NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. — Hidden along the shoreline of Narragansett Bay for decades, a large rock with mysterious markings has become one of Rhode Island’s more unusual historical mysteries.
Known as the Narragansett Runestone, or Quidnessett Rock, the roughly 7-foot-long metasandstone boulder is covered with two rows of symbols that some observers have identified as possible runes.
The big question is simple: Who carved them, and when?
No definitive answer has been established.
A mysterious rock in Narragansett Bay
The stone was located near Pojac Point in North Kingstown, where it sat in the intertidal zone of Narragansett Bay.
Because of the tides, much of the rock was underwater. Its inscriptions could only be seen during periods of especially low tide.
The stone became more widely known in the 1980s, when researchers began studying the markings and debating whether they could be genuine runes.
Some people have suggested the symbols could be evidence of a pre-Columbian visit by Norse explorers. Others have proposed that the markings were created much later by someone interested in Nordic history.
There has never been a broadly accepted conclusion about the origin of the inscriptions.
Then the stone disappeared
The mystery took an unexpected turn in 2012.
The stone was removed from the waters off Pojac Point sometime that summer, leading state officials to investigate.
The runestone was eventually recovered and returned to state custody in 2013.
For years, the person responsible for removing it was not publicly identified.
That changed in 2024, when reporting revealed that billionaire Timothy Mellon had been responsible for taking the stone.
Mellon owned property overlooking the area. According to reporting about the incident, he had objected to people coming near the shoreline to see the stone and believed it was located on his property.
After investigators connected Mellon to the removal, he agreed to return the stone. Prosecutors ultimately did not charge him.
Scientists wanted to examine it
After the stone was recovered, it was taken to the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography for possible examination.
Researchers hoped testing could provide more information about the rock and its markings. However, some testing methods would have required removing material from the stone, raising concerns about damaging it.
The debate over the inscriptions continued.
In 2014, a man named Everett Brown claimed that he and his brother had carved the markings in 1964. His account was disputed by local residents who said they remembered seeing the stone before then. Other details of his story were also challenged.
That left the central mystery intact: The markings are real, but their origin remains disputed.
The runestone gets a new home
After the state recovered the rock, officials looked for a way to make it accessible to the public without requiring visitors to wait for an unusually low tide.
In 2015, the Narragansett Runestone was placed on display in Wickford, a village in North Kingstown.
Today, the stone remains a piece of Rhode Island history and local folklore, regardless of whether its markings were made by Norse explorers, someone much later fascinated by runes, or another source entirely.
And perhaps that is what makes the rock so fascinating.
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