The Skeleton in Armor

Skeleton unearthed in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1832

The Skeleton in Armor is the name given to a skeleton associated with metal, bark and cloth artifacts which was unearthed in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1832. The skeleton was subsequently destroyed in a fire in 1843. It is also the name of a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The skeleton was moved to the Fall River Athenaeum, a library, where it was displayed in a glass covered case, along with the arrow tips. The Athenaeum, along with much of the village of Fall River, was destroyed in the "Great Fire" of July 2, 1843.

As stated in the Leland article cited above, the majority opinion of the find at the time was that it represented a Native American chief. Given Fall River's location, this could have been a member of the Narragansett or Wampanoag tribe. Besides the other brass arrowheads mentioned above, at least one identical breastplate has been found, and it is known that traders sold the Indians brass kettles from which they made arrowheads. Arrowheads described as "precisely similar" were used by the Iroquois in the 17th century.

As the Stark article reproduced above indicates, there was at least one commentator who suggested a much different origin for the artifact. The idea that Phoenicians, Carthaginians, or Egyptians had at some time in the past discovered North America and explored or colonized it was somewhat popular at the time of the find, and occasionally used to explain feats such as the construction of Chichen Itza which many contemporary antiquarians could not believe were actually constructed by Mesoamerican civilizations. This notion has fallen into disfavor and is usually classed as pseudohistory, though there is a small minority of authors who continue to advance such beliefs. Phoenicians and later Carthaginians routinely navigated the coasts of the northeastern Atlantic and presumably their trading vessels, blown off course in a storm, could have reached North America. Such accidental one way contact, as intimated in the last paragraph of Stark's report, could account for the presence of bronze artefacts as well as being compatible with the lack of evidence for a regular settlement, and the absence of indications in Native American oral history (as such shipwrecks would be few in number and just a local curiosity, soon to be forgotten). But regardless the theoretical possibility of isolated Atlantic crossings in antiquity, the reported state of preservation of the body interred in moist soil essentially rules out an age of more than a few centuries. Even mummified corpses would rapidly decompose under such conditions.

Because the artifact has been destroyed, there is no way of scientifically dating the remains. Although the style of armor described as being found with the skeleton certainly does not sound similar to anything worn by early European colonists who settled the area, the possibility that the skeleton belonged to some early settler cannot be entirely discounted.

Finally, there is the possibility that the artifact was a deliberate forgery or a practical joke, although there is no clear motive as to why someone would create such a forgery at that time.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was evidently familiar with the artifact's discovery. Unlike the authors of the articles reproduced above, Longfellow apparently considered that the artifact was Norse in origin; Longfellow was familiar with the writings of Carl Christian Rafn on the subject of Norse colonization of the Americas. Whether or not Longfellow concluded that this was a genuine Norse artifact is unknown. Nevertheless, he did immortalize the discovery in the poem "The Skeleton in Armor". The poem was first published in Lewis Gaylord Clark's The Knickerbocker in 1841. In the poem, Longfellow also refers to the Old Stone Mill in Touro Park in Newport, Rhode Island, also known as the Newport Tower. Some suggest that the stone structure dates back to the Viking exploration of North America, though it is more likely it was built in the seventeenth century during the time of Governor Benedict Arnold.

In 1903, Fall River placed a bronze tablet on a brick building on Hartwell and Fifth Street to commemorate the finding of the skeleton at that location. The tablet was 24x20 inches and read: "A Skeleton In Armor was found near this spot by Hannah Borden Cook In the month of May A D 1831 This Tablet was placed here by the Women's Educational and Industrial Society of Fall River Mass May 27th A D 1903". The tablet was stolen in 2018 by metal thieves but was recovered and repositioned in a more secure spot.