This large boulder on display at the Blue Rock Heritage Center was removed from Stamans Run in Washington Boro in 1890 by a local artifact collector from Columbia. The exact purpose of the grooves in the boulder has never been verified.
Speculation is that it served as a sundial or indicated directions for Native American pathways. However, the most popular theory is that it was a shaft polisher or straighter. The grooves would help polish, smooth, and straighten the wooden shafts of arrows. The maker would roll the stick in the grooves using sand or grit mixed with water.
It was one of several shaft polishers found in Stamans Run. This stream has the most prolific number of shaft polishers in the United States.
The shaft polisher is believed to be associated with the Susquehannocks, who occupied this area from 1525 to 1680. This artifact is on loan from The State Museum of Pennsylvania, administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.
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Planning Your Visit
The Blue Rock Heritage Center is located at 2251 River Road, Washington Boro, PA 17582. They have limited hours for the 2022 season. They are open on the following Sundays from 1 to 4 pm on July 17
August 21, September 18, and October 23. Visit their website for more information.
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Learn More
Were the Susquehannocks really giants?
When Captain John Smith first met the Iroquoian-speaking Susquehannocks on his 1608 voyage up the Chesapeake Bay, he described them as giants. Smith claimed one warrior’s calf measured 27 inches in circumference. When we read Smith’s account, it’s easy to picture seven-foot-tall Native Americans roaming the forests surrounding the Susquehanna River, especially when many of you reading this are six feet tall yourself. So the question is, were the Susquehannocks true giants? Click here to read more.
How the Susquehannocks became known as the Conestoga
Would you be surprised to know that the Native American tribe known as the Susquehannocks never referred to themselves by that name? Learn how they eventually became known as the Conestoga. Click to learn more.
There never were giant Indians. The giants of North America arrived thousands of years before “the Indians” crossed the frozen Bering Strait from Mongolia. Because these giants were in North America thousands of years ago it has always been incorrectly assumed that they were “giant Indians”. Wrong! They were giant, cannibalistic mutants dating back to the Anunnakis who genetically engineered us humans from their own DNA and that of Homo Erectus.. Some Igigi Anunnakis from Cydonia way station started to procreate with Sumerian humans and in some instances mutant offspring were the end result. Because these giants were dangerous but related to the Anunnakis, they were not disposed of, but rather, dumped around the world in at-the-time uninhabited places such as China, Australia and the Americas. When the Indians arrived in the Americas some terrible battles for survival ensued between these red-haired giant mutants and the Indians. Check out, for example, the horrendous battles at the Lovelock Cave in Nevada between the local Indians and the red-haired caucasian giants. The Great Flood killed off most of the giants but some survived for a while. The Indians, however, ganged up on them in sufficient numbers so as to exterminate them eventually. These giants–being mutants–ranged in size from a paltry 7-8 feet all the way to 22 feet, such as the Changaimina giant found in Ecuador in 1965. Again, there were no giant Indians–ever. Full stop.