Mystery House Journal

[robertk]

Just about the time I got my new Deus II, I was looking at an old map of my neighborhood and discovered that in 1940, there was a house sitting in what is now my front yard. This surprised me greatly, so I started hunting old photos and found a 1955 aerial photo, with no trace of the house. So it was there sometime before 1940 to get "on the map", but was completely vanished by 1955.

So I worked out the distances from the old map and got a good guess to where the house was, and started hunting. I quickly discovered that my entire front yard is littered with iron.

I don't know when the house was built, but I'm assuming mid to late 1800's. So far I haven't found anything with a date on it, but what little I have found seems to back up those dates.

So I'm starting this thread to post interesting things, mostly for feedback as I try to understand the history of those who were here before I was. Here's some of the stuff I've found so far. Any comments on what they are, or what they are used for, are welcome.

This was identified (thanks to this board!) as a suspender adjuster, pre-1920.


And this one is part of a victorian bed rail attachment.


This one is a spoon, obviously. Silver plated, well worn. I haven't found an exact match on the pattern and I can't quite read the maker's mark, but the stuff I find that's close is in the early 1880's. Interestingly, I found this standing vertically in the ground, big end down. It took some digging to extract it.



I've also found a few shotgun shell end caps. At first I ignored these thinking they were just trash from a careless modern hunter, but after investigating, these are from around 1900 (Union Metal Cartridge Company, "New Club" style, produced between 1891 and 1911).


And some iron stuff...



I've found several of those square nuts. They look like they might be blacksmith-made because while the hole diameter is pretty consistent, the size and thickness of the nut itself varies quite a bit. And that thing that looks like a telegraph insulator is a mystery -- iron wouldn't make a very good insulator.

Then there's this partial plate -- quarter inch thick and heavy. Maybe a stove part?



And then there's this thing.

It's about 8" diameter, about an inch thick, with a 1/4" "rim" around one side, totally flat on the other. And it's heavy -- weighing exactly 2 kilograms (4.4 lbs) in its current state. No obvious handle or anything to indicate use.

So there's what I know so far. I will post more as I discover it...

 

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[robertk]

I identified the spoon -- it's the "Elgin" pattern by American Sterling Company, made in 1883. Here's the one I dug vs the reference image for the pattern

 

[Silver Saver]

That's a cool find about the old house once being on your property. Good start to the recoveries, hopefully some more good ones to come! Nice being able to just walk outside and start hunting

 

[robertk]

More finds today. Mostly just old iron (which I'm starting to recognize as such and just dig it anyway just to be sure). The non-iron things definitely looked and sounded different.

The finds of the day:

A couple of "teeth" presumably from a farm tool of some sort, a hook-shaped hinge, a few metal loops or handles, some straps, a couple of square nuts, a bolt, a railroad spike, a couple of shot shell caps, and some other misc pieces. More detail on a couple below.

The shot shell caps are the same "UMC CO New Club" as previously found, though one of them has the star design around the primer, which means it's a bit newer than the others (though still no newer than 1911).


I'm not sure what this thing is. To me, it looks like the end of a blasting cap. Did they use those in the late 1800s/early 1900s? There isn't much here that would seem to need blasting?



And this thing ... I've found three or four of them, but this is the best one so far. It's about two inches in diameter, copper or maybe brass, and thin as a sheet of paper. Does anyone know what it is? Maybe a jar cap liner? Seems kinda thin and small for that, but that's about all I could think of?

 

[DigToChina]

Good to dig the iron. It might be covering/hiding the good stuff and the only way to know is to dig it and remove.

 

[robertk]

Yesterday I got a decent signal that wound up being too deep and too big to dig at the time, so I vowed to come back to that spot today and dig up whatever it was, junk or not. It was about eight or ten inches down to what looked like the rim of a pan or something. So I dug. And dug. And dug some more. The more I dug, the more I saw that it wasn't a pan, but maybe a bucket, upside down.



