Revealing the Buried History of an Obliterated Distillery with My Metal Detector

[Music] folks we are spending this beautiful July day in the woods in the mountains of Vermont on a piece of property that is said to contain the ruins of an old distillery probably from the late 1800s and the folks that invited me out today to do some metal detecting on their land also make wine on the same property so this story has always stuck with them but they said that the old couple that they bought this land from back in the 70s I think they said told them a story that out on the corner of this property there's an old stone foundation that sits on a river and adjacent to an apple orchard and it was a cider distillery and somewhere along the way there was a fire or an explosion and the building burnt down so we are out today to find it do some metal detecting see what we can find in the ground they say they do a lot of hunting in the orchard so this road that I'm walking is fairly well-maintained but still uphill [Music] all right well I think I'm about halfway and we're in this really swampy area there's like a stream running right down the middle of the trail here but birds are chirpin beautiful there's a big clearing over there I think that's a big swamp I was walking along and I saw just a little glimmer of glass and I picked it up that's a broken bottle bottom this is patent 1897 very good sign yeah we're on the right track and so it's like you know what maybe a traveler threw that on their way to this place or maybe there's a dump here and I looked around I found another bottle I don't know anything about it yet I just saw the bottom of it sticking out we're gonna pull it out together here I don't know if it's complete I don't know if it's old let's pull it out and see it's broken it does appear to be old there's no embossing on it the bottom say WT Co number three and a tiny little top on it lots of bubbles in that glass that's a very good sign you know it makes me wonder if this came from where we're going today you think somebody drinking alcohol out of this I'm gonna look around for one more minute I don't see any more I'm gonna move on [Music] well we made it there's a cellar right there and I did a couple loops around just to kind of get a feel for the area here there's a well also go take a look at that and you know I'm not exactly sure how old this place is and you know if the story is necessarily true but it seems a lady lived here let's check this out daylilies still coming up probably a hundred years later so the cellar is right there we'll take a look at that here's the well there looks like there was a cover that's kind of flipped up sideways so we'll avoid this wall and then right up here is the cellar so it's very overgrown here what we're gonna do our best to kind of fight through these ferns and pine needles and stuff see if we can find around here well I've been finding quite a bit of this brass tubing I mean I have to assume that it was in some way part of the process here and I just found this which is not something I've ever seen before it's definitely led it's it must weigh like five pounds but and it has all these little perforations in there again I have to assume there was a lot of pipe work going on here could this be part of it don't know I have to assume so pretty interesting let's keep on moving well we just got our first sign of a fire here this stone right here is part of the foundation I'm right off the edge of the building dug a hole there's a pretty good target and we got a piece of melted something it's quite hard I actually don't think it's wet no it's not this might have been you know it could've been anything they made a lot of things out of the shiny silver brass back then certainly got hot and melted all right hopefully there isn't too much of this stuff otherwise we're gonna be digging a lot of targets 76 well as you can see there's a couple rivets and it's still in the leather fortunately the rivets don't seem to have any markings or anything on them but I don't know how true this is but I've been told when you find leather with brass rivets the reason the leather is still preserved is because the brass has a antibacterial or antimicrobial property to it that preserves the leather it's interesting like I said I'm not sure necessarily how true that is because you don't typically find the leather without brass rivets because you know your metal effector wouldn't find it but it's so quite interesting probably a horse tack some kind not bad let's keep going all right well I just got let's see what was it was like a like a 50 target it's pretty low but right now we're digging everything here and I'm pretty sure it's a button I'm pretty sure it's gold-plated we're gonna find out together here i titled mini heart attack when it popped out but it is very light yeah it's definitely a button but what could be on the front of this you think any indication there it is a two-piece button with an iron back all right I'm just going to very cautiously say that this is a civilian button I don't think that's like a like an American Eagle it looks more like a cache you know it seems like it has two wings they're like a dragon or something it's got like a long neck yeah I don't not sure I'm not sure let me know what you think I don't think it's Milt I was hoping that it was gonna be an old military button but it doesn't appear though it is probably whoever was planting those day lilies we did lose the top but we'll just make sure that when we put it in a case stays all together very cool see what else we can find here well I've wandered into the orchard and it is gorgeous in here and probably an amazing place to do some metal detecting but unfortunately I am hip deep in these ferns really really pretty imagine you know a couple hundred years ago people out here on ladders picking apples for the the harvest we may have to talk to the landowner see if we can get back up here next year probably not this fall because the ferns are gonna be up really until it snows probably early early spring let's try to find time to get up here before turkey season but after the snow is gone short window but I think it might be worth it people out here picking apples dropping all their stuff let's head back under these trees see if we find some more stuff [Music] well I haven't really been finding a whole lot of like homesite stuff like you know utensils and buckles but I did just find piece of a spoon here and I just wanted to point out just how feminine it is look at that I mean this would have been pretty ritzy stuff seems to be a brass alloy of some kind it's still very very shiny and there's no green patina on there cool we're gonna stick close to the cellar that seems like it's where most of the targets are the orchard is unfortunately inaccessible so we have to kind of detect where we can see what else we can find here well we have a first for me here first and I pulled this out I thought it was going to be some modern garbage but this appears to be an old pipe broken unfortunately but that's certainly what it looks like I wish I could tell you what this material is it seems like it's lead it's old you know this has me wondering if this place has an older much older history then what the landowners are aware when they first told me the story they had said that this distillery was here well they said that it burned down in the early 1900s like late lay eighteen hundred's right around the turn of the century but it's becoming more and more obvious that there was somebody living here for at least a hundred years before that that's an old tobacco pipe I've been