My dad and I loved to hike in the woods every weekend....sometimes stumbling upon an old cellarhole. I was always fascinated with the cellarholes we would find, always trying to visualize what it would be like to live there and amazed that somebody lived so far into the woods so long ago. I didn't know back then to look for other signs of their life...like to look for the barn foundation, an old well, old ground cover or daffodils, or the always-present apple orchard. I always dreamed of owning a metal detector and detecting these forgotten places.
One of the places we would hike to was an old house foundation about 1 1/2 miles from our house. It was always hard for me to find because there were no roads leading to it...and to me it seemed like it was in the middle of nowhere. The foundation was on my 1878 map of my county...but not on the 1909 US Geological survey map....so I knew it would be a good one to hunt. Sites like this are great because almost EVERYTHING you dig is old...and there's hardly any junk to be found...just great old relics...and clues to how people lived over 100 years ago.
My chance to hunt these cellarholes finally came when my husband surprised me with a Whites Prizm IV on the Christmas of 2004. It was something I had always wanted but I could never justify the purchase of. I spent a lot of time after Christmas practicing in my yard, at parks, and at schools, learning all the signals that my detector was telling me...digging plenty of clad and junk along the way.
Well, finally I had a free Saturday to detect. The weather was beautiful in NW PA. I decided to detect this old foundation. Because of the distance, I asked my husband, Don, to take me on the four wheeler. Being the geniuses that we are, we put my detector across the back of the four wheeler without shortening the shaft so it stuck out a little on both sides. The trail is wide almost the whole way to the foundation so it shouldn't be a problem, right??
Well...you can guess what happened. My husband decided to drive right up to the site where the trees are closer together. As I'm yelling at him to stop, he tried to squeeze between two trees...and snapped the shaft on my detector. I was so upset. I've been dreaming about detecting this foundation since my hikes with my dad, 30 years earlier.
I asked him to go fix it (OK....really I told him to go fix it) while I waited for him. In the meantime, I spent my time looking over the area. In addition to the house foundation, I found a huge foundation where the barn sat. I also found rock piles all over the area where they piled the rocks they removed from their planted fields.
After about an hour, my husband returned and, he had fixed my detector as good as new. I finally started hunting around the house area. Don apparently thought I wouldn't find anything so he started planting a few coins around the house when I wasn't looking. I told him to stop it..(OK...really my exact words were "Knock it off!".)...that I would find my own coins....and just as I said that....I got a great signal on my detector. It read in the quarter range. I dug a few inches down and picked up a coin that I had never seen before. I just handed it to my husband and did the screamingest happy dance that you had ever seen. Really, you had never seen or done a crazier happy dance than the one I did.
Just some odds and ends. I think there's a harmonica reed, a heel plate (?), some harness pieces, a 22 shell and a mystery item. The mystery item is made out of lead and looks like it got bent in half. There are holes equally spaced on one side of it. Does anybody know what it is?
WTG, Haupin! That large cent is an awesome find. We take back anything we've ever said about women drivers. LOL It's a good thing that Don could fix it. Hope to see more from that site! HH
W O W !!! That is B E A U TIFUL ! Great story to Haupin. Its a good thing your keepin the genuis around huh. LOL We do tend to do some stupid things but thats why we have you ladies around to keep us straight.I,ll bet that site holds a few more treasures. Keep em comin. HH
Nice site you were hunting there. Congrats on the large cent find!
I remember how excited i was when i dug my first large cent last
summer at a road construction site. WTG!
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