About This Artifact
A reddish-orange stone roughly ten inches wide, shaped into a form closely resembling a Valentine's Day heart. Dan Blankenship discovered it in 1967 while excavating three feet below the beach at Smith's Cove, midway between low and high tide, during early Triton Alliance operations. It was found beneath rocks believed to be part of the original flooding system. Recovered alongside it were a pair of wrought-iron scissors of a type made 300 years ago or earlier in Mexico, and an ancient metal set-square dated by metallurgists to sometime before 1783. Mendel Peterson, former curator of the Historical Archaeology division at the Smithsonian Institution, examined the stone and concluded that it had been chiseled with some sort of tool at an early though undeterminable date. Peterson described Oak Island as one of the most fascinating archaeological sites in North America and told D'Arcy O'Connor that he had seen no proof that workings similar to those on Oak Island exist in Haiti or anywhere else in the world. The Triton Alliance 1988 catalog of artifacts rated the stone's oddity factor at 7 out of 10 and its authenticity assessment at 6, noting it was "judged to be worked by man by the Smithsonian Institution, unable to date or conclusively link to originators."
A note of conflicting provenance exists in the record. K. Ellard's letter of November 19, 1973 states the find location as the South Shore rather than Smith's Cove. A separate and unverified account adds further intrigue: a Haitian man named Lochard described finding a heart-shaped rock in one of the underground tunnels during an alleged discovery of treasure chambers, claiming it was similar to the hand-chiseled stone Blankenship had recovered at Smith's Cove, though Lochard did not know of Blankenship's find at the time. The account could not be corroborated, and several prominent persons in Haiti at the time of Lochard's alleged discovery expressed strong disbelief. Author Les Clarke held the stone at the Explore Oak Island Days event in 2005 and described it as exceptionally smooth, presumably from many years of weathering.
The heart carries significant symbolic weight across multiple traditions. In Freemasonry, it is an emblem associated with the third-degree Master Mason initiation ritual, symbolizing that to be a full Mason one must be prepared in one's heart. According to 18th-century German Masonic scholar Carl Krause, the heart represents the internal principle of Masonry, addressing not only outward conduct but the inner spirit. A remarkably similar heart shape appears on Masonic tombstones in the Old Burying Ground in Halifax, some more than 200 years old. The heart is also a dominant symbol in Rosicrucianism and central to the Christian doctrine of universal love. Several 17th- and 18th-century pirates utilized a bleeding-heart symbol on their flag.
Historical Context
Found 1967 by Dan Blankenship. Examined by Mendel Peterson, Smithsonian Institution. Displayed at Explore Oak Island Days 2005.
Where It Was Found
Found at Smith's Cove, 3 ft deep between low and high tide — the north shore of Oak Island where the flood tunnel system was discovered.
