The story of the man who most likely owned this button as this land was once part of his private 180 acre farm. As recorded in his genealogy:
In the Revolutionary War, the British lying in Gardiner's Bay often made raids on Isaac Van Scoy's farm. For safety, nights he had a handy hayfork standing by the head of his bed. On a certain day he had 50 English pounds paid him by some one. Some of the British being on shore, got wind of it, and broke into his home to get it. "The money!" they demanded. He told them they should not have it. They asked him where it was. He told them-they made a rush for it. With his two-tined pitchfork he killed one on the spot, and wounded two more. Arnold Squires Van Scoy of Hampton Bays, L.I. tells the same story, which he heard from his grandfather, with this added: Isaac was taken prisoner and put aboard a British warship at Sag Harbor to await trial. One dark night some friends and neighbors rowed out to the warship and managed to free him through a porthole. He had to hide out until the war ended.ISAAC VAN SCOY 2 (s. of Cornelius Van Scoy, he actually 3d generation in America and originally Van Schaick) b. April 1732 d. Nov. 2, 1816.
We hunt because we have to. We find things because we can. Location, machine, ability, and luck sometimes converge to give us something which puts a smile on our faces and makes us forget those many hours of swinging the coil and finding nothing. From deep in the woods this morning in what was once the 180 acre farm of my town's Revolutionary War Hero.
A small part of the viewscape from where I have spent over 500 hours of the last seven months metal detecting for colonial evidence which began in the late 1600's. I walk the grounds of these early settlers and they have shown me their history which I cherish and respect.
