
Let's just be up front here: depending on where you stand in relation to it, any standing stone, anywhere in the world, can point to the Winter Solstice.
That doesn't mean that there's an intended alignment, though.
In the early 19th century, for reasons unknown, a Yankee farmer named Jonathan Pattee covered a hill near North Salem, Connecticut, with drystone walls and rock-built chambers. There's nothing here that other New England farmers of the same period didn't build, but Pattee took it to extremes. Perhaps we may best—using the felicitous 18th architectural term—describe his life's work as a “folly.”
Today the site goes by the grandiose (and rather silly) name of America's Stonehenge. Back when I was new in Craftdom, it was called Mystery Hill—a much better name, really.
(The former tells, the latter entices. The latter opens the door; the former slams it shut.)
Many claims have been made for the site, all unproven. Vikings, Irish monks, and peripatetic ancient Celts are only a few of those claimed as its builders.
Quack history has its own fashions. Back when the “megalithic yard” was in style, megalithic yards suddenly sprouted up all over AS/MH. Then, when archaeo-astronomy became au courant, heretofore unregarded standing stones were suddenly discovered to point to the solstice, equinox, and cross-quarter sunrises.
Take, for example, the claimed Winter Solstice alignment. It's not a large stone, admittedly, but with an avenue cleared through the forest between it and the point of Winter Solstice sunrise, it sure looks impressive.
But it isn't really.