very unsuccessful in finding clay pipes throughout the years I've never even found a fragment but this is a very very interesting and exciting beautiful all right well I just found a nonmetallic find out here and it is pretty gross you see this I found this in the woods really only in the springtime it's the middle of summer right now but it's called moon jelly or star jelly it has a bunch of different names mostly just from folklore from I understand and from the last time I researched this people aren't really sure what it is I think that the consensus is a slime mold that just kind of appears but there's a whole bunch of folklore on what it is and where it came from and what you can do with it but I'll let you guys look that up on your own it's just like a big ball of brown snot sometimes it gets like real big and like green and a bunch of different colors it's pretty gross I'll give you a close-up and then we'll move on eggs pretty revolting all right let's keep moving well I just found a little cuff button and you know there's a lot of pieces of brass tubing it seems like melted globs of whatever there's not a whole lot of like things to show but I just got this cuff button and you know I was thinking there's such a vast array of Ages that we're finding out here and you can kind of see it in the buttons this little cuff button we're gonna call this like 1830 to 1870 and then this is the one I just found but then we've got this too which is a super old like probably homemade pewter button which is like late 1700s or even earlier so we've got you know we've got the story that said that these folks were here at the turn of the century and we've got buttons all the way back to the 1700s so and you would have thought that they would drop a whole bunch of stuff in that 150 years but I'm just not finding that today let's keep going a little bit longer that we're running out of out of date today unfortunately so I've kind of moved down here near the stream and I'm detecting along and I see like a flash of blue on the ground got my attention I look down check this out wild blueberries Vermont is not exactly known for well blueberries it's more Maine but we have a lot of black raspberries and blackberries out here in the woods just kind of growing wild I don't come across these very often they're obviously much smaller than you find in the supermarket but they're gonna be just as tasty I'm gonna make take a little handful here have myself a snack [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] I will him down here by the stream I just got a super-loud target and it seems like it's right on the surface and I always kind of find it interesting when we find stuff from you know 150 years ago like on the surface of the ground just because it you know got pushed up from the frost heaves or roots or whatever this might be something modern but we're gonna find out together here yeah check that out right on the surface it was an old old old pewter spoon handle and that is uh quite old any nope no markings but it's a cool find anyways isn't that funny just not even an inch under the dirt just got pushed up to the surface through time and nature suit else what you find here well we got a little surprise here I got a very junky target and I dug it and it was this piece of don't know pot or the cooking vessel of some kind probably and I rechecked the hole the tone sounded better that wasn't it kept digging check it out awesome I'm pretty sure that's a coin yeah it is it's a large cent definitely let's uh get my toothbrush out give it a wipe off here all right there it is now if you can make that date out it's 1818 this side is not as good as this front side awesome American sent from 1818 you know the landowner said turn to the century but clearly this was a home or or maybe a different business up until the point when they're operating as a distillery [Music] hi folks I'm gonna call it a day this place is just absolutely gorgeous you know with the apple orchard and the stream but not the best place for metal detecting I found there is just so much melted unidentifiable lead tubing of all kinds brass and that led one that we found and there are just an unimaginable amount of shell casings and shotgun shells and lead it's just absolutely everywhere I had to filter out most of the targets kind of in the middle of the spectrum where that stuff falls and you know I sure I missed a bunch of stuff but man I couldn't dig another shotgun shell today if the stuff that we found was pretty interesting you know kind of spanned the ages it's not really something I expected today but cool nonetheless let's take a look at it all all right well here is everything that we found today there's a few things in here which I did not show throughout the course of the video like here's a little buckle fragment and the piece of a horseshoe and I did find a little perfect square nail obviously square nails are very common find out here but whenever I find one that just doesn't have any rust on it I'll take it home and that's what I use to kind of hang things up in my little treasure room so something will be hanging off that over the next couple weeks for sure eight just kind of very standard buttons from all the way back into probably the late 1700s right up until the late 1800s two pieces of spoon handles and a spoon Bowl I don't think you know I don't think either of these go to this so we've got three spoons sardine can key you have our 1818 large scent and our cool little button which has something on there it's an animal of some kind with two wings long tail and a long neck whether that's a dragon or supposed to be depicting a bird of some kind I find out anything about it I will certainly let you know and what I'm gonna consider today my favorite find is this pipe just because I've never found one of any sort before a ceramic one or a clay one or anything this is my first and if the landowners allow me to take it we'll get a very prominent place in my little little collection and I just wanted to point out you know I found so much melted metal today and Comm tubing today these are the ones that we saw in the video earlier but I've got a bag full of it and I just took one handful of shotgun shells and shell casings out of my bag and there's probably another three handfuls in there well you know we didn't necessarily find any artifacts today that verifies or confirms the story that I was told and the landowner was told that this place was a cider distillery you know the orchard and the small stream is a really good sign that they were almost certainly making hard cider but hard cider and beer were oftentimes more commonly drank than water in you know the 17 1800 s so whether they were making cider brandy or not it's kind of up in the air we certainly found lots of brass tubing though this place I'm going to try my best to come back to in the springtime and do some metal detecting in the actual orchard and if we have time maybe we can spend more time around those bottles that I found see if maybe we can find some more so I'm gonna start hiking out of here thanks again for watching [Music]

Channel: Green Mountain Metal Detecting

Views: 77,558

Keywords: adventure, Vermont, best metal detecting finds, metal detecting finds, metal detector, metal detecting coins, metal detecting videos, treasure hunting, metal detecting shovel, metal detecting tips, metal detecting, treasure, old coins, cellar hole, history, incredible, amazing, gmmd, stone walls, mystery, ghost town, 2019, New England

Id: o62Hg1Y699k

Length: 20min 21sec (1221 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 30 2019