Second Regiment of Foot button

DownNDirty · Oct 19, 2016

Last Saturday I headed back to my favorite Colonial site to continue sifting the site of the plantation house. Previously I had found a number of British Revolutionary War relics, including uniform buttons from the 30th Regiment of Foot, 71st Regiment and Royal Provencials in addition to a large number of 18th century civilian relics.

Right out of the gate the sifter turned up more pipe stem pieces and ceramic pottery shards-and of course plenty of square nails. Here are some of the shards that I sifted out.

Many sifts later I was sorting through the debris in the sifter and noticed a round metal object about the size of a dime. After gently rubbing some of the dirt off I realized it was a pewter button with scrolling around the edge. At first I thought it was a civilian button, but then I saw numbers lightly etched in the center. It was a 71st Regiment of Foot (Fraser's Highlanders) uniform button, roughly half the size of the coat button I found on the site earlier this year.

Here are the two buttons side by side

Later in the day I was surprised to see this two-tined fork pop up in the sifter, with the entire bone handle intact

The sifter continued to produce, including two iron buckles and the tip of a skeleton key

After every second or third sift I swung the coil over the sift pile and in the hole. This produced several small relics, including this pewter piece that I think was the top of a two piece button; it has rusted iron on the back side.

Using this method I found my first "blowhole" button; it had slipped through the mesh screen.

And of course found a a few whatsits...

At the end of the day I walked the adjacent creek with the hopes of finding fossils or relics that Hurricane Matthew might have washed out. I found both-a fossilized mammal leg bone an a piece of 18th century floor tile that likely was from the plantation home.

Here are my finds for the day

The fork cleaned up nicely. Here it is before I started the process

I ran it through my electrolysis tank

Then I immersed it in microcrystalline wax that I melted on my gas grill until all of the moisture was gone

As always it was a fun day at the site; I always come home with interesting stuff from there. Can't wait to get back and do some more sifting.

DownNDirty · Oct 20, 2016

I forgot to add this picture in my original post-it's the Swamp Pit last Saturday. I had planned to dig it some more in the afternoon but Hurricane Matthew turned it into a lake.