Swift Silver??

[Brushy Bandit]

View attachment 1648762

Best I can tell the top ones an elk with 5 legs and the bottom one is a buffalo standing on a snake. It's on a small rock just a little bigger than your hand. I found it laying flat on the ground, covered with moss. What's y'alls thoughts?
And thank you RGB missed you my good friend.

 

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[KY Hiker]

Well I had that all wrong I guess.... I don't see the animals in that picture. Maybe the angle of the photo is the problem? Why would an elk have 5 legs anyway? How big is the stone ?

 

[Rebel - KGC]

Heh...

 

[Curtis]

Brushy,

You might try sending it to someone in Cherokee Tenn. There are people there that can decipher most Indian drawings.

 

[Ken S.]

Best I can tell the top ones an elk with 5 legs and the bottom one is a buffalo standing on a snake. It's on a small rock just a little bigger than your hand. I found it laying flat on the ground, covered with moss. What's y'alls thoughts?
And thank you RGB missed you my good friend.

Could the five legs mean the fifth branch of the main body ? Buffalo standing on snake mean buffalo trail ? Maybe put together meaning five branches/ridges off/up the buffalo trail ?? You have to learn to think like an Indian. Remember/make note of where you found it, start from there. Just a guess, nothing rock solid in my interpretation.

 

[Curtis]

maybe it means where the buffalo trail and the snake trail meet? The Snake trail is near the Line of rocks, don't know about the buffalo trail, but there might be some old documents telling where the main ones were. There are three buffalo wallows with in two miles of the line of rocks...maybe they are connected by trails or there were trails coming and going and the snake trail crosses one of them? There were major trails and minor trails the buffalo traveled, went past Big Bone Lick..they crossed the Ohio river at Maysville.

 

[KY Hiker]

A hand sized stone loose on the ground was probably someone's portable map? So is that a snake or a stream? Maybe the buffalo is standing in the stream (crossing)? There is an Elkhorn creek further West in KY.

 

[Ken S.]

There's an Elk fork in Magoffin Co. probably 16-18miles from Grayson. The way the crow flies..

 

[Ken S.]

maybe it means where the buffalo trail and the snake trail meet? The Snake trail is near the Line of rocks, don't know about the buffalo trail, but there might be some old documents telling where the main ones were. There are three buffalo wallows with in two miles of the line of rocks...maybe they are connected by trails or there were trails coming and going and the snake trail crosses one of them? There were major trails and minor trails the buffalo traveled, went past Big Bone Lick..they crossed the Ohio river at Maysville.

There was a portion of an old buffalo trail along one fork of Paint Creek years ago not sure if it has been destroyed or not. It was about 10-12 ft. wide and packed 2-3 ft. below grade. Ran right along the creek.

 

[Rebel - KGC]

Running along a creek makes sense... ACCESS to water!

 

[Ken S.]

Some have mentioned a theory of Swift bringing coins and plunder to Ky.to smelt it. They mentioned smelting on ships or deserted island . In the time frame of the legends charcoal would have been the heat source for smelting for that reason I find it hard to swallow the possibility of it being done on a ship. Desert Island is another thought but I'm not sure palm trees would make charcoal suitable to smelt with. but hauling it all the way to Ky. just doesn't sound likely when Va has suitable timer to make charcoal suitable for the task of smelting silver.

 

[KY Hiker]

I think some ships of the time had forges, basically a wood stove with a bellows. The low population of the colonies at that time, and the massive amount of empty coastline on the Eastern seaboard would have given them plenty of places to do their work.

 

[Ken S.]

Yes some had forges BUT how much charcoal would they have to of had on board the ship to of smelted the silver with ?

 

[Brushy Bandit]

Amazing how much places change over time.

 

[swiftfan]

I was thinking the other day that with the abundance of coal in the area, why didn’t they use that in their furnaces?

 

[KY Hiker]

View attachment 1660806 Amazing how much places change over time.

C'mon now, what are we looking at? This a historical photo and nothing to compare it to?

 

[KY Hiker]

I was thinking the other day that with the abundance of coal in the area, why didn’t they use that in their furnaces?

Two reasons I can think of, not much of it was exposed so they would have to know where to mine it from and coal generates black smoke which could expose them to the Indians...also I would think the coal off gases might effect the end quality of the silver? Lots of soot and carbon involved with coal, charcoal burns cleaner for sure.
Down on the Cumberland river below the falls you can pick up tumbled pieces of coal off the banks, but I doubt there would be enough to do a seasons worth of furnace firing with.

 

[Brushy Bandit]

C'mon now, what are we looking at? This a historical photo and nothing to compare it to?

My apoligies, but there are at least a few that know exactly where this is. There are pictures of that big rock posted numerous times

 

[Brushy Bandit]

I HAVE PROOF that I'm not a photographer.

Standing on the flat rock you can see the lighthouse. This is area I was telling you about Curtis, finally got back up there.

 

[Brushy Bandit]

I HAVE PROOF that I'm not a photographer. View attachment 1661110 View attachment 1661111

Standing on the flat rock you can see the lighthouse. This is area I was telling you about Curtis, finally got back up there.

The lighthouse picture is horrible taken with my phone. It's a pretty cool sight in person. That's best outta 5.