Doorstop is ancient artifact (Massachusetts)

A rock that has been propping open doors in the Zapolski household for decades is actually a 4,000-year-old Native American axe.

"My mother used it as a doorstop," said Kathy (Johnston) Zapolski this week.

Zapolski’s 90-year-old aunt, Adele Colby, recalls that some time in the early 1900s her father (Zapolski’s grandfather) was attempting to plant a garden in his backyard on Willis Street when he came across a slightly-rounded, carved rock that resembled part of an Indian tool, possibly an axe. Willis Street is located off Winter Street, less than a quarter of a mile from the Saugus River.

For all these years, the rock has remained in the family, but they have never bothered to have the rock officially catalogued or appraised for its value.

Last week Kathy’s husband, Charlie, decided to stop by the Saugus Iron Works with the 2.9-pound igneous rock and show it to the curator of the Saugus Iron Works, Carl Salmons-Perez. The Saugus resident then returned a few days later to let the museum’s technician Janet Regan, who has worked on archeological projects in Saugus, have a look-see.

"When I stopped by the Iron Works, the curator’s mouth almost dropped," recalled Charlie Zapolski. "The Iron Works curator ’was beside himself,’" he observed.