That photo is deceptive -- it took me a good hour and a half to get to that point. As I dug, I began to encounter some good sized rocks. They were very tightly wedged and I had to remove them one at a time. There were way more rocks than I'd expect, since the ground isn't that rocky. But I began noticing that the rocks were more or less in layers, and only around the "bucket", not on top of it. I began to think this might be a capped well.

After even more digging than what the photo shows, and lots of tedious rock removal, I got to the bottom rim of the "bucket" and was able to pull it up. It turns out it wasn't a bucket at all, but a section of iron pipe that the end had been rusted and flattened a bit, with dirt filling it in to make it look like a bucket. Underneath the pipe was a round stone, which was nearly a perfect match to the diameter of the pipe, fitting just inside it. Here is the stone, the pipe, and my size 12 foot for reference.



I'm still thinking that looks like a well cap, but there was no more pipe under it, and no hole going down. I did dig down beneath it a little more, and there were no rocks directly below it, just dirt. So I'm guessing if there ever was a well there, they filled it with dirt, then capped it, and then Mother Nature glued it all back together.

I also found one old red clay brick among the stones, which was interesting.

I did run my coil and pinpointer all over the hole and the dirt, and there was nothing else there but some square nails. However, I did have a nice surprise pop out of one side of the hole.



It's too bad that it has a chip out of the rim, but it's still a cool old bottle. No idea of the contents or vintage, but judging from everything I've found so far, it's gotta be pretty old. A neat surprise after all that digging.

I left the pipe and "capstone" where I found them -- I think we may erect one of those decorative "wishing well" things on that spot. It seems fitting.

I also noticed a slightly depressed area in the ground in what would probably have been the edge of the back yard. Trash pit, maybe? I haven't detected over that area yet, but it's on my list.

 

[robertk]

More finds from the house site


The usual assorted iron pieces, a strip of what looks like copper, a buckle, part of a railroad spike, what looks like a mower tooth, a small piece that looks kinda like a wheel weight, and a button.

Here's a close up of the button.

I tried searching online for a match but didn't find any. It's a nice embossed or stamped horse and bridle with a glass dome over it. It's about the size of a penny, and missing the back part, so I guess it might have been a pin or something but it looks more like a button. I didn't even realize until now that it kinda looks like it might be gold?

The depression in the ground that I thought might be a trash pit is another mystery. I get a similar amount of signals (iron and otherwise) there that I do in other parts of the yard, but it is extremely hard to dig because there is a very large amount of rock beneath the surface. So I have no idea what that's about.

As for the house, I'm finding more and more about the owner, including that he was a businessman who owned at least two different businesses in town from 1910 to 1937. He lived here through 1919, then had a sale on the property and moved across town, but maintained ownership of this property until his death in 1937. The property was sold two years later in 1939 (for a whopping $13.75 an acre...), and by 1955 there were no buildings left. Supposedly at one time there was a 6-room house and a barn. Given all that, I'm convinced there must be some coins or something better than all this iron somewhere. At least there's no modern trash to sift through, but wow is there a lot of iron.

 

[robertk]

More stuff from the house site, and more mystery...



Lots more rusty iron, and a few other odd bits. There are some interesting things even in the iron. The bolt with the washer that hasn't fused to it is interesting, as is the washer that is cut flat on one side. The hook and chain are cool -- the chain links are not fused, so it's actually still usable as a chain (not that you'd want to). The hook thing looks like it would be made to go on a piece of wood. The loop it hangs from is rounded, like it would fit over a pole. And the eye it hangs from is very well worn and thin, so it must have seen a lot of use with a heavy weight on it.

The three small things in the photo are another shotgun shell head stamp, a possible button back, and a small weight that I don't know what it is. It's about an inch diameter, maybe 3/16" thick, with a hole in the center and very heavy for how small it is. Here's a closer look. (Edit: It's the same on both sides, no markings or indentations. Maybe a loom weight?)


