The Lost Viking City on the Charles (episode 275)

Transcript

Music

Jake:
[0:05] Welcome to Hub History, where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the hub of the universe.
This is episode 275 the lost Viking city on the Charles River.
Hi, I’m Jake. This week, I’m revisiting a topic from one of our very earliest episodes, back in February 2017, our 17th episode covered a once widely held belief that seafaring Norseman had established a thriving city along the banks of the Charles River in an area spanning today’s Cambridge, Watertown, Newton and Weston.
Back when that original episode was recorded, I didn’t include very many primary sources and my research and writing skills just weren’t as good as they are.
Now, the entire episode was only about 15 minutes long.
And by the time you cut out all the filler material, the actual story was told in less than 4.5 minutes.
Today, I’m revisiting the story of the lost ancient city of Norumbega, which researchers at the turn of the 20th century believed had been founded by Leif Erickson himself.
But before we talk about Vikings on the Charles River, I just want to pause and say a big thank you to a few sponsors of Hub History.

[1:24] First up, I want to say thanks to Fred W who made a one time contribution via paypal.
I know I always focus on our monthly sponsors but one time gifts like Fred’s give me an important buffer to be able to deal with expenses that pop up unexpectedly.
Speaking of our monthly sponsors, though, I also want to say a big thanks to our latest sponsor, Barbara B along with Barbara, I also want to acknowledge two longtime Patreon supporters who recently changed their support tiers.

[1:57] Jonathan P just doubled his support from $5 to $10 a month.
And Deborah R recently cut her support from $50 to $5 a month.
Now, it may seem odd for me to be thanking someone who reduced her support.
But Deborah reached out last fall after I announced my five figure copyright infringement settlement.
She let me know that she couldn’t do it forever, but she was bumping up her support temporarily to help me offset that potentially crippling and unexpected expense.
Deborah became my very 1st $50 a month sponsor and she kept that level of support up for months to Barbara Deborah, Jonathan and everyone who supports the show over the long haul. Thank you.
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Thanks again to all our new and returning sponsors and now it’s time for this week’s main topic.

[3:22] Back when I was a back bay tour guide, I always loved walking down the mall with my guests.
It’s a beautiful oasis of trees, playful dogs and public art in the midst of the city.
Starting from the public garden. I would walk past statues of Alexander Hamilton Continental General Glover, former mayor Collins and the memorial to the firefighters killed in the collapse of the Vendome Hotel at the corner of Dartmouth Street, continuing further down the line.
There’s a statue of abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison and beloved local historian Samuel Elliott Morrison, the beautiful women’s memorial of Phyllis Wheatley Lucy Stone and Abigail Adams.
And there’s a statue of a random Argentinian president outbound for mass Ave.
We start very quickly running out of room for statues but right at the Charles Gate, there’s one more Leaf Erickson, the famous Viking.
He stands on a tall plinth gazing west toward Kenmore Square with one hand raised to his brow to shade his eyes against the evening sun.

[4:28] At the time, it was dedicated in 18 87 the statue sat a few feet closer to mass ave.
It was moved later for traffic purposes, but leaf was already facing west.

[4:40] The statue was commissioned by Eben Horsford who was a professor at Harvard for a decade and a half and it was Horsford who delivered an address at the unveiling drawing on years of study.
He explained the evidence that he had seen in ancient Icelandic Sagas that a Viking captain named Jarni was blown off course on his way to Greenland and landed on an unknown shore, following Ney’s records leaf Erickson was able to rediscover that unknown coast.
And then another captain named Thor Fin further explored it from this evidence.
In the Sagas, Horsford announced in his address through Leaf and Birney.
The American continent was discovered by Norman and Leaf was the first European to set foot on its shores.
The first to tread the soil of Massachusetts in the years following this address, Professor Horsford expanded on his theory of the Norse exploration of Massachusetts many times, eventually making it clear that in his own mind, at least the statue of Leaf Erickson was gazing out across the Charles River at Leaf Erickson’s own home.

[5:49] In an 18 89 paper titled The Problem of the Northman Horsford wrote, if anyone interested will walk from the junction of Elmwood Avenue with Mount Auburn Street, the residence of Professor Lowell in Cambridge.
A few rods down the street to Jerry’s landing and then follow the ancient bank lane to the point of crossing the rivulet draining the eastern slope of Mount Auburn into the Charles, he’ll be at the site of the objects of interest which had once been there and which I had predicted might there be found.

[6:20] There are in the inequalities of the surface. The remains of two long log houses and huts or cots, possibly not less than five huts along a declivity of moderate grade.
Some nearer, some farther from the water.
The site of Leaf’s house was near the south end of the ancient Bluff of Simmons Hill and immediately behind the point known as Jerry’s Landing.
You can walk down Mount Auburn Street in Cambridge today and see a small stone marker that Professor Horsford placed which states on this spot in the year 1000 Leif Erickson built his house in Finland.

[7:01] Now you might be surprised to learn that Leaf Erickson had a house in Cambridge.
And if so, you’ll be even more surprised to learn that the lower Charles River was the site of a thriving nor city around the turn of the first millennium.
In another paper in 18 90 titled The Discovery of the Ancient City of Norumbega.
Professor Eben Horsford described his astounding findings not just in the Ancient Sagas but inscribed in the earth and stone of the banks of the Charles River.
As I prophesied from the literature of geography, the finding of Fort Norumbega at the junction of Stony Brook with the Charles and went to the spot and found it.
And as I deduced the site of the remains of leaf’s houses in Finland for the necessities which the strict construction of the Sagas required and went to the spot where I had indicated that the remains had once been and found them there more than a year after the prediction was announced.
So I have arrived by inevitable deduction at the Seaton Center of the early colony of Northman in America here.
Besides the conveniences for piling undercover, the maser blocks there were storehouses for dried salmon, for the pelts purchased in its season, and not impossibly for the Indian corn grown on the plains of Newton, Danvers Milli and Holliston.

