Harold Nunn stands beside a large granite rock that might have been a Native American grindstone. Mr. Nunn has spoken with local folks who have seen this type of rock with a large ball sitting in the dent for grinding nuts or corn. This rock is in a family’s back yard in Greensboro, near Caspian Lake. Photos by Bethany M. Dunbar
STANNARD — Harold Nunn is on a mission.
Mr. Nunn has, in recent years, been researching places around the area that might have historic significance as Native American sites.
These spots are not well known. It is quite possible to walk by them and not realize there is anything out of the ordinary around. Most are on privately owned property.
In one case, an underground stone chamber large enough to almost stand up straight inside is practically invisible from the outside until one is standing right in front of it. Other sites are large granite stones that seem to be shaped with a bowl-shaped hollow by long use as grindstones. The distinctive shape suggests its purpose once it is recognized. But until then, it’s just a big odd-shaped rock.
Mr. Nunn’s interest was sparked after he was asked to speak about early farming at a meeting of the Hardwick Area History Advocates (HAHA).
“I made the statement that the first farmers were the Indians and mentioned the site of the stone chamber in Elmore.”
Mr. Nunn knew of a few of these sites through local lore. He has spoken with a man whose father recognized one of the grindstones.
“He knew because his father grew up in Maine with the Penobscot Indians.”
People in that family remembered this particular stone from the 1930s with a round granite ball sitting in its hollow, suggesting that the ball was used to grind nuts or corn.
Mr. Nunn said he has mixed feelings about the Vermont Supreme Court ruling rejecting official recognition of the Abenaki people. He said he can
This rock, which is near the shore of West Hill Pond in Cabot, appears reddish inside the dent. Before the dam was built, this rock would have been on the shore of a river or pond area rather than out in the lake.
understand why the state would be concerned about the ramifications of officially recognizing the tribe.
“By the same token I’m ashamed to admit that my ancestors gave the Indians a hard time,” he said. “There’s no doubt but what the Indians have always lived in Vermont.”
On a whirlwind tour one day this fall, Mr. Nunn took this reporter to sites near Caspian Lake, Eligo Lake, a site near the Creek Road in Craftsbury, a stone chamber in Woodbury, and a stone on the edge of West Hill Pond in Cabot.
Mr. Nunn has spent a considerable amount of time not only looking for sites but also trying to find people who know about them. Some of the people who live near the stone chamber in Woodbury say they think it was built by settlers rather than Native Americans. And some say they think it was a spring instead of a storage chamber.
The theory seems unlikely to Mr. Nunn. For one thing, the chamber is a long distance from the nearest house. It is at the height of land and built in granite in an area with good drainage. There is some moisture but little water inside it, and there are steps leading down into it, suggesting people would go in rather than just dipping in with a pail.
“It doesn’t make sense that it was used as a spring,” he said. He said he also believes that the stone chambers show the people were staying for a substantial amount of time, not just passing through.
“If they were just passing through or here just in summer they wouldn’t have put that much work into it,” he said. He believes it was possible that the men traveled to trap and hunt while the women and children stayed back in the camps. Possibly the women and children built the stone chamber.
“I wouldn’t rule it out.”
This stone chamber, built on high ground in the town of Woodbury, is hard to spot unless one knows what one is looking for.
Mr. Nunn mentioned that a 3,000-year-old spear point was found near the Clyde River, which makes him think his theories have some validity.
In an effort to explore these theories, Mr. Nunn has been contacting folks who might have some expertise in the subject. This search led him to John Dunlap of Brandon, a retired teacher of humanities who has served as a board member and as a state coordinator for the New England Antiquities Research Association.
Mr. Dunlap has yet to visit the sites, but after seeing some photographs of them, his interest is piqued.
“All I really know is that I want to come see that stuff,” he said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
He said it is hard to say what kind of sites they are, but they certainly merit some study. Asked if he believes these sites were created by Native Americans, Mr. Dunlap replied that it’s difficult to define that term. Would that mean anyone who lived on this continent before 1492? The ancestors of those folks might have come from Europe or Asia.
Mr. Dunlap noted that the sites in the Northeast Kingdom and central Vermont might have been built by Passamoquoddy people, who spoke English and grew fruit orchards. They were, “for lack of a better word, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Indians.”
He added that “Just recently, Pima Indians were identified genetically as Japanese.”
Three years before the Grand Canyon was made into a national park, a troupe of explorers from the Smithsonian discovered a cave under what is known as the Isis Temple formation inside the canyon, Mr. Dunlap said. The explorers found 40 mummies, bronze weapons, bronze and stone cups, and a giant Buddha. Not what one might have expected of southwestern Native American tribes, but food for thought nonetheless.
Where Mr. Nunn’s mission might lead from here is hard to tell. He is mainly interested in making sure some younger folks will get interested, so the sites won’t be forgotten or lost when he is gone.
Mr. Nunn was brought up in Danville. His father was a granite manufacturer, Byron Nunn. His mother was Elizabeth Porter Nunn. His father died of tuberculosis when he was little, and his mother had an arrested case of it. He also had a sister who died of it in her mid-twenties. Mr. Nunn lived with a local minister’s family for part of the time when he was growing up.
His first memories of learning about Native Americans involved a small diorama that a teacher of his in Hardwick had set up. She was part of the
Whoever built this chamber made steps to get in and out. Harold Nunn believes it was used for food storage.
Rowell family.
“She had a sandbox set up with an Indian scene in it, birch bark wigwams, etc.” That was common practice in those days.
“I’ve always had a kind of a faint interest in Indian life,” he said.
Mr. Nunn has always enjoyed traveling, and he started looking around in eastern Canada at an early age. Through those travels he learned about the native peoples in that neck of the woods.
In his third year of high school Mr. Nunn left school. There was a bad case of the flu bug going around and lots of people were out around Christmas time.
“There was no one teaching chemistry and physics that year,” he said. It seemed he was spinning his wheels. It was 1943 and he realized he would probably be going into the service.
It turned out not to be the case. His family’s history of tuberculosis kept him out. But all that didn’t stop him from figuring things out on his own.
“I’m mainly self-taught in everything I’ve ever done.”
One of those endeavors was figuring out how radios worked.
“I filled in keeping radios in the area repaired during the war.”
That became a business for him, which led him to sell and repair the first televisions. This was in 1950, and folks up on high ground got reception from Schenectady, New York.
“I got acquainted with a lot of the local farmers who lived up on these hill farms.” He remembers Lester Anderson of South Albany, for example.
“It was a lot of fun. Course I had the first operating one in Hardwick. Anything you saw you saw through a snowstorm. But I was able to see MacArthur’s return.”
Mr. Nunn met his wife through a mutual friend. Her maiden name was Mavis Winchester and she worked cooking at Sterling College for 25 years. The two were married in 1967 and settled on her family’s home farm on Stannard Mountain. Her grandfather built both the house and barn.
Mr. Nunn has been self employed most of the time and always worked alone. He is retired now.
His hobbies are hunting and fishing, which led to an understanding of the land and theories of how the butternut trees growing along the rivers might have been planted by Native Americans who were often traveling up and down them.
“I realize now that a lot of the children I grew up with had Indian blood in them.”
Asked if he thought they knew it, Mr. Nunn said, “I think some did and some didn’t.”
Many families tried to hide it in those days.
Much the way Native Americans didn’t consider the land belonging to anyone, Mr. Nunn is not looking for any particular recognition for his efforts. He would just like to see the research continued.
“I don’t claim much credit for finding these sites. I’m just collecting information.”