And last but not least, here's the mechanism from an old kerosene or oil lamp. It actually still works -- you can turn the handle and observe the gears turning to raise and lower the wick.


I thought I had ID'd the house (6 room house, etc), but that's wrong. I found an old mention of the house and the distance to a nearby school, and my site distance isn't right. But that's OK. I found the 6-room house, it's still standing and still inhabited on my neighbor's property. So I thought maybe my site is a barn (which would fit a lot, but not all, of what I've found), but... the mention I found says the house had a new barn, and that barn is still standing right there with the house. So I don't know what my site is. I checked the old map I have for a couple of places where I know there is an old barn but no house, and they are *not* on the map, so I'm guessing the map only shows houses. (Likewise the old house at the neighbor's place shows on the map, but not the barn.). So now I am back to having no idea what this house was. I think that's part of why I don't really mind digging the iron -- it gives me clues to what was here before. Though a coin now and then would be nice, too...

 

[Blackfoot58]

The iron hook assembly appears to be part of a harness rigging for horses. Single tree or doubletree type.
I’ve found several, each slightly different. I like that you are figuring out the history of the property. I’m attempting the same thing here. Best of luck🍀

 

[Bioheat1969]

Just about the time I got my new Deus II, I was looking at an old map of my neighborhood and discovered that in 1940, there was a house sitting in what is now my front yard. This surprised me greatly, so I started hunting old photos and found a 1955 aerial photo, with no trace of the house. So it was there sometime before 1940 to get "on the map", but was completely vanished by 1955.

So I worked out the distances from the old map and got a good guess to where the house was, and started hunting. I quickly discovered that my entire front yard is littered with iron.

I don't know when the house was built, but I'm assuming mid to late 1800's. So far I haven't found anything with a date on it, but what little I have found seems to back up those dates.

So I'm starting this thread to post interesting things, mostly for feedback as I try to understand the history of those who were here before I was. Here's some of the stuff I've found so far. Any comments on what they are, or what they are used for, are welcome.

This was identified (thanks to this board!) as a suspender adjuster, pre-1920.
View attachment 2087631 View attachment 2087632

And this one is part of a victorian bed rail attachment.
View attachment 2087644

This one is a spoon, obviously. Silver plated, well worn. I haven't found an exact match on the pattern and I can't quite read the maker's mark, but the stuff I find that's close is in the early 1880's. Interestingly, I found this standing vertically in the ground, big end down. It took some digging to extract it.

View attachment 2087633 View attachment 2087635 View attachment 2087636 View attachment 2087634

I've also found a few shotgun shell end caps. At first I ignored these thinking they were just trash from a careless modern hunter, but after investigating, these are from around 1900 (Union Metal Cartridge Company, "New Club" style, produced between 1891 and 1911).
View attachment 2087645

And some iron stuff...

View attachment 2087642 View attachment 2087643 View attachment 2087640 View attachment 2087641

I've found several of those square nuts. They look like they might be blacksmith-made because while the hole diameter is pretty consistent, the size and thickness of the nut itself varies quite a bit. And that thing that looks like a telegraph insulator is a mystery -- iron wouldn't make a very good insulator.

Then there's this partial plate -- quarter inch thick and heavy. Maybe a stove part?
View attachment 2087637 View attachment 2087638


And then there's this thing.
View attachment 2087639
It's about 8" diameter, about an inch thick, with a 1/4" "rim" around one side, totally flat on the other. And it's heavy -- weighing exactly 2 kilograms (4.4 lbs) in its current state. No obvious handle or anything to indicate use.

So there's what I know so far. I will post more as I discover it...

I think the partial plate might be a stove pipe damper

 

[robertk]

That could be it. It’s about the right size.

 

[Bioheat1969]

That could be it. It’s about the right size.

Being cast iron, it could break right about where that one is broken.

 

[ArfieBoy]

Lot of interesting iron coming out of your ground. Keep on searching, you never know what might turn up!