[8:23] On the shores above and below were naturally shops for barter and dwellings for all classes.
And necessarily with the culture of the Northman provision for amusement, for public worship.
And the once of government, the all thing to which these early, perhaps earliest self governing people were accustomed, here was the ancient seaport of Finland for the colony that came after Thor and left to which in 11 21 Bishop Upsy came to hold the symbols of the faith, the basin wharves, docks, canals of this ancient sea port underlie the city of Watertown today and are connected with and serve its most prominent industries.
Here came and went. The commerce of the Northman first, later the commerce of the Frenchman and possibly of still other peoples here at the modern Watertown was the ancient city of Norumbega.

[9:24] Wasn’t the first time that he had described his discovery of Viking ruins along the Charles as the fulfillment of a prophecy.
In that 18 89 problem of the Northman paper Horsford said in response to a critic, the site of Fort Norumbega was first found in the literature of the subject.
And when I had eliminated every doubt of the locality that I could find, I drove with a friend through a region that I had never before visited of the topography of which I knew nothing nine miles away directly to the remains of the ford.
These remains and the region immediately about were at once surveyed and mapped for me by the city engineer.
In a certain sense, there was in this discovery, the fulfillment of a prophecy, on the basis of the literature of the subject, I had predicted the finding of Fort Norumbega at a particular spot.
I went to the spot and found it.
No test of the genuineness of scientific deduction is regarded as superior to this.

[10:28] As far as the professor was concerned, that prophecy had led him to the site of a lost ancient city described in the sagas.
And in many legends since then, in the discovery of the ancient city of Norumbega, he identified the site of that lost city as the banks of the Charles River in a section bounded by Weston, Newton and Waltham.
In fact, Horsford had a stone tower built right along the bank of the Charleston Weston on coincidentally Norumbega road in commemoration of this lost city, you can still go visit it today.
Now, why would Vikings have established a city along the Charles?
Their permanent home was in Greenland, which was lacking in one key resource, as more clever people than me have pointed out.
Greenland is mostly ice and Iceland is mostly green in icy Greenland.
There were essentially no trees that could be burned for fuel or cut for lumber.
As the British settlers who made their homes here over 500 years later would discover there were plenty of trees on our shores large enough for any construction project or even the masts of the Royal Navy.

[11:44] Horsford went on to describe the profitable industry that Lee Erickson and Thorin established here.

[11:51] Maser wood, as I will presently explain to you was, the burrs are large warts that occasionally grow on certain trees more frequently found in primitive forests.
As oak, one variety is called bur oak birch, hickory maple or ash.
There were monuments of the presence of the Northman on every square mile of the basin of the Charles.
I find I must at once tell you what these monuments are.
We have no account of the transportation by the Northman except by water.
The maser wood gathered by Thorin we have just seen was floated to the ship which lay in the Charles and then taken from the water to be piled on a chip or bluff.
A bank out of the reach of high tide to dry.

[12:40] We will assume what I cannot now stop to dwell on.
I’ve discussed it elsewhere at length that the spot where this occurred in Thorson’s experience was at or near Jerry’s landing just above the ancient bluff known as Simmons Hill by the river.
The site of Leaf’s house near the city hospital.
That was the spot where a great industry in Finland began.
The maser blocks were felt in hen at first along the neighboring bluffs on the Charles at the base of these bluffs are still ditches or canals into which the blocks may have been rolled.
And a long witch after the ditches were filled with water at high tide, the blocks were floated down to where the ship lay.
The ship was the gathering place.

[13:27] The blocks had been brought to the ship. They were not taken on board immediately but removed from the water and carried by hand and piled on a cliff to dry.
When the immediate shores of the river had been exhausted. Of this maser wood, the shores of the tributaries flowing into the river became a field of activity and the maser blocks were sent floating down the streams and where the streams were remote from the bases of the slopes on either side and sources of water were at hand canals or nearly level troughs were dug to transport the blocks to the streams and ultimately to the Charles, we now see why dams and ponds were necessary at the mouths of the streams to prevent the blocks from going down the Charles without a convoy and out to sea to be lost.
Consider as an example, the pond at the mouth of the Cold Spring Brook opposite Watertown.
I call its artificial wall below a boom dam. It’s a good example.

[14:27] There’s another striking one just below Newton upper falls on the left bank through the ridge, the volume of water of the stream spread out against the dam would become on the brow too shallow for the blocks to pass over.
They would thus be saved as logs are by a boom across the stream down which they’re floating.
There is an admirable canal walled along one side for 1000 ft along the west bank of Stony Brook in the woods above the Fitchburg railroad crossing between Waltham and Weston.
The Cheesecake Brook is another and cold spring Brook yet another.
There’s an interesting dry canal near Murray Street. Not far from Newtonville.
It may be seen from the railway cars on the right a little to the east of Eddie Street approaching Boston.
These are among the monuments. The forts, dwelling places surrounded by water and in their day, also by stockades gave examples of ditches such as we have surrounding the ancient fort near the tower.

[15:32] The canals, ditches, deltas, boom dams, ponds, fish ways, forts, dwellings, walls, terraces of theater and amphitheater scattered throughout the basin of the Charles are the monuments I had in mind when I said there was not a square mile draining into the river that lacked an incontestable monument of the presence of the North Men.
If you suddenly find yourself looking around and wondering why you never noticed that you’re living among the ruins of a Grand Norse society.
You’re not alone in the summer 1900 issue of the journal American anthropologist Gerald Falk Bemoans, the general indifference of Boston area residents to the Viking Empire that once surrounded their homes.
Few persons living among the evidence of Norse occupancy in the valley of the Charles River have ever paid any particular attention to them taking for granted that they are the work of the earlier generations of English inhabitants of the region.

