mlw67
Bronze Member
Well my young 10-year-old apprentice THer and I got out yesterday to look for an 1850s gathering place that I had researched.
It was about as difficult as I had expected, I guess. There was much less brush than I had anticipated, but there were many more mosquitos than I anticipated. And we had to hike WAY more than I had anticipated.
The site we were searching for actually has several parts. The first part of the site we were looking for we had to hike in about a mile or a mile and a half, something like that. We found some newer garbage and some rather old looking iron, but I am unconvinced that we found the actual site we were looking for. I do think there is a 100 year old dump somewhere in that area that we made it to, but at this juncture I don't think we hiked far enough to find the 150 year old site.
Here are some of the smaller items we found at the first site (more pics farther on):
The three pennies came from the access road we were hiking on. I also had a bunch of small junk that I had been collecting in my hip pocket, but I threw it away when I became tired of sitting on it and getting poked and prodded in new and mysterious ways. The pull tab is one of the 'rare' early 1960s varieties that I saw when someone posted a pull-tab website recently. The slug appears to be .22 caliber, and the shells are a .22 short rimfire, and two .25 caliber automatics. The nail I am pretending that I can tell it is a square nail, even though it is no longer square or round.
We hiked out of this site and began looking for another nearby site. This time we only had to hike in about 3/4 of a mile.
I have never seen mosquitoes in roaming gangs before. We would be just fine--not getting bitten--and then all of the sudden we would be the main course of the buffet line. Speaking of wildlife, we also saw a deer, a coyote, and a baby skunk. Some bald eagles were watching us closely the whole time at the second site.
We didn't find what we were looking for at the second site, but I think we accidentally found a mid-nineteenth century homesite or something. There was a U-shaped hole in the ground that looked very foundationish. Also there were wild parsnips in the area, and right behind this area were humongous oak trees, several of them at least 6-feet thick each. It was in this area that we found some interesting iron relics:
The square spike, long nail, small weird iron thingy, and zinc jar lid all came from the first site.
The huge metal thing is one side of an antique wood stove. We found more parts of the stove but only opted to haul out the one piece, since we were on foot. My initial research shows it was from a small box stove or bedroom heater, of the type in use from about 1840 to 1870.
The X-looking thingy we do not know what that is. My first guess was that it was from a sewing machine, but who knows? I will post more about that in the 'what is it' forum.
I am still pulling cheat-grass from new and exciting places.
It was about as difficult as I had expected, I guess. There was much less brush than I had anticipated, but there were many more mosquitos than I anticipated. And we had to hike WAY more than I had anticipated.
The site we were searching for actually has several parts. The first part of the site we were looking for we had to hike in about a mile or a mile and a half, something like that. We found some newer garbage and some rather old looking iron, but I am unconvinced that we found the actual site we were looking for. I do think there is a 100 year old dump somewhere in that area that we made it to, but at this juncture I don't think we hiked far enough to find the 150 year old site.
Here are some of the smaller items we found at the first site (more pics farther on):
The three pennies came from the access road we were hiking on. I also had a bunch of small junk that I had been collecting in my hip pocket, but I threw it away when I became tired of sitting on it and getting poked and prodded in new and mysterious ways. The pull tab is one of the 'rare' early 1960s varieties that I saw when someone posted a pull-tab website recently. The slug appears to be .22 caliber, and the shells are a .22 short rimfire, and two .25 caliber automatics. The nail I am pretending that I can tell it is a square nail, even though it is no longer square or round.
We hiked out of this site and began looking for another nearby site. This time we only had to hike in about 3/4 of a mile.
I have never seen mosquitoes in roaming gangs before. We would be just fine--not getting bitten--and then all of the sudden we would be the main course of the buffet line. Speaking of wildlife, we also saw a deer, a coyote, and a baby skunk. Some bald eagles were watching us closely the whole time at the second site.
We didn't find what we were looking for at the second site, but I think we accidentally found a mid-nineteenth century homesite or something. There was a U-shaped hole in the ground that looked very foundationish. Also there were wild parsnips in the area, and right behind this area were humongous oak trees, several of them at least 6-feet thick each. It was in this area that we found some interesting iron relics:
The square spike, long nail, small weird iron thingy, and zinc jar lid all came from the first site.
The huge metal thing is one side of an antique wood stove. We found more parts of the stove but only opted to haul out the one piece, since we were on foot. My initial research shows it was from a small box stove or bedroom heater, of the type in use from about 1840 to 1870.
The X-looking thingy we do not know what that is. My first guess was that it was from a sewing machine, but who knows? I will post more about that in the 'what is it' forum.
I am still pulling cheat-grass from new and exciting places.
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