Out in the rain and sleet. A few more oldies.

[The Buzzard King]

I FINALLY got the monkey off my back this week. I’d been seriously “jonesin’” to get out detecting for over 3 weeks now, but the ground has been frozen solid.
It finally got up in the 40’s for a few days. (Wednesday and Thursday).
I went out in the woods for about 2 hours each day. Wednesday it was raining, but yesterday, it was absolutely pouring and sleeting, and the trees were covered with ice. Very messy, but at least I could dig!
I wrapped the housing of my CZ-5 with a huge zip-lock freezer bag, and sealed it with duct-tape!
I couldn’t play with any settings, so I just dug everything.
Wednesday I found the 1898 Injun, at about 7 inches. Thursday, I dug the 1893 V-nickel, at around 9 inches, the 1911 Barber dime, at only about 5 inches, and a 1909-VDB wheatie.
Finally, after digging at least 1500 wheaties in 3-4 years, I found a 1909.
LOL, It’ll be 100 years old in a few weeks!
(I soaked all the coins (except the Barber), in HOT olive oil for a while, then scraped the dirt off with my fingernail).

I also made a VERY strange discovery on Wednesday. I found somebody’s headstone on the side of the road in a sewer drain. I brought my camera with me yesterday to take a few pictures of it.
When I first found it, the upper part of the stone was lying face down, directly on top of the sewer drain.
I THOUGHT the giant “rock” blocking the drain looked kinda like a headstone. So I pulled it out, and flipped it over. I was pretty shocked.
I don’t know how it got there, but there IS a cemetery right up the road a few hundred yards.
But the cemetery is "across a small creek from where this was found. So some “human being” had to move this thing. It didn’t go 900 ft. "down a hill”, cross a rocky creek, then go 600 ft. “up a hill” by itself!
The thought that someone used it to fill a pothole pisses me off. But that’s kinda what it looks like.
Anyway, I’ve moved it away from the road since I took the pictures.
I have some close-up pictures of the writing on the stone, but I won’t post that now.
I’m trying my best to research the name and cemetery records, so it can be put back where it belongs.
Unfortunately, I think I might have a problem. I’ve discovered that the cemetery “up the road” from where it was found, was started around 1910. And HUNDREDS of pre-1910 burials were MOVED there from another local cemetery, and they have NO RECORDS anymore of the burials of the people that were moved from one cemetery to the other. The only records are the stones themselves. Great.
Either way, I’ll be in contact with the cemetery, or possibly the decendants of the persons listed on the stone, and I’ll see to it that it gets placed in the appropriate place. Even if I have to do it myself!
BTW, the pictures don't really do it justice. They make it look small. The upper part of the stone is about 18X24 inches wide, and about 6 inches thick. It's VERY heavy!

Anyway, thanks for looking.
Hope everyone has a GREAT holiday season!
TBK.

 

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[crazyjarhead]

Thats freaky. I hope they or you can find it's owner

 

[wolcottdigger]

We found a head stone in my brother in laws yard and used ancestry.com to look it up but no luck.
also very nice finds.

 

[seger98]

Nice coins!

 

[silverfreak]

Nice finds BK. Good luck with the tombstone. Some people do some stupid things...but like you think...I think somebody obviously had to move it there

 

[tymcmurray]

Nice conglomerate of finds!!!

 

[dfx willy]

nice finds bud! ive been jonesen too. going out sunday. good luck on the head stone. willy.

 

[kdismuke1]

GREAT FINDS.

 

[phantomfinder]

SWEET , WTG

 

[The Buzzard King]

Could glacial activity account for the position of the headstone?

I don't know about Glacial activity, but Flooding activity could have had something to do with it possibly, as it IS in a heavy water run-off area. There is a possibility that it could have been pulled from the cemetery by flooding, and brought DOWN to the creek, BUT I don't see those flood water being capable of bringing it UP another long and steep hillside on the opposite side of the creek.
Being probably over 300 lbs. I would think that at MOST, it could have gotten DOWN to the creek level, and stayed in that range somewhere. Maybe ran downstream some. But not come back up a hill!
My only other theory is, that it might not have ever made it up to the cemetery in the first place, when they were moving the bodies in 1910. They obviously were using horse and carriages to transport the coffins and headstones uphill to the new cemetery. Maybe this headstone fell off the back of a wagon before they got there?
The cemetery's current records show EVERY known burial in the cemetery up till 1979.
This stone was not in the cemetery in 1979. And there's NO records of the "Moved Pre-1910 burials" anywhere, except the stone themselves. Great record keeping they did, huh?

 

[Pangus]

THREAD HI-JACK!!


I've been wondering this, and its seems perhaps the best time to mention it...

While driving a power line in town, testing out some mods on the ol' Jeep, way out away from everything, I noticed something in the woods. I jumped out and found that it was a stacked rock wall. It forms a rectangle and is about 3 1/2 to 4 feet tall. Anyway, it has a few graves in it, about 4 I think, but only 1 with an identifiable headstone. The headstone appears to be like a government issued stone, tall light gray, and in great shape, making reference to the "Indian wars". I'd wager its 40 years or older. The other stones, like so many other rural graveyards, appear to be sandstone or some other form of rock that does not hold up well to aging, and have nothing on them. You know the kinda rock that's like in layers, but much more aggrigate than sandstone. Literally, crumbling into piles, like a concrete antnest. Anyways, I thought maybe it is a old family site. But then I looked around me, and I noticed a number of oddly similar rocks throughout the woods around me. They are definitely more head stones, just marked with these rocks. Easily 20 or more and randomly placed, more organized around trees than in a discernable grid pattern.

All of this is on a highest point of the area around it. What is weird is the power line cut is fairly straight, then imagine a dense woodline about 75 feet deep, and this is where the graves are, and then it opens up again, with obvious smaller trees and bushes. I thought maybe an old church site?

Now, my question, after that long winded explanation...

Should I detect the open area? (Not the woods..) How close is too close to graves? I don't wanna be the creepy guy...I just wanna know, what's the etiquette there?

 

[Mr.Jody]

Is the headstone both pieces in the pic, or just the top piece? The bottom looks like it has been there for awhile. But 1 minute of a good rain, and you would thing its an ocean sometimes....

 

[sqwaby]

Very appropriate choice for a cover "a freezer bag" considering the weather.

 

[SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS]

Buzzard King,

nice finds; with the weather yuou deserve
anything you found.

Don't know about the head stone;
could be.......................



have a good un..................
SHERMANVILLLE

 

[The Buzzard King]

Is the headstone both pieces in the pic, or just the top piece? The bottom looks like it has been there for awhile. But 1 minute of a good rain, and you would thing its an ocean sometimes....

Both pieces are from the headstone.
Like it made it there in one piece, then broke in half.
Probably by the weight of a car running over it.