Virgin Site Need Help

[karajo]

Hello!
Im posting this because I could really use some help with learning how to research my new site I am about to detect.

A little info about the site. A while ago my husband and I bought our first house. We fell in love with it because you can't see it from the road, and no visible neighbors. After living in the city for a few years being surrounded with woods and trees is awesome. When we bought the house we were under the impression it was built in 1992, NOT SO! Apparently it was built in 2004 and they got the sq footage mixed up with the year. As luck would have it our neighbors ( about a 5 minute walk through the woods) built the house for one of their kids who decided to move away and the neighbors ended up selling.

So one day while talking to said neighbor I mentioned how much I love the woods and had been taking walks back in them the past few days. She then cautions me that there is an old well on our property that she used to have covered with boards but her son ended up using them as firewood. Just to make sure I knew where it was and so I could cover it myself she walked me back into the thick brush and showed it to me. Its only about big enough for a basketball to fit down. Nothing that anyone could fall into, but you could definitely break a leg. There are not raised walls around the well, its just a hole in the ground.

I mentioned that it was weird that there was a hole in the ground like that but thanked her none the less.
We walk back to the house and my husband mentions to her that he likes how they had the hillside behind our house terraced off so the water doesn't come down the hill and leak into our crawl space. She says oh! we didn't do that its actually an old road. ( Now I know the name of what road she said it used to be but for privacy reasons I am not going to post it)

Now, This road is not paved, nor does it even have gravel. Its just a flat part of land on a hill about the width of a very small car that leads down to a creek.

I say oh cool maybe ill get my medal detector out here sometime and she says YES!!! YOU SHOULD!! When we dug the foundation for this house we found lots of broken pottery and dishes and her husband found a civil war buckle but how they had never detected it because they don't have a detector. So then I ask why there was an old well so far back in the middle of the thick woods and she tells me that there is an old stone house foundation, and that the well belonged to that house.

So- I have an old road, a stone house foundation, and a well so far.
This gets me SUPER STOKED.
The next day i venture out into the woods to find the house. Sure enough there it is. SMALL. And sadly now, just a pile of rubble. I cant make out much other than yes, this is where the house was. I cant tell how it faced or anything. I walk a little further to go down to the creek and walk back up to our own house and i find a HUGE stone staircase leading down to the water. The whole time im thinking man! This is something out of a movie!!

So after that I go to the neighbors house to ask her a little history about the house and if she knew anything about it.
She tells me that way back in the 40's her husband had told her that a foreign woman lived in the tiny house. It had dirt floors and no plumbing and that she had pigs and chickens and spoke no English, but that is all she knew.

Situations arose, I got pregnant, and by the time I had time to get back there I found my old bounty hunter and from the stress of 4 moves and 6 years of use, it is broken.

Fast fwd to a week ago and my awesome husband bought me a new detector! An ace 250!

OKAY! SO! After reading these forums for years and years I have a virgin site of my own to detect!! I am beyond excited!!
I started doing my research and figured since I dont know where the front of the house was or anything, that I should get aerial photos. I check google earth, but since its so far back in the thick woods all I can see are trees.

My questions for you all are, where would I look to find old maps of the area dating back as far as I can?
How would I go about finding any other information?
Where would you start?
Have any of you ever hunted a location like this?
With them finding stuff around even our home foundation there are a lot of areas to search.
Any help would be super greatly appreciated and I PROMISE to update my findings ( if any, I'm still a noob )

I can also promise you this is no sort of Beekrock post hahaha
Thanks all!

 

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[Tom_in_CA]

My thoughts are, with all the stuff you're saying about the physical location, is that it's just a homestead type location. It's just gonna be a relicky-mindset hunt. Singular homestead type sites are not the best for coins. So .......... as long as you're not discouraged for household type castoffs type stuff, then ........ ok.

The better areas for coins are always going to be wherever traveler, money-changing-hand, and recreational usage was. So for example stage stops, camp or picnic grounds, saloons, etc.... But old farms, barns, homesteads, etc... more junk and less coins. Of course, if you're talking a "homestead" from ........ say ...... before 1900, and that it was abandoned before the 1910s (before the "throw-away" age of auto, eletrical, etc...), then even the "junk" is fun in those situations. And of course, worth the trouble for a single seated or bust coin.

Basically, singular homesteads don't turn me on. I'd rather find/hunt the traveler/commercial concerns, as that is where coins were changing hands.

 

[d2]

I bet there will be coins there and I would guess that the front of the house was facing east so they would get the sunlight in the house. Also around the well will be a good place to look as will be the steps. Good look and some pictures would be nice...d2

 

[Tin Nugget]

If you are in Marion County you can get arials on historicaerials.com back to 1941. It dosen't look like they have old coverage for the rest of the state.