[16:33] Those however, who are sufficiently interested in the study of antiquity to give more than a passing thought to these objects of unknown origin can see at once that many features connected with them, not only would have been unsuitable for any of the necessities of the latter people as they were then compelled to live, but could not have been turned to any practical use when completed.
Such a conclusion is followed at once by the inference that they must pertain in some way to the social or political customs in vogue among the American Indians.
It being quite natural thus, to account for the existence within our territory of any form or result of human industry in which we, with our present methods and habits can see neither utility nor purpose.

[17:19] It does not require an extended acquaintance with aboriginal remains to convince the observer of the error of this inference.
The two classes of works are so entirely different in many of their most distinctive characters that a person who has had an opportunity of becoming somewhat familiar with both will readily perceive that they must be due to people who could have had but little in common in their habits of life.
Nothing more than would be expected of different races living under conditions.
Somewhat the same peculiar to the Valley of the Charles or the hut sites excavated in the hillsides with their rows or piles of boulders to afford a resting place or foundation for the walls of the structures.
The ditches that extend with practically a water level along the slopes of the hills, the dams that obstruct the river and many of its tributaries on both sides, the artificial islands walled or protected with stones, the stone walls along the margin of the streamss between high and low tide.
None of these has a counterpart in any known works which can be attributed to Indian habits of life.

[18:28] This is perhaps the right moment to mention that Professor Horsford may have been a Harvard professor, but he was definitely not a historian at the time of the unveiling of the leaf Erickson statue.
He was 69 years old and he’d been retired from Harvard for almost a quarter century.
He was a very wealthy man. Perhaps not the equivalent of a billionaire today, but certainly a multi multimillionaire.
And he seemed to suffer from the same delusion that some of the wealthiest Americans suffer from today.
That being very good at one pursuit, good enough to get rich at.
It means that you’ll automatically be good at a different unrelated pursuit.
Um Elon Musk.

[19:15] Growing up in Vermont and upstate New York, Eben Norton Horsford was always scientifically minded as a kid.
He collected fossils around the family farm and sketched plants and animals.
As he got a little bit older, he got good grades in school and eventually got an appointment to college.
After graduating in 18 38 he taught math and natural history at a girls school for a few years.
And then he moved to Newark College and taught chemistry seeking to climb the academic ladder.
He began specializing in food science.
A 19 oh eight biographical sketch from the New England Historic Genealogical Society Notes.
In 18 44 he went to Germany to study Chemistry and spent two years at Giesen under Baron Liebig.
On returning to America. He was elected to the Rumford professorship with the application of science to the useful arts at Harvard University.
His investigations in chemistry led to inventions which proved to be of large use and of great commercial value.
And in 18 63 he retired from this position and gave his attention to manufacturers based upon these inventions.

[20:30] Interestingly, it was Professor John White Webster subject of one of our earliest episodes who recommended Horsford for the Rumford chair.
After his 16 years at Harvard Horsford devised a new and better method for producing baking powder and he founded the Rumford Chemical Works which manufactured Rumford baking powder, which you can still find in grocery stores today.
An obituary by Charles Jackson in the proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences of which Horsford was a member catalogs some of Horsford advances in food science, other inventions of this class do not appear in the list of his scientific papers but include his most valuable work.
Such are his fundamental improvements in the art of making cider.
At that time, a large industry in New England and the invention of condensed milk.
Another of these important inventions was the phosphatic yeast powder.
The object of which was to return to the bread, the phosphates lost in bolting the flour.
In 18 56 he undertook the manufacture of this yeast powder.
Founding the Rumford Chemical Works for this purpose which was enhanced later by the use of the acid portion of the yeast powder as a medicine and a beverage under the name of acid phosphate.

[21:53] Along with his contributions to the chemistry of cooking and eating.
Evan Horsford was civically minded as another obituary.
This one from the Harvard Crimson makes clear outside of his professional career.
Professor Horsford engaged in many works of general utility.
One of his first works on returning from Germany was to investigate and select the proper material for the service pipes of the Boston Waterworks.
He was a member of the committee for the Defense of Boston Harbor in the Civil war.
He also devised a marching ration for the army which was very widely adopted in 18 73.
He was one of the United States commissioners to the World’s Fair in Vienna and in 18 76 he was commissioner at the centennial exhibition in Philadelphia.
So Eben Horsford was a talented chemist, a successful entrepreneur and an aging retiree.
How did he become the leading proponent of the theory that Vikings settled in North America?
One of the only proponents of the idea that their settlement was in Massachusetts and a well regarded at least at that time.
Amateur historian Jackson’s obituary points to evidence that his interest in New England history was kindled while summering at his in-laws house on Shelter Island, a refuge for the wealthy off the tip of Long Island near the Hamptons.

[23:20] He usually spent his summers on Shelter Island and these were the parts of the year which he enjoyed the most, the scenery of the island is beautiful and restful, the climate delicious.
And the old manor house with the estate which has been in the family from the time of the Indians full of the most interesting associations.
He soon became interested in studying the antiquities of the place and of the family and erected monuments to the Quakers who were sheltered here from puritan persecution.
Afterward, these antiquarian studies took a broader field from a chance reference.
Let fall by one of his guests to the legendary Norumbega and furnished him with an engrossing and congenial occupation for the later years of his life.
This interest in history which was sparked by exploring his in-laws estate, came at roughly the same time that the idea that Vikings may have explored the shores of North America was first being put forth.
And while Horsford didn’t originate the idea, he quickly became its most famous and most wealthy supporter.

