known as the Solem Township of Douglas County Minnesota. This also explains why Meriwether Lewis’ Masonic regalia including his apron are on display in a Masonic Lodge in Montana.

The simple fact that David Charlton is a Freemason and is noted as being one of the first to come to Montana is interesting to say the least. The odds are high that this is the same David Charlton. There is no proof that George B. Wright was a Freemason though he had all the right family connections. Still he may have been a Freemason and the evidence will surface at some point. George B. Wright was directly related to a man who would be the Grand Commander of the New York Cryptic Rite in the 1920’s also named George B. Wright. It is clear that David Charlton was a Freemason who even holds a special place in the hearts and minds of that organization in Montana. The search for more about David Charlton and George B. Wright will continue.

One of the other three men to hold the first Masonic meeting in Montana was Nathaniel P. Langford. Mr. Langford is one of the three principle individuals who proposed that Yellowstone become a national park. He also worked in many official capacities in the new State of Montana and later returned to Minneapolis to head the Minnesota Historical Society. He undoubtedly also had some impact on the development of Montana and Minnesota Freemasonry. This involvement underscores the many links between Montana and Minnesota that would later be emphasized via the construction of the Great Northern Railroad on the part of Mr. James J. Hill. It is also clear that Langford was a friend and correspondent of Ingatius Donnelly.

Langford would go on to be the first superintendent of Yellowstone Park of which he was one of the first to explore. During his time in Montana Landford became part of the Legend of the Vigilantes in Montana. The local Sheriff was found to be in cahoots with an outlaw gang so the local Freemason’s formed a group of Vigilantes to bring them to heal. It was during this time that the numerical code of 3-7-77. Became associated with the Vigilantes as their sign or symbol and is still seen on some Montana law enforcement patches to this day.

The story of 3-7-77 in short represents three different stories. The 3 represents Langford, Gere, and Charlton who are the three Freemason’s that held the first lodge meeting in Montana. The 7 represents the seven people hung by their Vigilante actions. The Number 77 represents the number of Freemason’s who attended the first Masonic Funeral in Montana which was presided over by Langford. 77 represents the 76 Freemason’s who attended the funeral plus the 1 deceased Freemason. 3-7-77 numbers totaled equals 24 but it is interesting that the 77 portion equals 14.

After Langford realized there were 76 Freemasons in Bannack, Montana they began a lodge that met in the mountain groves outdoors for quite some time until a proper Masonic lodge was built. Accounts of the funeral state a small pine was planted over the grave also resembling Masonic references to the Acacia Tree. So these numbers may have some meaning to Freemason’s similar to what authors Paul Stewart and Scott Wolter suggest in the meaning of the numbers on the Kensington Rune Stone.

Though all of this seems to have been planned by Freemason’s there may be other explanations. One thing is clear in light of what has been exposed here about the landscape surrounding the Kensington Rune and the people involved. Everything adds up to the fact that the rune could not actually be from 1362. If so all of the other details exposed here show that people knew about the stone before it was even found.

The coincidence of people like George Washington Cooley, David Charlton, George B. Wright, and Nathaniel P. Langford being involved is astronomical. It is also odd that their activities in Montana presage events I discussed in my book “The Secrets of Edgar Allan Poe, the Kensington Rune, and Beale Treasure Revealed: The use of the Prime Meridian in Talismanic Architecture” published in June of 2016. In that book I speculated about the Beale Treasure in association with Lewis and Clark and later the Great Northern Railroad in Montana.

It is clear that two Freemason’s were the first two people to survey the land that Olof Ohman would own in the future. All of these men except David Charlton have strong connections to families and places where other similar historical oddities exist. It is possible that Charlton also has these family ties that are not available to research at this time. In addition, there is a clear political motive at play in the form of Nationalist ideals that may mean that even Charlton and Wright were manipulated into what they did. In the end, it does not appear that this is what had happened.

Mr. Langford is the lone person in this saga that holds direct family relations from colonial times that lead us to Newport, Rhode Island. It appears he holds family relations to the Cooke family of Sir Francis Bacon’s mother as well as more distant relation once removed to Governor Arnold who the common history states wished to be buried in alignment between his home and his “Stone built windmill.” Oliver Arnold, Benedict’s son had married a Langford. Mr. Langford also holds family ties to Thomas “The Immigrant” Stafford who built the earliest grist and windmill’s in New England. Mr. Stafford’s descendant Revolutionary War hero Joab Stafford’s grave is marked by a full-scale reproduction of the Newport Tower near Pittsfield Massachusetts.

