The Newark Holy Stones Revisited: New Light on an Old Mystery

This presentation explorers new findings and insights I have gained into the Newark Holy Stones, fake 19th-Century artifacts with Hebrew texts uncovered in and near the Newark Earthworks that were used by many to rationalize manifest destiny. My original documentary discoveries indicate that David Wyrick, who is generally held responsible for the fraud, did not actually commit it. Rather, they point to the complicity of another figure, John H. Nicol, and reinforce the likelihood that it was really created in part to advance the cause of abolitionism.