DownNDirty
Bronze Member
Last weekend I decided to take a break from the heat and cool off in a creek where I have had success before. It runs through the site of a colonial plantation with Revolutionary War history. In the past I have hit the exposed hard pan (bedrock) areas pretty hard and for the most part passed over depressions that had filled in with sand. Saturday I worked some of those spots and found some eroded "bowls" in the hard pan under the sand, that act as catch basins for heavier objects like gravel and metals.
I was working one of the bowls with the pinpointer and I found a solid cast iron ball that looked to me like case shot or grape shot that is sometimes found at Civil War sites
After spending more time at that spot and finding only trash I decided to leave the creek and head to another one to sift for shark teeth. While taking a lunch break I decided to go back to the creek and try to find another shot or two, which turned out to be a great decision. As I fanned away the sand and detected other catch basins I found another shot, then another and another-for a total of fourteen from an area about fifteen feet in diameter.
Thanks to an id and some very useful information from TheCannonballGuy I learned that what I found was quilted grapeshot from the Revolutionary War. They would have been stacked around an iron shaft with a disk on the bottom, wrapped in canvas and secured with a wire mesh. A charge would be loaded in a cannon, along with the grapeshot projectile and fired. The shot would spray out in all directions similar to a shotgun shell and cut down anything in their path-sounds like a very nasty but effective weapon to me!
In between grapeshot finds the AT Pro and Propointer helped me locate a few 18th century civilian relics, like this pewter knee buckle frame. Other than the one dent it is in exceptional condition for a pewter artifact, thanks to it being submerged in freshwater for over 200 years. Notice the makers' mark on the back side.
This civilian pewter coat-sized button was a welcome find and is also in superb condition. It has an intact molded shank, which I believe dates it to the first half of the 18th century.
This small brass relic is a head-scratcher.
I found one very similar to it last year at the same site (see the pictures below), and I was thinking that it was the frame of a wax seal. I'm not so sure now; could they be chess pieces? The one I found last year looks like a pawn and the other one could possibly be a rook.
A dropped .69 caliber round ball, pieces of an iron pot, a strap hinge and a pottery shard were the other keepers for the day
What a pleasant break from hot fields and poison oak-laden, overgrown woods-and the results were so much better. I couldn't have asked for a better day & look forward to getting back to the creek.
I was working one of the bowls with the pinpointer and I found a solid cast iron ball that looked to me like case shot or grape shot that is sometimes found at Civil War sites
After spending more time at that spot and finding only trash I decided to leave the creek and head to another one to sift for shark teeth. While taking a lunch break I decided to go back to the creek and try to find another shot or two, which turned out to be a great decision. As I fanned away the sand and detected other catch basins I found another shot, then another and another-for a total of fourteen from an area about fifteen feet in diameter.
Thanks to an id and some very useful information from TheCannonballGuy I learned that what I found was quilted grapeshot from the Revolutionary War. They would have been stacked around an iron shaft with a disk on the bottom, wrapped in canvas and secured with a wire mesh. A charge would be loaded in a cannon, along with the grapeshot projectile and fired. The shot would spray out in all directions similar to a shotgun shell and cut down anything in their path-sounds like a very nasty but effective weapon to me!
In between grapeshot finds the AT Pro and Propointer helped me locate a few 18th century civilian relics, like this pewter knee buckle frame. Other than the one dent it is in exceptional condition for a pewter artifact, thanks to it being submerged in freshwater for over 200 years. Notice the makers' mark on the back side.
This civilian pewter coat-sized button was a welcome find and is also in superb condition. It has an intact molded shank, which I believe dates it to the first half of the 18th century.
This small brass relic is a head-scratcher.
I found one very similar to it last year at the same site (see the pictures below), and I was thinking that it was the frame of a wax seal. I'm not so sure now; could they be chess pieces? The one I found last year looks like a pawn and the other one could possibly be a rook. A dropped .69 caliber round ball, pieces of an iron pot, a strap hinge and a pottery shard were the other keepers for the day
What a pleasant break from hot fields and poison oak-laden, overgrown woods-and the results were so much better. I couldn't have asked for a better day & look forward to getting back to the creek.
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