[24:27] In a 2007 paper in the New England Quarterly Patricia, Jane Royl explains, enthusiasm for a punitive Viking settlement and the relics it left behind exploded around 18 37 when Danish scholar Karl Raffin issued his anti American eye.
Uh please excuse my terrible pronunciation of the Latin in it.
He argued that the Ancient Icelandic Sagas detailing the journeys of Leaf Erickson and of subsequent adventurers supported a Viking discovery of the new world around the turn of the millennium.
He translated the Sagas and matched their geographic descriptions to elements of New England’s topography.

[25:14] Rain’s assertion was followed by a number of books and papers by other authors.
Among them, Asael Davis, who published a lecture in 18 40 describing the evidence that he believed lay in the Sagas concluding and who is among the first known discoverers who are not ready to answer Columbus.
A different answer might surprise. Some one is given in the name of the Norseman.
It is asserted that Leaf A Norseman was the first to discover the country south of Greenland.
Birney sailed from Norway directed by the stars for Greenland, but being driven by the winds for several days to the south, he saw an island probably Newfoundland.

[26:00] The discovery of America by the Norseman excites a vast deal of curiosity.
And is it not a laudable curiosity that leads one to ascertain what white men first trod regions in which the modest wildflower wasted its sweetness on the desert air as geography is one of the eyes of history.
It would be well at this time to direct the attention to the map of North America and to those of Massachusetts in particular, to understand why Horsford and so many of his New England contemporaries latched onto the idea that Vikings first discovered New England.
We first have to understand why the very idea of discovering North America was important to them.
With Roy writing in her 2007 paper, the Finland hypothesis possessed enormous cultural cachet from the 18 thirties to the 18 nineties due largely to its appeal to regional pride and its implication in racial politics.
The narrative of a Pre Colombian Viking visit to the area conferred distinction on the New England region.
Even as the very concept of European discovery provided a convenient distraction from the troubling specter of Native American land claims.

[27:16] New Englanders latched on to rain’s theory. The region’s economic and cultural stature was diminishing during this period and locating the first European landfall and sustained settlement on their very doorstep, flattered their bruised egos.

[27:33] Gerald Falk became one of Horsford disciples. And in the issue of the journal of American anthropologist for the summer of 1900 he situates the supposed norse ruins along the Charles River as a convenient replacement for evidence of the region’s native American past, of those apparent habitations of the norse which bears some resemblance to what is of undoubted aboriginal construction, the dwellings of leaf and Thor fin may 1st be considered.
These are situated one on each side of a little stream which falls into the Charles at the Cambridge Hospital.
They are rectangular in form and of a size sufficient to accommodate several families living in the old Scandinavian fashion.
The walls were of stones and turf, principally the ladder and of a thickness altogether out of proportion with the size of the dwelling.

[28:29] Very little. If any of that part which was above ground now remains the earth being blown away and the stone scattered, but enough of the foundation may be seen to enable their outlines to be traced.
It is probable that wood entered into their construction to some extent but no trace of this would be left after such a great lapse of time, the long houses of the Iroquois and some of the larger houses built by the Chippewa had the same general form as these two dwellings.
But with that, the resemblance ceases no foundation was necessary in the Indian House.
And it was made principally or entirely of wood and bark.
As a rule, the framework was made of posts set upright in the ground to service supports on which were fastened the poles and twigs that formed the walls.

[29:23] Horsford first announced this belief in the Viking settlement theory.
In a March 18 85 letter to the President of the American Geographical Society, in it, he explores the root of the name Norumbega today.
Of course, it’s the name of a road in Weston and the descriptor of the area along the Charles where he believed that Vikings lived.
But it was also included in the earliest maps of New England by European cartographers.
So some of Horsford contemporaries believed that it was of Norse origin.
In his early letter, Horsford tried to establish exactly where the name Norumbega came from as there were no proper Indian geographical names.
And as Norumbega was descriptive of topographical or hydrographic features.
The first task was to find its meaning that might help in finding the locality to this end.
Aid was long sought in vain in the vocabularies, it seemed an obvious algonquin word.
But in any form of ready recognition, any form that familiar dialectic variation would include at least within range of my limited study.
It eluded my search.

[30:39] Horsford letter that includes a long discussion of how he discovered or at least he thought he discovered the root of the name Norumbega in native languages.
He traced the evolution of Kennebec in Maine to Quinnipiac in Connecticut and theorized that pronunciation grew easier as one moved south along the coast because life grew easier with warmer weather.
And he explicitly compared that to difficult Norwegian pronunciations getting easier as one moves south to Italy.
His letter continues finding linguistic evidence of the Ancient Viking Norumbega and the names of geographical features along the Massachusetts coast.

[31:22] Of course, all this presupposes that Norumbega did exist on Massachusetts Bay.
So it was pretty easy for him to convince himself that he had found evidence to support his foregone conclusion, of the Indian names preserved in the days of Captain John Smith 16 14 along the coast between the Merrimack and the Charles.
There are but two that begin within na hunt and then task the latter, the headland on the south side of the entrance to Boston Harbor, the mouth of the Charles.
We have already seen John Cabot’s inscription of Norumbega as a country as animated above.
It will be seen that the name was a mere descriptive Appalachian only permanent to an observer from a given point and changing from Nabi to Ham with a change in the point of observation.

[32:17] This name, Nabi is the only name preserved to us between the Merrimack and the Charles that it all suggests Norumbega, having read that passage and more of the letter that it was taken from, I got very confused as to how Eben Horsford had enough familiarity with Algonquian languages to perform this analysis even if his conclusions were of doubtful reliability. At best.
Jackson’s obituary notes that Horsford grew up near Charlotte Vermont as the son of a missionary to the Seneca Nation and continues.
It’s interesting to note that a favorite amusement was collecting the fossils which abounded on his father’s farm.
As this recreation of his boyhood undoubtedly turned his thoughts toward the natural sciences to which so large a part of his manhood was devoted to which so large a part of his manhood was devoted.
While at the same time, his early association with the Seneca Indians who flocked to his father’s house in large numbers familiarized him with Indian words and pronunciation and thus paved the way for the philological and archaeological studies of his older years.
So Horsford had some degree of exposure to native American languages, but I still think we should take his conclusions with a boulder size grain of salt.

