Mudlarking in the USA reveals a special surprise I was not expecting to find! Guess What!

today i've come to visit some  of the little bays around san   francisco so let's go for a little  explore and see what we can find so the first thing we've got here is a  big flock of canada geese i'm sure we're   going to see some beautiful wildlife today as  well as perhaps finding a few bits and pieces   we get a lot of these in london as well there's  often flocks of them congregating on blackheath it's so nice just sitting here  listening to the water lapping up on the shore it's a little tiny island over there full of birds let's take a look looks like  there's gulls, egrets little waders seagulls let's start at the end there group of waders now i don't know which waders but  some of you may know have a look at these egrets they're so resplendent aren't they we've got like a lone wader here and there's the gull section  lovely little bird island and i'm just sitting here listening  to this very relaxing sound   of the water lapping up on this little beach oh there's lots and lots of broken  glass here so this is good news i think i'll collect enough to  make a little fish on the shoreline oh here we are registered us clorox i shall look  up that here's a bottle here which is quite nice very similar to the ones we find back near london  with the measurements on this one's a bit broken and it's quite nice to find bits of glass with  american names on companies american companies   that i can perhaps look up or i'm assuming they're  american anyway there's abbott and co here and um this one's got ohio on it makes a nice change now here's the bottom of a bottle and i can see  that it's got los angeles on it so it's got let's   have a look los angeles cali or california um and  then it's got w j latchford co los angeles so it's   always fun to see what you can find out just from  a broken fragment and this is nice for me because   of course usually the bottles in the glass that  i find in england they're more sort of uk related   well apart from californian fig syrup of course  we seem to find a lot of that but wj latchford company los angeles now i'm in a national park and so you don't take  anything away from here so it's fun just to look   at the fragments and then just put them back i  think i've spotted a nice bottle stopper down here oh also what looks like some maybe some  newspaper or something let's have a look   but anyway look there's a bottle stopper here just  poking out from under this rock let's pull it out   oh that's nice isn't it i wonder  if it's got anything on it no it hasn't just give it a little  rinse hold it up to the light okay isn't it pretty it's gorgeous like sweets aren't they part of a belt or a little  buckle or something or a catch a little button just here all the waders are  having a little bath splashing around there it's a bit driftwood heaven down here as  well sort of reminds me of Cliffe out in Kent   this driftwood just sitting here just something really alluring  about driftwood i just love it hi everyone today i've come to china camp i was  here a few days ago it's on the san pablo bay   near san rafael and it's near the site of a really  historic shrimp fishing village a chinese-american   shrimp fishing village that was really thriving  in the late 19th century so it's low tide here as   well so i'm having a look to see if there's  any sort of evidence in the mud at low tide   what used to go on around here at china camp  and look there's lots of bits of pottery here   and i'm sure that these are probably remnants  from when this was a really thriving community let's see if there's anything else to  find a nice piece of pottery here look and this is quite fascinating looks like  the remnant of a basket or something   that you can see coming out of the mud it sort of reminds me of the thames mud really really really interesting bits of bone as well   oh that's a tooth i think yeah an  old tooth yeah it's very thames like and here in the mud you can even see sort  of remnants of old bits of rope there   still preserved in the mud now i've just found something exciting  here i've just pulled this out and   it's a really old so it looks like a  really old domino piece look at that i think it's a domino i don't  know yeah definitely looks like it and guess what i found plenty of pottery that  definitely looks like it's got some kind of   chinese design on it i've just put a  little pile over here just look at this it's lovely isn't it what i'm going to do is  i'm going to put it in the little museum area now here there's even a tiny bottle look  a little tiny bottle probably from the   early 1900s i should think now look  there's a lovely chunk down here and   it's quite big actually so look  at this look at that isn't that beautiful now i also just found a little coin um but it's  quite worn so i can't immediately tell what it is now what's this something that's not  pottery and i can see it's got some   lettering on it as well it's kind of exciting  isn't it look at that i wonder what this is i shall have to give it a little rinse let's find some water over  here give it a little rinse off that's cool patented august  the 17th 1875. whatever it is well here i am in california and i can just  tell you now that i have found my first piece   of clay pipe stem isn't that incredible i kid  you not there it is a piece of clay pipe stem result i think the prize piece has got  to be this uh chinese domino here that is definitely the star find this coin  which unfortunately i can't see what it is   this is interesting whatever it was or  part of something anyway that was patented   august 17th 1875 and this star find here piece  of pipe stem marked with glasgow on that side and   mcdougall on that side and it's going to be  interesting finding a little bit more out about   mcdougall who made this clay pipe  and then exported it to the usa back   in the 19th century so i'm going to pack up these  bits now and take a little walk down to the museum well this is the little museum down at china camp   it's got lots of little placards  detailing the history of the place so i've just put my pottery down here and guess what here we are back  on the river thames in london and here is a mcdougall clay pipe stem so we're  right back where we started mcdougall glasgow hi everyone thank you very much for watching  i hope you're well and welcome to my studio   i'm now back in