Officials hope to shed light on cave riddle

For decades, the identities of the people who built a manmade cave in Upton have been a mystery -- and a cause for debate. But with the town's recent purchase of the so-called "Upton Chamber" and its surrounding property, officials hope to put the mystery to rest.

They hope that a study of the site will settle the long-running argument between those who believe the landmark is simply a place that Colonial settlers built to store their vegetables, and others who believe its existence proves that Europeans crossed the Atlantic Ocean thousands of years before Columbus.

"We're looking into having an assessment of the site done to better date the structure," said Barbara E. Burke, Upton Historical Commission's chairwoman.

Determining the age and background might also help Upton win grant money, said Joan Shanahan, chairwoman of the Board of Selectmen.

"It's part of the folklore of Upton and very important to us," she said, "but no one has been able to pinpoint a time, or what civilization was around, when the structure was built."

The best way to solve the mystery is to find some sort of artifact -- an ax handle, a bit of leather, or a bone -- associated with the cave. If the artifact's age could be determined, it would be a clue to the cave's age.

So far, just one artifact has been found in the chamber -- a small shard of metal believed to be silver. Its owner, Malcolm Pearson, said he has no intention of allowing others to examine it.

"It's so small and fragile that they would destroy the original piece if they tried to do anything with it," said Pearson, a Sutton resident whose family purchased the property in 1928 and sold it several decades later. He believes the chamber was built by an ancient and unrecorded native civilization because of its similarity to structures in the British Isles that are thousands of years old.

"There are those who feel it was built by early Colonial settlers and others who feel it probably dates back to Gaelic or Norwegian settlers," Burke said.

The cave interior has been scrutinized so much that the best chance for finding another clue might come from searching the surrounding area, she noted.

"It's been tested and tested since 1930. Whether they'll find anything in the chamber itself is doubtful."

Dr. David H. Kelley, a professor emeritus in the department of archaeology at the University of Calgary in Alberta, excavated the chamber in the 1950s while studying for his graduate degree at Harvard University.

"I don't see any reason to think it wasn't a Colonial structure," Kelley said. "But I do think it's a very unusual and interesting one. There are very few of them left like that at all. I think from a viewpoint of Colonial history it's worth preserving, completely apart from any possibility of it being any older."

The chamber sits underneath a hill. A 14-foot-long tunnel at the hill's base leads to a beehive-shaped chamber roughly 12 feet across and 11 feet tall. Flat stones overlap each other to form the walls and ceiling, in a corbelled formation that resembles an upside-down set of stairs.

Town Meeting voters didn't approve the property's $440,000 purchase price simply for the site's historic value. Plans are also underway to transform the 7.5-acre property on Elm Street into a park.

Ideas for the site include building a canoe launch at adjacent Mill Pond , a gazebo overlooking the water, and picnic tables.

Parker Mitchell, a local Boy Scout, has begun plans to build an elevated wooden footbridge several hundred yards long as part of his Eagle Scout project. The footbridge would cross nearby wetlands and connect the property with the Town Common.

Burke said that members of the Upton Men's Club have begun talking about helping with the gazebo project. She also hopes college students might take over further planning for the park as part of a classroom project, and that town fund-raising efforts can bring in money to spruce up the site.

The cave has long been studied by Upton sixth-graders in the regional middle school as part of a unit on town history. Over the years, students have created board games, video presentations, and other projects about the cave. Someday, those projects may be used to showcase the cave's history to visitors, Burke said.

Still, many of the plans for the park remain up in the air, Shanahan said.

"Right now there are more questions than there are answers," she said.