[33:44] While the marginalization of Native American heritage and land claims was probably an unconscious response and a product of its times, there was another impetus behind the Viking settlement theory.
This was also a product of its times. But I think it was much more deliberate, by giving the Norseman credit for settling Massachusetts, Horsford.
And his adherents were taking credit away from the Catholic Italian Columbus.

[34:13] The old Yankee families who could trace their lineage to the Mayflower or the Arbella fleet could imagine that these Vikings were among their ancestors because the Norse had colonized Britain over a century before supposedly arriving here in Boston.
Not only that, but the Scandinavian monarchies have been among the earliest to adopt protestantism at the beginning of the reformation, at a time when mass immigration from Italy was ramping up in a Boston that was still reeling from the influx of Irish immigrants.
40 years earlier, Protestant Yankee Boston was looking for a hero along with his linguistic analysis.
The 18 85 Horsford letter that I just quoted from also describes how he examined the Viking Sagas and textual accounts from early European explorers.
And he came up with three conclusions.

[35:07] I submit first that the site of the landfall of John Cabot in 14 97 has been determined to be Salem neck, the norm, the neck to one standing on it of the Norumbega of Cabot and the hum of the Nam Beak of Ogilvy and Smith.
The first land seen may have been Cape Ann or possibly the Mountain Agaicus.
Second that the town of Norumbega on the river of Norumbega of Elephants and the fort of Norumbega and the village of the Ageny of the, were on the Charles River between riverside and Waltham at the mouth of the Stony Brook.
Third that John Cabot preceded Columbus in the discovery of America.
I am very truly yours. E N Horsford.

[36:04] In Horsford mind it was very important that Christopher Columbus did not reach the mainland of the North American continent until his fourth voyage in 15 oh two.
Well, Cabot who sailed on behalf of the English King Henry the seventh arrived in North America five years earlier.
According to Horsford Capt was following in the footsteps of Leaf Erickson by landing at Salem Neck close to Erickson’s one time home.

[36:32] I should mention here that modern historians believe that both Cabot and the earlier Norsemen came no further south than Newfoundland.
In her 2007 paper in the New England Quarterly Patricia, Jane Roland S emphasizes how this assertion met with both excited embrace and skeptical rejection from the history community in greater Boston, elevating leaf Erickson had the effect of demoting Christopher Columbus and locating ground zero of European presence in the western hemisphere in the future mainland United States, in contrast to Columbus’s landfall in the West Indies, thus, European discovery could be claimed as a national, not simply a continental legacy.
One conferring special prestige on New England opinions, however, did not always map neatly under regional affiliations.
The Massachusetts historical society and the Harvard intelligentsia tended to discredit the Finland hypothesis in large part because they thought that it detracted from the acclaim due to the puritan pioneers.
Many of these individuals had descended from first generation puritan settlers and they regarded themselves as the principal intellectual conservators of the Puritan legacy.

[37:50] Others had written books about Columbus to coincide with the nation’s centennial and the quad Centenary of Columbus’s voyage.
And they were both professionally and monetarily invested in the standard story of discovery.
The Watertown Historical Society. On the other hand, was delighted with the Viking excitement.
Watertown, which had far fewer claims to historical greatness than its neighbors in Cambridge and Boston had been identified as the probable site of Norumbega.
The Finland settlements main town, understandably then Watertown’s historically oriented residents embraced Finland scholarship even though many considered it highly dubious with the hope that it would enhance the town’s status.

[38:37] When I first started researching Horsford and the Viking settlement theory, I thought that maybe his views were the historical consensus or at least a local consensus.
After all, we have the plaque dedicated to Leaf Erickson along Mount Auburn Street in Cambridge, the statue of Leaf on Cal Ave and the tower that Horsford built in Weston.
So it really seems like an accepted theory.
A skeptical 18 91 review of one of Horsford books in the journal Science says otherwise, he believes that he has discovered its stone built walls, its ancient stone paved streets and the remains of its docks and wharves, other local antiquaries see in these remains merely the vestiges of some dams, drains and stone fences of the early New England farmers.
And it appears that Professor Horsford has not succeeded in persuading any of the resident investigators of his interpretation that he has so much at heart.
Horsford obituary in the proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences describes how even academic opposition to his Norumbega findings helped raise his profile and get more attention for his theories.

[39:51] These conclusions of his met with much opposition as was to be expected.
But they brought him an invitation to take part in the Scientific proceedings of the Society of American in Spain in commemoration of the Discovery of America by Columbus, to which he responded by the paper on the name of America.
And also led to his creation by the king of Denmark as a knight commander of the third grade of the order of Dannen brag in October 18 92 an honor which has found few parallels in America.

[40:25] Writing about Norse discoveries in America and the bulletin of the American Geographical Society in 19 oh one, El Dieser questioned whether it was possible that Vikings reached Massachusetts at all.

[40:38] The question. Now, before the historian and antiquarian is not whether the hardy North sailors of the 11th century reached the American continent after having established themselves in its Antechamber Greenland.
The question is how far South they proceeded and whether or not they established a permanent settlement in any of the newly discovered regions.
The first of these points can only be settled in one of two ways.
Either there must be discovered, unmistakable archaeological traces of the Norseman of that remote period or the geographical hints and descriptions given in the sagas may be followed and a locality fixed upon chiefly by process of exclusion.
The former of these methods has been repeatedly employed, its climax having been reached in the well meaning but exceedingly doubtful conjectures of Professor E N Horsford.
All attempts along this line thus far have however been fruitless of results.