 

[robertk]

Here are some more finds from yesterday. A few interesting things. First the whole lot, then some close ups.



A piece of a railroad spike, what I think are some stove parts, a nut, a small "ring", a tool, some random metal bits, and a weird little piece of copper.

The spoon looks like another silver-plated one, with almost all the plating worn off except a little right at the bottom of the handle. There are no makers marks on the back at all. That little deformation on the lower right is probably from me hitting it with the shovel. Whoops. I tried comparing it to pattern lists online and the closest thing I could find is the "eighteen sixty seven" pattern by W.M. Rogers, but the lower part of the handle is different, so maybe an off brand knock off or something. Too bad there isn't a maker's mark on it.


The little "ring" is about the size of a dime, and with protrusions on both sides, I don't think it's any sort of jewelry. So I don't know what it is.



The bigger ring is another unknown. The two "arms" are solid bars, with rounded "knobs" at the ends, but the middle stem appears to be two heavy strands or wires, twisted together around the ring. The twisting is very tight, I don't think it was designed to move.


The big piece looks to be cast iron, about 6" diameter, heavy, with a "rim" on one side, and an indentation with a "pocket" on the other. It was found fairly close to the little "tool". Here is front and back of the cast iron thing:



And here is front and side view of the tool.


The tool has a hole in the center, so I wonder if was attached to longer wooden handle in its day. I don't know for sure that the tool was intended to be used with the cast iron thing, but it does fit perfectly in the little "pocket" and would let you lever it up to lift or move it if it were hot (I'm thinking some kind of burner plate on a stove or something)?



Finally, that little "pebble" in the lower left of the overall photo looks sort of reddish orange, so I'm thinking copper. It is definitely metal, and the target ID looked like copper. It's flat on one side and domed on the other, like a drop of molten metal that hit the floor and cooled. Strange.

Still no coins, but still interesting.

 

[Hbot37]

The little "ring" kind of looks like a watch winding key.

 

[robertk]

The little "ring" kind of looks like a watch winding key.

I think you're right. I searched for watch winding keys and I found several that look extremely similar. Thanks!

 

[robertk]

Just a quick hunt today, as I didn't really have time for much. More buckles, a bolt and square nut, another piece of random cast iron (maybe I'll eventually find enough pieces to reassemble the stove or whatever it came from), and some other assorted things.



The small clip looking thing is apparently a trouser hook, from a hook and bar closure. I have no idea of the vintage, but my wife ID'd it and an image search has many similar matches, but nothing exact, so I think she's right. The shot shell head stamp is another UMC New Club.

I got the best signal of the day on the last thing I dug -- that square thing down in the lower right corner. I'm assuming from the shape and size that it's part of a buckle, but it's not like the others. I've found several buckles, and all have been rusty iron with "iffy" signals with target ID's in the mid 70's. But this one had a beautiful solid signal with a steady target ID of 94. The XY display on my Deus showed a lovely non-ferrous oval when I swung the coil over it, so I was really hoping for a silver coin. But nope, just a buckle. But it's definitely not iron. It's heavy for its size, with a slight reddish color to it. Maybe copper? Kinda neat, whatever it is.

 

[Silver Saver]

Nice relics! Buckles are always cool to find

 

[robertk]

More finds from yesterday...


Another file, a ring, the burner from a kerosene lantern, another thing that looks like the end of a blasting cap, a small bullet, a small brass buckle, another "UMC New Club" headstamp, and a Winchester No. 10 brass shotgun shell. That's a new one for me -- I had no idea there was such a thing as a full brass shotgun shell, but there it is. Made from 1878 to 1949, apparently, with no way to date them other than context, so I'm guessing this one is 1880's to 1890's. It's hard to read, but it's definitely a Winchester No 10.

 

[HeatherM]

How fun! Obviously the site has never been detected, so keep hunting. The ring with the arms and twisted piece is part of a twisted wire full cheek snaffle horse bit.