Not to be forgotten as part of this story is James Fergus the namesake of Fergus Falls Minnesota. Fergus Falls was developed by our land surveyor George B. Wright who obtained the land after Fergus abandoned creating a settlement there. Fergus travelled to Montana as part of the same Fisk expedition that had brough Langford and Charleton to Montana. It is telling hat Fergus was not among the group of the first three Freemason’s to have a meeting in Montana. He did go on to be an administrator for Lewis and Clark County and later Fergus County was named for him. Though somewhat successful at mining Fergus became more known for his cattle ranching and agricultural pursuits thus earning him a place in the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame. Fergus was also once President of the Montana Pioneers Association. Fergus like Langford was personally associated with and was friends with Ignatius Donnelly. Next, we will examine an additional character that was associated with these two men and others involved in this story.

Winchell was following in the footsteps of whatever role Nathaniel P. Langford was playing in this drama as he later also held the post of President of the Minnesota Historical Society. What are the odds that this man would be related to George B. Wright, George Frederick Wright as well as Bacon family members extending fron the First Families of Hartford? It seems there is a clear pathway of conjecture that points to all of this having been set up to promote Minnesota as having possessed a unique Scandinavian heritage that also inferred Masonic overtones given the “hidden” cryptic messages that authors Stewart and Wolter claim are included in the story in runes on the stone.

Of course this version of the story would rely on the fact that these family related people had all planned this together and had carried out the spiel for 32 years before Mr. Ohman discovered the stone. No links between Olof Ohman and any of these people can be found. What may have happened is that sometime during the period between 1861 and 1898 someone had placed a rune on what would eventually become the Ohman property and then simply exercised a great deal of patience hoping someone would find the stone. Mr. Ohman fit this bill perfectly.

Alternately these men had created the Kensington Rune as an initiatory vehicle that was used to educate those wishing to achieve the degrees of the Cryptic rite. In order to do this they may have been asked to visit the stone at a time when no one lived in the area and thus recognize what they were really seeing. In order to do this the average person would have been supplied with a way to decipher the runes on the stone as part of this.

After a time the stone may have been forgotten for a variety of reasons including new members not valuing it as earlier members had. Or the land had simply been obtained by Mr. Ohman and someone neglected to retrieve the stone. The possibilities are endless. Even if initiates realized the stone was not authentic it would have inspired them to view Norse incursions into America as a real possibility. This notion had already been presented and debated by historians from the time the Newport Tower had been promoted as basically the same thing over fifty years prior.

Still a third notion would include the fact that someone else had placed the stone there to specifically confuse and disorient the very people who would be predisposed to think it was real. Given the many geographic associations it is highly possible the people behind the origins of the stone were conversant in land surveying, map reading, and cartography. Both geologist’s Winchell and Wright fit this bill as of course does our land surveyor George B. Wright. If someone had placed it there for these reasons then it would have been someone that knew how they would have reacted to it. This version of events borders on intelligence operations of this era and prior. Was someone simply “spooking the natives?”

It is clear that there is a pall of credibility over the entire notion that this stone is really as old as 1362. Now even geologist Winchell seems to be involved in this distinctly family affair. The number of family associations all in the same story are very suspicious and can’t simply be brushed away as a total coincidence. This factor may suggest that there was more than simply Masonic skullduggery going on here as it is not obvious that all the players here were Freemason’s.

Somehow the fact that later Freemason’s had desired to build an obelisk at the site of the stone’s discovery supports the notion that it may have been also meant to draw visitors to the area just as the stone does as it sits in repose in the Rune Stone Museum in Alexandria Minnesota today. While none of this absolutely proves that the Kensington Rune was a scam this thread of research has exposed some amazing family relations in the entire saga that have been overlooked to this point. With this in mind it may be hard to imagine this stone was actually a relic placed in central Minnesota in 1362.

This information has also exposed that very wealthy and highly successful people who owned major industries and helped the country to take advantage of its western reaches could have been involved. They would have had access to all the academic, artistic, and practical knowledge required to both produce a rune and then develop a saga that helped to make it seem real. This would have required secrecy on the part of all the people who took part but could have been done with a minimum of individuals involved. If powerful and wealthy people are associated with this story it is no surprise that this entire story resembles thing within the pages of Fulcanelli’s “Mystery of the Cathedrals.”

This strange saga is being turned into a book that will also display how and why people from Virginia were also involved. Most people don’t realize that the territory where Minnesota is now was once considered part of the Great State of Virginia. The border of this part of what was then Virginia matches perfectly the border between these holdings and what was then French Louisiana.

This is how and why some of the imagery on the Kensington Rune Stone matches that of King and Queen William and Mary of England, Ireland, and Scotland as well as the College of William and Mary. As a coincidence King William and Mary were the first English monarchs to reside in Kensington Palace. Familiar name there?

This mystery in Virginia includes boundary stones that even include some of the symbols seen on the Kensington Rune and links to the Archer Reliquary found in Jamestown via the very same symbols. More soon!! The book will use a wider scope than this article. I am continuing my research into this interesting subject now.

Bradbury Cort Lindahl 4/24/18

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