london and that footage was  taken gosh when was it taken back in january   2020 when we were all still able to travel and i  don't know about you but i'm really missing being   able to travel and explore different areas and so  looking through that footage again it was really   nice it brought back some lovely memories and i  found so much more than i was expecting to find   i have to say and i was particularly excited in  fact i don't think i've ever been quite so excited   to find a clay pipe stem because i've got to be  honest it was the last thing i was expecting to   find i find a lot of them on the river thames but  i just wasn't expecting to see one sitting there   at china camp and so it really made my day and  this is a good time to just say how underrated   clay pipe stems are because actually they really  do have the potential to unlock so much history   and tell so many stories and we can find out so  much about a clay pipe just by looking at the stem   whether it's got a maker on it or not and i've got  a whole box of stems here and one of these days   i'm going to do a video all about my clay pipe  stems and that will be one to look out for because   no one will be able to say that a clay pipe stem  is boring after you all have seen that video   because this box is just full of fragments of pipe  with names on of makers addresses where they were   made dates when they were made beautiful  designs little prints on the heels   and i've got one here with a little bit of wax  on the stem   the wax helped the clay  not to stick to the lips of the person who was   smoking it and that's the thing about clay pipes  and clay pipe stems i mean they're really personal   bits of history because generally the person  who held it before the person who finds it in   the mud or wherever is the person who smoked it  sometimes several hundred years earlier and so   they really are special bits of history  so never underestimate the    the potential of a clay pipe stem of just  how much history it can it can tell us and so   there we are i hope i've managed to convince  you about how important clay pipe stems are   and now we'll just have a quick chat about the  one that i found in china camp now um at first   i didn't realize that it had a maker on it and  when i realized a few hours later i was actually   absolutely thrilled this isn't it by the  way because i left the original there but   i'm just holding it as a replacement  pretending that it's the one i found   um now the one i found was marked with mcdougall  and glasgow and so of course that meant that i had   something to look up so i looked up mcdougalls  and they are a pipe company which um started in   1847 mcdougalls were manufacturing clay pipes  in glasgow from 1847 and in fact they they   didn't end manufacturing clay pipes until 1967  and so they actually went on for a very long time   but um mcdougalls they used to  export a lot of clay pipes to the us   and it was duncan mcdougall who ran the  company and um the fact that it has glasgow   written on it means that the clay pipe dates  between 1847 and 1891 now how do we know that   well we know that because in 1891 a law was  brought in in the u.s which meant that anything   imported into the u.s in particular clay pipes for  example they had to have their country of origin   stamped on the side and so they were no longer  able to put just glasgow on it it had to be   mcdougall scotland so if you're in the u.s and you  find a clay pipe with mcdougalls on it and it has   glasgow you know that it's pre 1891 and if it's  got scotland it's after 1891 so um so there you   have it you see we've already been able to sort  of see that the pipe dates between 1847 and 1891   and i'm going to hazard a guest and say that it  probably dates to around about 1870 which would   fit perfectly with when china camp was a really  busy place full of people working and fishing   and presumably also people sitting down having a  little puff on a clay pipe and so there you are   it was very very exciting to to find it and  it was also fun a few months later to find   a clay pipe stem with mcdougall and glasgow on  it again in the river thames and to be honest   it's that that that made me think oh i must do a  video and sort of make that connection so it just   goes to show that it's not just necessarily in the  river thames where one can find clay pipe stems so   just in case you did think that which i'm sure  you don't because we all know of course that   people do find clay pipes and clay pipe  stems in the us not just in the uk but   like i said i just wasn't expecting it so it was  a really lovely surprise so now that i've given   you all a lecture about clay pipe stems i'm sure  you've heard more than you want to hear about them   um i'll leave it there until my clay pipe stem  video special which should be coming out uh   well i don't know sometime over the next eight  months or so one to look out for i have to say   so that's about it really i think that the  other finds on the videos spoke for themselves   really and um yeah i'll just say again what a  lovely time i had and how fun it was to explore   somewhere different from the thames to make a  change and how much i absolutely loved seeing   all that beautiful wildlife but next week i'll  be back on the thames maybe not physically but   my video will be featuring the river thames again  so we'll be back down in that full-on thames mud   so um thank you very much again for watching  and thank you for your comments and feedback   and encouragement your ideas  and emails and suggestions   i appreciate um every comment that i get and  if you enjoy my videos then please do subscribe   and take care of yourselves stay safe i hope  that you have an excellent week ahead and i   very much look forward to seeing you again  very soon for more scintillating history   about clay pipes clay pipe stems and goodness  knows what else um so until then take care bye-bye  

Channel: nicola white mudlark - Tideline Art

Views: 73,794

Rating: 4.9513469 out of 5

Keywords: london mudlark, london mudlarking, uk mudlarking, usa mudlarking, mudlarking in the usa, san francisco mudlarking, mudlarking in san francisco, mudlarking in california, china camp san rafael, china camp, haywards shoreline, san francisco, nicola white mudlark, best mudlarking finds usa

Id: exG6_A-GxKA

Length: 29min 36sec (1776 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 07 2021