 

[Monty]

The road leading down to the stream sounds interesting. Not the road itself, but could it have once been a swimming hole? Hopefully you will have lots of time to check it out and I look forward to seeing your posts. Good luck! Monty

 

[silverswede]

The dirt floor part of the story is definatly of interest. Picture dreary, lamp lit interior and any small item like a ring or coin easily lost indoors. 40's were good years for silver and indianheads and don't think poor people didn't any and also had holes in their pockets.

 

[BuckleBoy]

My thoughts are, with all the stuff you're saying about the physical location, is that it's just a homestead type location. It's just gonna be a relicky-mindset hunt. Singular homestead type sites are not the best for coins. So .......... as long as you're not discouraged for household type castoffs type stuff, then ........ ok.

As long as you're not discouraged with every coin you dig being old, not discouraged with finding Civil War relics, 200 year-old buttons, gun parts, powder flasks, tokens, and other great relics...




My advice is this: You already have permission for a site. Go hunt it and see what comes up. You'll learn a lot as you go--much more than we could ever share with you on this forum, even in pages and pages of replies to your post.


Cheers,


Buckles

 

[ivan salis]

sounds like a fun great spot --with a dirt floor type cabin --you never know what you might find -- folks that live alone and simply are often loner hoarder types * --- if you can find what might be a clothes line area * IT MIGHT BE WORTH CHECKING OUT --- ALSO GARDENING AREAS./* as well as many loner types grow their owner friuts / vegetables and some have chickens as well -- chicken coops areas were a favorite place to hide a money cache * since the chicken would act as a natural burglar alarm (anyone poking about --the chicken would raise a fuss) money caches often are within "line of sight /gun range" -- of the living area , so they can be kept a eye on.

 

[karajo]

Thanks all! I am really excited to get out there. As soon as this god awful heatwave breaks I will be sure to gather some pictures.
Unfortunately since no one has really been back there in god knows how long, the vegetation is thick so i will need a machete to cut a path. I cant tell if there were any clothesline areas, but i haven't looked very hard yet, maybe ill look for two older trees nearby that would've held a rope. As for a garden area who knows. I know it probably wont yield much in the way of super awesome good coins, but anything i find is going to be super old, so even if its trash, at least its old trash and not bud light tops
Thanks for all of your advice! Keep it coming!

 

[BuckleBoy]

I have one more piece of advice for you, and I hope that you take it to heart. It is probably the most important piece of advice you have heard so far: Post everything you find on hunts at sites like this.

By this, I mean that you should post all the bits and pieces of junk brass that you are considering putting in the trash. I have heard of everything from colonial era cufflinks to a Civil War tent rope tighteners and even a Civil War Eagle Breastplate being thrown in the trash and sent to the landfill because their finders didn't know what they were. (And this is just in the four years I've been a member of the forum--and it is Only what I have seen or heard about. I'm sure there is more.)

Don't cheat yourself out of a good find in the early stages. If something great and/or valuable is hiding amongst your finds, someone on Tnet will see it in your post and identify it for you. And I pledge to help you out as much as I can. As you've probably already figured out, there is just about anything you could imagine to be found underground--and many things you could never imagine until you see them in the dirt at your feet. And if you choose to hunt this type of site primarily (old long-gone homesteads), you should read and view as many of the posts on this forum as you can from the members who dig the same kinds of sites. That will catch you up on some of the more usual housesite finds quite quickly.

You see, there are many people on the forums who love to offer advice on How to hunt, but one of the most important things is to identify what you've dug.


Best of Luck to You--and Happy Hunting,



Buckles

 

[karajo]

UGHGHHH I tried to get back there yesterday but the vegetation was too thick and so was the air.
When the heck is it going to cool off?!
I hate this humid summertime bull crap. I would rather be chipping away at frozen ground in the cold than dealing with this awful heat. Blech.

 

[wwace]

you already know enough about your site, and you gave yourself permission so imo you can officially go for it, good luck and happy digging.
PS use all metal and as much sensitivity on the ace as you can and dig everything, start with easy stuff like your yard and along the road and those steps. Then in the fall you can work the woods when vegetation lays down, have fun

 

[SushiDog]

First, thanks for sharing your story with us! One other thing you may want to do is....talk to some more neighbors! Get all of the 411 out of the lady you talked to, and then ask her about any neighbors that might still be around....IF there are other neighbors, go over and introduce yourself as their new neighbor, and ask them questions about the area....especially around your house...that's what I would do....I wish you well and good luck!....SushiDog

 

[W6PEA]

First, thanks for sharing your story with us! One other thing you may want to do is....talk to some more neighbors! Get all of the 411 out of the lady you talked to, and then ask her about any neighbors that might still be around....IF there are other neighbors, go over and introduce yourself as their new neighbor, and ask them questions about the area....especially around your house...that's what I would do....I wish you well and good luck!....SushiDog

I second this. Good Luck

 

[j3cwill]

You might also check with your local historical society or museum for old maps of the area. I am on the board of our local historical museum and we restore local maps whenever we find one.

Good luck

 

[gallileo60]

Did anything ever come of this site