The Hampton Union & Rockingham Co. Gazette
Thursday, July 28, 1938
The so-called “Thorwald Rock” question is still unsettled though Prof. Goldthwait of Dartmouth says the rock has been settling there since the glacial period. As to digging under it to see just what may be discovered, brave indeed would be the man who would dare attempt it with its past history.
Hosts of old timers recall the day, more than twenty years ago, when the late Launcelot S. Quinn, well known real estate man of the beach, brought a party of interested people with shovels, crowbars and pickaxes to see if any Viking relics, bones or other things might be found to substantiate the assertion that the remains of Thorwald, brother of Leif Ericson, was buried beneath it. It was a nice summer’s day without a cloud in the sky. The pseudo scientists took off their coats, rolled up their sleeves and with their various implements in hands advanced in a determined attack from all sides. At a given signal the rock rang with the impact of steel but at that very instant a terrific reverberation rent the air as a bolt of lightning descended, and according to some witnesses, struck the rock, wrenching the metallic tools from the hands of the explorers at the same time throwing them in all directions to the ground. Although no one was hurt, an undignified retreat followed, the rout being so complete that to this day no valiant soul has ever again attempted to wrest from that little plot the secret it has so long been keeping. And perhaps of equal importance, no one has ever got permission since, from the owner to go delving into the mystery.
Only a few days ago, this story was confirmed by Mr. Swett of Haverhill who in past years has conducted many scientists and curious persons to the spot. Although unrelated to the Thorwald Rock, Mr. Swett is probably the only one who knows the cottage on the Hampton Beach front under which rest the bones of a ship long ago buried in the sands from which some hold the belief came that strange distribution of coins on a spring day of last year when many of the Hampton Beach young folks picked up as much as twenty dollars in assorted change, a total of nearly a hundred dollars, the like of which has never been known here before or since.