CHAPTER IV 



A Poplar and the Kensington Rune Stone — The Liberty Tree of 

 Annapolis — The Balmville Tree — Lone Tree. 



A POPLAK AND THE KENSINGTON RuNE StONE 



A poplar tree on Mr. Olaf Ohman's farm near Kensington, 

 Minn., has become known to fame by reason of the long hidden treas- 

 ure discovered beneath it. 



On November 8, 1898, Mr. Ohman was clearing a piece of land 

 for ploughing, when his men unearthed from the foot of the poplar 

 a heavy slab of stone weighing about two hundred and thirty poimds. 

 On it was an inscription in runes or character used in secret writing 

 so much in vogue in early times. 



Being translated it reads as follows: "Eight Goths (Swedes) 

 and twenty -two Norwegians upon a journey of discovery from Vin- 

 land westward. We had a camp by two skerries one days journey 

 north from this stone. We were out fishing one day. When we 

 returned home we found ten men red with blood and dead. A. V. M. 

 (Ave, Virgo Maria) save us from evil. (We) have ten men by the 

 sea to look after our vessel fourteen (doubtfully forty-one) days' 

 journey from this island. Year 1362." 



The stone was exhibited, for a while in a drug-store in Kensing- 

 ton, Minn., and was also submitted to two college professors, both of 

 whom pronotmced the inscription fraudulent. Then it was returned 

 to its owner, in 1899 and lay in his yard where it was carelessly used as 

 a stepping-stone near his granary for eight years. 



In 1907, Mr. Hjalmar Rued Holand obtained the stone and 

 exhibited it in the Middle West, and also at the Norman Millennial 

 Celebration at Ruen, France, in 1911. He brought it to the attention 

 of the Minnesota Historical Society which directed the Museum Com- 

 mittee to make an exhaustive investigation of the authenticity of the 

 inscription. Their researches are published in full, in the Mumesota 

 Historical Society Collections, Volume 15. They are in part as 

 follows: 



"The party started from Vinland, a very remarkable statement, 

 in the light of the fact that it is not know, even at this day that a 

 permanent or even temporary colony was established in Vinland. . . . 

 In the light of the results of Professor Fernald's studies on the 'Plants 

 of Wineland the Good,' it is remarkable, if the stone is fraudulent, 

 that the location of Vinland by the statements of the record, should 

 agree with the location of that coimtry by Fernald, since all modern 

 (and even earlier) descriptions of Vinland have placed Vinland either 

 in Nova Scotia or Massachusetts. Could it have been a random and 

 accidental coincidence that a fraudulent record should correct the 



26 