[41:39] Notice that he doesn’t question whether the Norman reached the North American continent.
The Icelandic Sagas were considered a reliable historic record.
At the time and they still are with one asterisk.
The saga were passed down by word of mouth for something like 400 years before finally being written down as an oral history.
Today’s scholars treat the sagas as a reliable source for the general outline of history, but they’ve learned to discount the finer details found within the stories.

[42:13] By the time Asael Davis published his account of the Viking Discovery of Newfoundland in 18 40 that asterisk didn’t exist yet in his accounts.
And other early proponents of the theory who influenced Horsford Davis makes tremendous leaps of logic from very sketchy details to explain how the Norseman made their way from the coast of Newfoundland to our Boston environs.

[42:40] They sailed southwesterly with a fair wind two days before seeing land again.
When they passed down a promontory, probably the east side of Cape Cod stretching east and north.
Then turning west between an island, Martha’s Vineyard and the mainland.
They entered a bay, Narragansett Bay through which a river flowed Taunton river, when they came to Ankara and went ashore, resolving to spend the winter here.
They called the place leaf spi air or place of booths here. Finding grapes vary plenty.
They call the place Finland or Wineland, the good, If we accept the Icelandic Sagas as a historical source, a close reading of the text provides evidence that Vikings from Greenland explored the North American coast and found three lands.
Heiland Marland and Finland being rich in flat stones, timber and wine grapes respectively.
In his 19 oh one paper, Dieser accepts the broad strokes of this explanation but questions Horsford conclusion that Finland lay along the banks of the Charles.

[43:56] Where on the American coast, can anything like it be found?
It is only too plain that the region around Boston does not fit the description at all in order to make it at all probable that the Boston region was mint.
Professor Horsford had to chop up the Saga of Thorin in a most uncalled for and pitiless manner.
And the worst of the matter is that he could not even then make his case good.
While it is evident from the context of the saga that Thorin sailed to the southwest proceeding until he came to a river that flowed from the east toward the west, at the mouth of which he lay by.
Professor Horsford succeeds in making himself believe that this applies wonderfully.
Well, to the Charles river which flows in that direction for a little distance between Cambridge Cemetery and Warren Bridge.
This is assuredly giving us stones for bread.
The same wonderful brand of logic makes Thorvald explore the same river.
When it stated in the saga that they proceeded along the western coast from leaf booths.

[45:01] It is only eclipsed by the ease with which he makes him return to Garnett from Cape Cod.
When the Saga expressly states that they sailed away Vince to the eastward, as pointed out by many, the chances are however very small that anything will be found for the simple reason that the Norseman as already mentioned, evidently failed to affect a settlement of the country.
The Sagas did not contain a single statement from which to draw the opposite conclusion.
And Professor Fisk justly lays stress on the fact that no descendants of European domestic animals were ever met with in North America.
500 years later, the only structures erected by the explorers probably were the dwellings of Thorin, possibly wooden framed houses resting on cornerstones or wooden blocks for which it would be vain to look at this late date.
The fish pits dug in the sand would not under favorable circumstances last for 50 years.
And the palisades would rot down long before the advent of the 19th century, an ax or sword blade might be found. It’s true.
But until some such relic is produced, we shall be justified in expecting it to turn up in Nova Scotia rather than in New England.
However, fervently our patriotism may desire the latter alternative.

[46:26] Eben Norton Horsford passed away in 18 93. At the height of his advocacy for the Norse settlement theory.
The torch will be taken up by his daughter, Cornelia Horsford just after her father’s death, Cornelia led an excavation in Cambridge that she believed uncovered.
The ruins of the home of Norse explorer Thorin Carl Safy.
The results of which were published in the March 18 98 issue of National Geographic.
In this article, she compares the foundation that she uncovered to typical Icelandic houses from the Viking era.

[47:03] The ruins found where one had every reason to hope to find traces of the houses built in Finland by Leif Erickson and his followers did not differ in their essential features from those of Iceland.
In the Saga time, the situations were similar, the walls were laid in the same way and were of the same thickness and the fireplaces were constructed as they were in the habit of constructing them at home.
Probably the reader will contrast these different dwellings of the Norsemen with those of the native tribes of North America.
From the magnificent ruins of Copan to the long narrow houses of the Iroquois and will detect the similarities and differences between these and the habitations of the Greenland Eskimos, the Spanish Dutch, French and English explorers visited and might have built houses on these shores.
But in Europe, no houses of this type are found outside Iceland.

[48:02] A dwelling usually consisted of three apartments, a hall or principal room in which there was always a fireplace, a sitting room for the women and a storeroom or pantry.
These apartments were like small houses, each with a separate roof but attached to each other with passages through the thick walls nearby were usually one or more small outhouses.
These dwellings were built on the surface of the ground which was probably leveled when necessary.
The floor was a firmly beaten earth.
The walls were 1.5 m thick and from 1 to 1.5 m high, the inner side was built of un hewn stones and the interstices were filled with earth.
The outer side was of alternate layers of turf and stones. And the space between the two sides was filled in with earth needed hard.

[49:01] That 2007 paper by Patricia. Roy points out just how attractive this theory was to New Englanders like the Horsford and their followers.
Even as serious historians distance themselves from their conclusions.
Proponents of the Massachusetts landing theory made comments like this.
Thorin Carl Safy who followed Erickson to Finland planted the first colony in 81,007 within a few rods at the present site of the Cambridge Hospital by positing the Cambridge Hospital.
Now Mount Auburn Hospital as an orientation point on a map of Viking settlement.
Adherents physically juxtapose the present to the past, the image of a historic centuries old enterprise having occupied the same ground regularly tried by 19th century residents of Cambridge and their walks along the Charles River added a foresaw of delicious proximity to thoughts of Finland.
The skeptical reviews of their work that had been a background hum during Eben Horsford lifetime became a roar during Cornelia’s era long before she died.
In 1944 archaeologists had completely refuted the norse origins of any artifacts uncovered on the Charles and historians had debunked the textual leaps made by the Horsford and their antecedents to find local landmarks in the Icelandic Sagas.

