capt. sparrow said:
I took a walk up to Dogtown today to poke around. Everytime I have been there I have just found junk but I thought I'd give it another shot. I hadn't been up there for about a year and was surprised to see a number of cellar holes dug up. I had originally thought it might be the town doing some sort of restoration project until I jumped into one and saw the telltale signs of . There were many small piles of "trash" including pull tabs, old pottery, bottle caps and old nails around the perimeter. Now, I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand I have always wanted to do this, but felt the moral obligation of leaving things as they are. On the other I kinda of see it as vandalism. We are talking about cellar holes that were maybe 1- 2 ft deep now completely dug down almost 6 feet with all the rubble and brick strewn around it. These things have been there as is for 200+ years, now someone decides to dig them out for personal benefit. I can see finding some random cellar hole in the woods and having at it, but for a public park that has historical significance, I don't know. I am torn and was wondering if any one had thoughts. Then again maybe it was some town led project I missed, it just didn't look like it
While we'll probably never know, it sounds to me like someone(s) decided to "excavate" the cellar holes, take whatever had any value, leave the "trash" behind and not even bother to refill the holes.
It's things like this that leave a very bad taste in people's mouths when they hear the term "metal detectorist," and one of the reasons it's getting more and more difficult to get permission to hunt anywhere.
When I first saw the topic of Dogtown brought up and some folks hoping to get together there for a hunt, I have to admit I cringed a little bit. The reason I did so wasn't because of the people posting here who discussed whether it was against the law, where to get more information on the areas, etc... - the reason I cringed is because I KNOW FOR A FACT there are lurkers out there who watch these forums on a regular basis (especially the state by state ones) with the sole purpose of getting a lead to a potential hotspot, or an idea of a place to hunt and then do their best to get there before anyone else can.
These are the people who have no scruples, no morals, no ethics and no regard for anyone or anything else.
I'm sorely tempted to visit the area, carry out all the trash and refill the holes - the sad thing is, with my luck, someone would probably see me out there with a shovel, report me to the authorities and I'd have to try to explain what I was doing - which I'm sure they wouldn't believe and I'd end up having to pay a fine.
Sometimes I think it's better to discuss the particulars of a hunt in private rather than give out too many details here - there's just too many folks who would think nothing of bulldozing or blasting a site if they thought they could get away with it.
