My Summer of Stone Chambers

An Excerpt from Ancient Stone Mysteries of New England

Author’s Note: My new book Ancient Stone Mysteries of New England is now out in paperback and I’m celebrating by sharing a bit of the book. This abridged excerpt is from an early chapter, edited for an article’s focus and for clarity. Note that in the paperback the photos are in black & white — M.L.

VERMONT’S CALENDAR ONE, CALENDAR TWO, EAGLE AND SECRET TUNNEL STONE CHAMBERS

“Did you know there’s a vampire’s heart buried under the Woodstock Green?”

Not an entirely surprising question coming from Joe Citro.

We met up on the steps of the library on the green in Woodstock, Vermont, with plans to visit a nearby stone chamber. COVID seemed to be easing its grip as the summer went along, though we’d later learn that wasn’t really the case. It did allow for some socially distant outdoor interaction to start happening.

Suspense and horror author, and folklorist, Joe — whether he knows, or would admit it — is a Vermont treasure. His shared encyclopedic knowledge of ghosts, haunts, unexplained events, mysterious locations and just plain weird Vermont has now filled several volumes, such as Green Mountain Ghosts, Ghouls & Unsolved Mysteries, Vermont’s Haunts: Tall Tales & True from the Green Mountains, Joe Citro’s Vermont Odditorium and more. His commentaries entertained Vermont Public Radio audiences for years.

At the time we met up, he was re-releasing his debut novel, an expanded anniversary edition of Shadow Child. On the cover? A Vermont Stone Chamber. In Joe’s fictional universe, it may have been the portal to another reality.

As Joe led us to the site of a stone chamber in this reality, the fabled Calendar Two chamber in South Woodstock, we spoke of possible origins for the chamber and of how it’s oriented towards the Winter Solstice, and of other chambers in the area. And of the Official Position.

My research on the stone chambers and other stonework had been eye-opening — it turned out over 700 Stone Chambers had been discovered by 2018, mostly in the Northeast. The place we were, Windsor Country, Vermont, possessed twenty-nine, one of the largest-known concentrations in the country.[i]

I’d also discovered that back in the late 1970’s and early ‘80’s, Vermont was the focus for a…