[50:25] Nevertheless, elite, Yankees retained a deep affinity for the Scandinavian countries well into the new century, as seen in a greeting sent from Harvard to a university in Oslo Norway in 1911, the same shores of New England where the puritans and pilgrims planted their first institution of learning.
Were we believe more than six centuries earlier discovered?
And as Finland, the good enjoyed by the Great Nor Seafarers Leaf Erickson Thorald and Thorin, prominent Harvard scholars who have made the early voyages of the Norsemen recounted in their great sagas.
A favorite study have felt not least interested and inspiration.
And the fact that these discoverers were representatives of the glorious Norse Icelandic culture, which in those dark days shone a bright northern light to the rest of the world.
While they at the same time were descendants of pilgrims who to escape oppression in Norway had in their Viking ships immigrated to Iceland just as the English Mayflower.
Pilgrims came later to Plymouth.

[51:34] After quoting from so many scholarly articles, dismissing the idea that Scandinavians settled along the Charles and predicting that evidence that the Norse had reached North America might never be found.
It may come as a surprise to learn that that’s exactly what happened.
It may come as a surprise to learn that that’s exactly what happened in 1960 archaeologists uncovered evidence of 1000 year old Norse settlement on the extreme northern tip of the Canadian Island of Newfoundland.
Decades of excavation eventually revealed the ruins of eight Norse structures near the mouth of a stream on a shallow north facing bay.
Unlike the speculations by Eben or the supposed excavations by Cornelia Horsford, these buildings were constructed of sod laid over wooden frames.
Artifacts at the site have conclusively tied these structures to Scandinavians of the era around the first millennium.
And dendrochronology and carbon dating confirmed that the buildings were constructed at just about that time.
However, all the other details of the site are contested with estimates of the number of residents ranging from 20 to 200 the duration of the settlement going from a single season to 100 years.

[52:54] While the details aren’t agreed upon. The timing, artifacts and the presence of grapevines in the area provide strong support for the actual existence of Finland as described in the sagas.
The discovery of this site inspired the resurgence of the same frauds and hoaxes that both inspired and followed Eben Horsford publications, last July co-host Emerita Nicky and I took a road trip to New Haven and we visited the Beneke Library at Yale where we just happened to arrive while they were displaying some of the most rare and historically significant maps from their collections.
I got to see everything from Galileo’s maps of the moon to pre Colombian maps of the Atlantic world to a Spanish map of Aztec to Nolan from the early 15 hundreds.

[53:46] One of the historic maps that was on display was a one of a kind map showing the location of Finland in relation to Greenland, Iceland, England and other coastlines that would have been familiar to Viking explorers.
The map was approximately dated to the year 14 50 but it included some of the same sort of asterisks that accompanied much of the evidence of Horsford S era.
The accompanying interpretive sign noted that the map was donated to Yale in 1965 while the excavations in Newfoundland were at their peak sometimes when something seems too good to be true, it is, the map seemed too perfect and experts immediately questioned its authenticity.
It was on real 15th century parchment, but by 1973 the university had declared the map to be a forgery.
Later testing showed that the parchment was taken from a 14 50 book by Vincent a bouet.
But the map was drawn using modern ink.
Even real evidence of Vikings in North America isn’t safe from cranks and loons.

[55:00] To learn more about Eben Horsford and the legend of the lost city of Norumbega.
Check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 275.
I’ll include fraudulent and fallacious maps, including some that inspired Horsford and the 1965 forgery that I saw at Yale last summer, as well as sketches and diagrams created by the Horsford and their followers that they believe demonstrated the Norse origins of the artifacts that they found along the Charles.
I’ll link to about 10 books, papers and letters by the Horsford and their contemporary followers, as well as some of the earlier writings by people like Asael Davis and Y dies that inspired the Norse settlement theory in the first place.

[55:48] I’ll link to the biographical sketch of Eben Horsford from American ancestors and to two of his obituaries.
Plus, I’ll link to all the modern articles that I quoted from for context before I let you go.
I have some listener feedback to share back in March.
I released a bonus episode that I called My Personal Evacuation Day where I talked about some changes in my life that might end up forcing changes to the show’s format, talking about everything from my aging dog, Duke’s health, to my shattered ankle, to the new job that I started.
A few days later, I got a lot of supportive feedback.
Starting with this email from a listener named Rob Jake.
It took a second to pin this response to your own personal evacuation day.
First off, congrats on the exciting new change. I hope it’s going well.
I also hope your dog is enjoying its twilight time.

[56:45] I just wanted to let you know that whatever you need to make the podcast fit into your life, I’m behind it.
I’m off the less frequent episodes camp and would be glad to keep my support going no matter how you have to change or pause, would a quarterly episode not sound even sweeter.
Thank you again for all you do. Rob listener Doug struck a similar chord urging me to keep making the show but to cut down on the frequency of episodes if and when I can’t keep up with my current production schedule.

[57:20] Hi, Jake. Congratulations on your new job.
I vote for keeping each episode the same length but doing them less often.
Whatever you decide, I will remain a devoted binge listener.
I listened to the Eric J Dolan episode and it was fascinating.
Wishing Duke. Well, best regards Doug.

