Need Help identifying this Old Button

[Crawford county josh]

Can anyone help me identify this old button? I found it metal detecting about 12" deep. It is made by M.C. Lilley & Co. Columbus Ohio. I cannot find one that looks like it anywhere on the internet. I would like to know what year it is from or what it might be off of. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[invent4hir]

Not sure who this button was made for (some organization with initials C.D.C.?), but if you search for the company name on tnet you'll find out how long they were in business.

 

[fyrffytr1]

Lilley was in business from 1870 through WW2.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Josh, I see that's your very first post at TreasureNet... so, welcome to T-Net's "What Is It?" forum, the best place on the internet to get an unknown object CORRECTLY identified.

Friendly suggestions:
It's good to include your location in your member-info. Sometimes it helps to know what country and state/province you are digging in.
Also, it's helpful to tell us where your unidentified object was found. A farm? In a subdivision? At a school, or public park, or your yard?
Approximate age of the other things you found nearby?
The less information we're given, the harder it is to identify a find.

 

[ANTIQUARIAN]

Josh, I see that's your very first post at TreasureNet... so, welcome to T-Net's "What Is It?" forum, the best place on the internet to get an unknown object CORRECTLY identified.

Friendly suggestions:
It's good to include your location in your member-info. Sometimes it helps to know what country and state/province you are digging in.
Also, it's helpful to tell us where your unidentified object was found. A farm? In a subdivision? At a school, or public park, or your yard?
Approximate age of the other things you found nearby?
The less information we're given, the harder it is to identify a find.

You read my mind CBG.
This narrows down the location found...

Crawford County is the name of eleven counties in the United States:

Crawford County, Arkansas
Crawford County, Georgia
Crawford County, Illinois
Crawford County, Indiana
Crawford County, Iowa
Crawford County, Kansas
Crawford County, Michigan
Crawford County, Missouri
Crawford County, Ohio
Crawford County, Pennsylvania
Crawford County, Wisconsin

 

[Crawford county josh]

The button was found in palestine illinois. Palestine is the oldest town in Illinois. This button was found in my yard. My house was built in 1900. The man Joseph kitchell who was one of the men who found and helped layout palestine. Use to own the land my house sits on. There's alot of history in palestine. Palestine was also one of the stops abraham Lincoln had stopped at. He went through our town s th hoped the dubious tavern and made his way to the courthouse where he seen a bunch of people gathering out in front of the courthouse. This was the first time abraham Lincoln had seen a juggler. In palestine we also had 2 forts which have been rebuilt. There was fort lamotte and fort foot. Each fort is about 2 miles from me. I live right between both of these forts. I dont know if any of this information will help. With the button at all.

 

[DCMatt]

It does look like C D C or D C C.

Intertwined initials were popular around the turn of the 20th C.

Lilley made buttons for uniforms of all kinds - professional, fraternal order, schools and colleges...

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Such buttons with three superimposed letters are usually what are called "Career Uniform" buttons... like a railroad employee or hotel doorman wears on their uniform. Often (though of course not always) when the final letter is a C it stands for College or Club. The first letter is often a location, such as a town name. Since you dug it in Illinois, you might want to do some research on such organization in that state, and particularly your nearby area of it. As for DCC... look for names like Darlington Country Club or Donald Chambers College.

Also, the Waterbury Button Company's website catalog has a section called Career Uniform buttons. Might be worth your time to look through those pages of the online catalog.
www.waterburybutton.com

 

[ANTIQUARIAN]

The button was found in palestine illinois. Palestine is the oldest town in Illinois. This button was found in my yard. My house was built in 1900. The man Joseph kitchell who was one of the men who found and helped layout palestine. Use to own the land my house sits on. There's alot of history in palestine. Palestine was also one of the stops abraham Lincoln had stopped at. He went through our town s th hoped the dubious tavern and made his way to the courthouse where he seen a bunch of people gathering out in front of the courthouse. This was the first time abraham Lincoln had seen a juggler. In palestine we also had 2 forts which have been rebuilt. There was fort lamotte and fort foot. Each fort is about 2 miles from me. I live right between both of these forts. I dont know if any of this information will help. With the button at all.

It sounds to me like you're sitting on a historically important property in your town Josh.

"It is said that French explorer Jean Lamotte first gazed upon this region in 1678. He gave it the name Palestine, as it reminded him of Palestine, the Biblical land of milk and honey. Palestine was chartered in 1811, while the area still belonged to Virginia, and is one of the oldest towns in the State of Illinois. It was named the seat of Crawford County in 1818. Elections in 1843 moved the county seat to a new site, which would become the town of Robinson. It was officially incorporated as an Illinois town in 1855."

As a suggestion, you may want to consider creating a shadowbox frame with some of the finds you made that relate back to Joseph Kitchell and your town.
You may then want to think about donating to your village Town Hall at 301 S Main St, local library or a community center.
This is something I've done in the past for the owners of sites that I've hunted.

Who knows, because of your generosity, it may open up permissions to detect other historically important sites in your town.
Dave