2 cents

The winter months have given me plenty of time to stare bleary eyed at old maps to find the old abandoned home sites that I love to metal detect. After many hours of comparing new maps to old maps I had found exactly what I was looking for, an old road that was not on the newer maps which means that it was now abandoned and any houses that showed on it were now abandoned as well. The road that I found was in a very rural section of northwestern CT (you didn't think I was going to give you the location now, did you?) and showed three homes over a stretch of about 1.5 miles. This was perfect, just the kind of thing that makes me start dreaming of the treasure I would find. In my mind every location is loaded with old copper, silver and gold coins just waiting for me to come along and pluck them out of the dirt. Of course this has never aligned with reality....YET!
The day came where I could get away so I immediately knew where I wanted to go. I brought my father along as I often do on these outings since he loves to metal detect as well. He's been doing it for over 40 years now and is the reason why I got hooked on this hobby when I was just a kid. So anyway, off we go with metal detectors in hand.
Finding the old road was easy since there were distinct landmarks nearby to help us find the right location. The old road was lined on either side by stonewalls which made it easy to stay on path. So much can be told by the stonewalls of New England. We have so much natural rock here that building stone walls was absolutely necessary for the early settlers since they needed cleared land to farm and for animals to graze. Walking through the woods one just has to look at the land and take notice if there is rock still covering the area and once you notice that the land starts looking clear of rocks then you can bet that you are nearing an old house. We found the first house with no trouble. The remains of the foundation were right beside the road and next to it was something that I have rarely seen, an arched stone cold cellar! And it was still standing. This told me that this farm was probably a pretty large and successful one. It takes a lot of work to build these cold cellars to store your food in and judging by the amount of cleared field I could tell that this was quite the farm in it's day. (That's my father mugging it up in the pic.)

We immediately turned on the detectors and went to work. Within minutes I had located the first button which is a common find at these old homes. This was a flat cast button which dates to the early 1800's or 1700's. This was exactly what we wanted to see. More buttons were found but then the targets fizzled out. I was beginning to think that we weren't going to get anything else and then I got a nice strong signal that could have possibly been a button or if I was lucky a coin. Digging down I rechecked the signal and it sounded better now and I knew it had to be a coin. Sure enough I was rewarded with a nice large green copper disc. Curiosity getting the better of me I walked over to a puddle of water and cleaned it off to see if I could identify it. Once I saw the details I knew it was a 1723 Woods Hibernia colonial half penny. I was familiar with this coin since I had found another one a couple years earlier. 1723 was the only date they made them  so even though I couldn't read the date on the coin I knew it was from that year.

This was a nice find but that was it, nothing else was turning up so we decided to head to the next home site.
This one was not as easily identifiable. I probably would have walked right past it if not for my father spotting it. This cellar hole looked very old, probably much older than the last one. It was very small and there were not many clues to house being there other than the actual foundation. This time I was not getting anything too exciting. I got one small button and pile of misc junk metal. My father made the only good find at this spot, a nice colonial buckle which almost certainly dates to the 1700's. (sorry about the lousy pic)

After a short lunch break we moved on again finding the third and last home. This one was huge! A big foundation with a large center chimney. There was another foundation from a large barn nearby. There were apple trees and what looked like a garden area enclosed with stone walls. This really looked good. In the first minutes we could tell that this house had been inhabited later than the past 2 we had already done. I found some relics that indicated late 1800's rather than 1700's like the previous sites. This means that there would be a lot more junk iron in the ground making it more difficult to find the coins that were are after. We stuck with it for a couple hours digging many targets but not finding anything too interesting. We both remarked several times how there had to be coins there but the question was, could we find them with all the iron in the ground? I got lucky again. I got a good signal and upon turning over a shovel full of dirt I could see a small penny sized copper coin. I figured it was an indian head penny which would have been the right time period for what we were already finding. Much to my surprise it wasn't an indian but a flying eagle penny that was only made between the years 1856 and 1858. These are a rare find and was a first for me. Happy that I now had a coin we decided to head out since the day was getting late.
Once back at the car I decided to drive by an area that I had spotted on the way there that looked like it could have possibly been a home site. We found it and got out of the car to take a look. It really was hard to tell. The ground was clear and there was an area that looked like it could have been a cellar hole but it was very small and almost completely filed in by erosion. There weren't even many stones visible that could have been part of the stone foundation. We figured the only way to really tell if this was indeed a home site was to pull out the metal detectors and see if there was metal in the ground. Even this was spotty because there was some metal but not very much. This home must have been abandoned very early on to accumulate so little metal and to be so eroded.

Ten minutes into the search I got a very fuzzy signal that would not give a clear tone but since there were so few signals to chose from here I decided to dig it up anyway. I was shocked when out popped a large green disc. This coin must have been at an angle in the ground making the signal much harder to read. I could immediately see details on the coin telling me that it was another colonial half penny. Upon cleaning it I could see a nice readable date of 1746. Finding one of these with a date can be a bit of a challenge since they stayed in circulation for a very long time and most were worn smooth. This one however did have two holes in it which is not uncommon for coins of this age. It was common practice at the time to sew them onto clothes so that you wouldn't lose them. That didn't work too well for the owner of this particular coin!

This was the end of a great day metal detecting. Sure I only found a total of two cents worth but it's really the history and the thrill of discovery that excites me about metal detecting not the value of the items found.

Beech tree carvings

OK, I need to catch up on a few discoveries as of late. The early spring weather has allowed me to make my treks into the woods a little earlier than expected this year. Still, I always tend to jump the gun and head into the woods only to find that there was more snow on the ground than I expected or I'll find that the ground is still frozen which puts a real damper on my metal detecting since I can't retrieve the targets that I find! This was one of those trips
. At my house in the valley there was not a flake of snow on the ground and my ground test showed that the frost was gone so I headed to a nearby spot that I had been researching which showed an old home site about a mile off the nearest road. The problem was that it was also considerably higher in elevation than where I lived and of course when I got to where I was going to park I found that there was still some snow on the ground. I told myself that it wasn't very much and I could probably still use the metal detector despite the snow. So I climbed up and up the mountain following an old abandoned road and looking for signs of past human activity. Nearing the area of the home site and it seemed with every footstep the depth of the snow increased an inch. By the time I got to the right area there was 5 inches of snow on the ground and metal detecting was out of the question. I had jumped the gun again. Oh well, at least I found it and I could return at a later time to see what might have been lost 150 years ago. Following the road back down the mountain I spotted an old Beech tree beside the road and noticed that it looked a little funny. Beech trees have a very smooth bark and people tend to carve their initials in them. It's just one of those things that people do....I don't know why. Upon closer inspection this tree had attracted some carvers in the years past and since this was a good half mile from the nearest road or house, I was curious what stories the carvings held. Some were still readable like the initials "RH" and a date of "6/39" but this carver also added "Ariz" indicating that he/she was a visitor from the state of Arizona. I wonder why that person was doing in the back hills of CT in 1939? I believe this roadway had already been abandoned by that time so maybe it was a hunter? Or possibly a hiker? Who knows...I can't say that I condone carving up trees but seeing these old carvings out in the middle of nowhere definitely made my trek a little more interesting. Now I just have to get back up there with the metal detector and find all that lost treasure hidden in the hills.