[57:45] Ted’s email made me wonder whether he Doug and Rob were actually all the same listener writing to me from different addresses.
Hi, Jake. I just listened to your special five minute podcast from March 17th.
First off, good luck on your new job and I hope that your ankle heals up quickly.
My suggestion is that if you have to limit how much time you spend on each episode, you should offer them less frequently.
But in the same format that you’ve been doing your excellent presentations in, they’re a valuable resource for those of us who value learning about local history as well as for future generations.
I also hope you continue to appear at history camp as well all the best to you and thank you for doing what you do. Ted, the listeners have spoken. If I ever can’t keep up with the pace of production, I’ll skip weeks or Sprinkle in more reruns, but I’ll keep our current format just as long as I possibly can, as an update.
I should mention that my new job is going pretty well.
I’m less than two months into it, so I’m still learning the robes.
But so far, I have been able to keep researching and writing new episodes by staying disciplined then very carefully scheduling my evenings and weekends.

[59:11] Senior executive podcast producer, Duke A K A, my 14 year old dog is doing pretty well for a 14 year old dog.
He had a close call last month when his pain was going up and his mobility was going down.
But the vet was able to find a new combination of meds that has him out and enjoying his daily walks. Again.
We take it day by day and week by week because of his age.
But I don’t think his time has come yet and my ankle is slowly healing much more slowly than I would prefer.
I do physical therapy twice a week and we’re working on getting normal function back.
As of about a week ago, I got clearance to start walking around the house without crutches or my boot.
I’m still mostly using crutches for walks outside the house and it’s gonna be a very long time before I’m able to get back to running.
But being able to walk without assistance at all has been very good for my morale.
A couple of months ago, I asked listeners to leave reviews on Apple podcasts at the time.
I was trying to bury a one star review from a jerk who said that he wasn’t sure what I was going for with the show, but it is awful.

[1:00:29] The listeners responded and several folks wrote new reviews which did, as I hoped, help bury that one star Jerk.
First up is a review from somebody who calls themselves handsome Jimmy one shoe.
If you dig Boston, subscribe to this podcast and you’ll dig it even more.
The history taught to us in school necessarily consists of insufficiently brief summaries of large and complex events.
It’s incomplete, but it’s the best schools can do given their limited time.
This podcast takes its time doing deep dives into somewhat smaller but equally compelling stories filling in the gaps and rounding out Boston’s story for interested readers.
Try it, subscribe to it, review it and donate. If you can.
If I ever run into the host in the host of America, I’m buying them around.

[1:01:31] Somebody with the screen name. S J M also left a very complimentary review.
My favorite history podcast, Boston has so much to offer, the Hub History podcast does an amazing job uncovering lesser known stories and figures or taking a new and different angle and approach to well known events that you think you’ve already learned everything about.
I love that less common and underrepresented stories, voices and people from our city’s history are featured.

[1:02:06] Memory loader flattered me by directly refuting that one star jerk, fantastic, informative and quirky podcast.
This is one of my favorite history podcasts.
Boston is coming up on its 4/100 anniversary and has a wealth of stories.
I think Jake does an excellent job of telling them witches, red coats, explosions, art and architecture and more.
Get a fascinating spotlight.

[1:02:37] Somebody calling themselves the credibility specialist also didn’t think I was awful and their review got straight to the point.
I took some time today to listen to your show. Hub History is a fantastic podcast with great info advice and perspectives.
You won’t regret listening to and learning from the podcast.
Now, credibility specialist, memory loader, S J M and handsome Jimmy one shoe all forgot one key thing.
Not one of them sent me an email to claim their reviews so I could send them a sticker at the end of March.
I asked for suggested show topics on Twitter and I got some good ideas.
Hiker girl says I remember reading a newspaper article from the 18th century about a camel visiting Boston for the first time.
And then there was also a lion during the same time period. I think it always surprises me how many elephants made it to Boston.
Derek L suggested interview Steven Boucher about his book Boston In Transit Mapping, the History of public transportation in the hub.
Also ask him his views about the future of the M BT A.

[1:03:56] Marie D noted I came across an incident report in 18 42 in Boston newspapers about a riot in the north end between us Navy, Irish sailors and African American sailors from a revenue cutter.
Ed O suggested an episode topic just days before I released episode 2 72 which touched on just the man that Ed wanted to hear about James Otis, the leading light of early revolutionary Boston whose spark burned brightly but all too briefly, remarkably poignant story of a man who was a hero to Sam and John Adams Hancock and all the rest, but for whom traumatic injury and troubling mental health was career ending.
Along with all those tweets, we got a couple of show suggestions by email.
One of them is such a great idea that I’m actually gonna keep it pretty close to the vest for now.
The last suggestion came from Brian. Hello, I just heard in the court street mutiny episode that you’re from Reedville.
I thought you might be interested in the story of William B Gould who escaped slavery and then served in the Union Navy during the civil war.
He settled in Dedham just steps from the Reedville border.
We are erecting a statue of him this memorial day weekend. Hope you can join us. Keep up the good work. Brian.

[1:05:23] I got back to Brian and let him know that Gould’s recent biography is actually sitting on my to be red pile right now and I’m hoping to do a show about him in the future.
In the meantime, Brian’s gonna keep me up to date on the developments in the park that now bears Gould’s name just up the street.
I love getting listener feedback, whether you have a topic to suggest a one star review to Barry or a solution for what I should do when I’m drowning in work and having trouble getting a show out on time.
If you’d like to leave me some feedback on this episode or any other, you can email podcast at hub history dot com.
We are Hub History on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and the most active on Twitter.
If you’re on Mastodon, you can find me at, at Hub History at Better dot Boston, or go to hub history dot com and click on the contact us link, while you’re on the site, hit the subscribe link and be sure that you never miss an episode.
If you subscribe on Apple podcasts. Please consider writing us a brief review, if you do drop me a line and I’ll send you a hub history sticker as a token of appreciation.
I mean, it don’t forget that’s all for now. Stay safe out there listeners.

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