Uncovering the Forgotten History of an American Ghost Town | Metal Detecting

[Music] today we have a trip plan that I'm looking forward to for a while now I was contacted by the director of a piece of forever wild sanctuary property in the hundreds of acres it was an invitation to come and explore and metal detect what they've come to call the ghost town as far as I understand it the ghost town is stone ruins of unknown age unknown purpose the earliest map I have of that area is 1855 and as far as I can tell this place was built and used and abandoned before this map was made in 1855 we're gonna go today to try to get to the bottom of it with our metal detectors see what we can find that maybe could put an age on this place and perhaps a purpose the director is going to meet us there she's gonna show us around momentarily Mike W should be here to come with us and I'm gonna finish packing up the vehicle I've gotten a bit of a trek ahead of us [Music] and we're still walking along to the site here and we're walking through all of this milkweed and I just asked if they have a lot of monarchs they do incredible amount which makes sense what a beautiful place stone wall up into this big field she said they have a unfortunate problem with trespassing hunters so we're wearing orange today it's not supposed to be in hunting air but as we've discovered in the past so people don't always pay attention to those posted signs [Music] so the three of us are still hiking along to the site it's just so much to land here and I had to stop and show you this it's just a little ride maybe it's a waterfall I guess you could consider it check this out isn't that beautiful right down face of this little Gorge that's incredible [Music] so we've been walking for maybe 30 minutes and we just came across the first structure here which appears to be a bank bar and across this little stream here it's fine my sure let's take a look at that Oh interesting it's only two sides beautiful awesome we're gonna take our machines out let's see what we can find here all right well my first find here was a strip of lead which we find pretty often it was just utility LED melted down for different things and the second find and we've been here maybe two minutes is what I think is a giant two-piece button this is the shank here the other side I just took a peek at it I think has a beautiful floral design on there look isn't that amazing I'm almost wondering if it isn't a button that would be used for clothing or maybe it was a bag or it's so big I think this is probably the biggest button I've I've seen that's incredible so it's two pieces lost a piece of it there which on the smaller buttons that we find us is typically like post 1820 1830 but I'm not exactly sure what this is so this is beautiful all right let's a promising first find let's keep going all right we have our first really nice high tone here now to coin this is the first of these I've ever found I'm excited it's a it's a heel plate for a boot and as you can see it has a heart in it and the urban legend that I've heard about these not to be vulgar but they say that these were worn by prostitutes and as they walked they left little hearts in the ground as a little trail to follow I don't know how true that is but that's the story I've heard I don't think so I think it was a farm but this is a really cool find I think that these were actually purchased after the fact to strengthen shoes and boots you could buy these and sets very cool little heart heel plate all right see what else we can find all right we've got here yeah it's a big piece of jingle bell oh my god it's huge it's uh it's Tom Bakk which is an alloy of brass but it's just a just a chunk of one that's a nice one that's beautiful I've never seen such a big one I have yet to find a whole one this size but um yeah that's uh I found a much smaller one up near the house or no kidding yeah like that sure yeah but not hole right it's a big piece of bail [Music] [Music] [Music] so that Bank barn is right down here and this is the Associated home site we have the Bates basement entrance here and a lot of times these basements wouldn't be the entire footprint of the building it would maybe be a quarter of the building or half the building but this is definitely what I would consider the whole building so that's that's exciting I don't know that yeah there's a lot of times we find brick buildings but I don't think that's what this was well if we find bricks well no but yeah well let's get the metal detectors out all right well I just found what I believe to be well first I thought it was a bridal rosette but the more I'm looking at it I'm thinking maybe it's the back of a pocket watch and the reason I think that is because there is a very intricate design on this all right I can barely see this I'm not sure how well you're gonna be able to see this but up in this corner up here you can see some appear to be tree limbs there's definitely something on there there's a sign up on top that's cool I'm not I'm gonna say that that's maybe it is a bridal rosette I don't know yeah I don't think it's a pocketwatch I think it's a bridal rosette now a little scene on there really cool never found one like that it's mangled so there's a whole story behind that but this is the movement plate - probably a mantel clock all of the little gears and stuff would evolve in it in those little holes and sometimes there'll be a brand name on this sometimes then we can use that to date it but that's what that is like I said it's all twisted up that would have been nice and square and but these little oh yeah that's what it is all the gears are gone I don't know if they scrap them or took them all off there's another smaller or something like this one yeah oh my gosh that's what it is probably so I would've had a glass face I would have suspect so yeah how did you know that I found a few of them it's pretty far away from by the fine really cool so I'm at the base of this giant tree and I got a beautiful target right at the base way down in here amongst the roots I found look it's the other piece of that giant chronal bell isn't that amazing both pieces I was just saying how I've never found one this big that I still have an intact but this is uh almost as good that mates the day I'm excited that's today at firsts today amazing all right so we just found something amazing for the site a tag that has a little wire on at the end here and it says Frederick C Decker and the name of what is it one town over from where we are one town over from where we are and on the bottom it says bed to be ed2 and we're thinking Hospital Asylum and there's there are Decker's in this area which we can we can relate to directly that's incredible it doesn't seem to be anything on the back no dates or anything but something with a name on it of a family in this area that's incredible right next to the cellar right outside the door maybe we don't know what the door was I'm assuming that's incredible [Music] so we made our way up the stream quite a ways in the last home site I was wondering if they'd be related but I'm not so sure they're not super close to each other and we have what appears to have at one time been a mill I thought at first it was a dam but I definitely don't think so because this is a cellar it was a dam this would've been under water obviously man that is amazing stand up on this wall here yeah I bet they had a waterwheel in there this is amazing well let's see if maybe we can find something in the ground here we might well we're kind of winding down here towards the end of the day and taking my last holes and we were just discussing what I suspected the the age of this place might be and I said eighteen thirties 1850s and then I just found this which sure looks an awful lot like a shoe buckle frame which throws that data estimate out the window but it's not quite enough of it to for sure be a shoe buckle so we're gonna we're gonna stick with the original estimate shoe buckles are typically late 1700s it's a beautiful one too with a little flower on the edge I think that's what that is but I suppose they could have been here around that time and then left around 1830 this is the only thing of this age we found here it's very cool all right this is my find of the day for sure I dug it up do you know what that is no that trigger guard to a gun yeah that's exactly what that is this yeah this would have gone up in they would have been a pin through that is amazing let me just check the whole one more time there's more high tones around we'll check that in a minute but uh yeah that's what that is it's a trigger guard and plate to an old long gun that's incredible I have no idea it's hard to say I would say it goes along with the history of the building for sure awesome all right well I had just said 30 seconds ago one more hole and our best our backpacks are right here 77 80 there you go no there this well it isn't a coin but it is a button a two-piece button get up my toothbrush flashlight oh wow it's uh it's floral I was thought maybe it was a military button but it is a beautiful flower another one you see that now what I'm looking forward to here we've been trying and trying and trying to find a coin today with a date on it so we could get a foreshore timeframe on this place and this has a back mark which I think will do it for us all right well I just had my loop on it and I'm pretty sure it's Benedict and burn him yeah the bottom this says extra do you get it when they were in business well the F from what we're doing quick googling out here I don't have cell service mike is doing it yeah so it looks like they were in business 1812 to mid 1800s so that's pretty much in line what I expected a little bit earlier but you know with that shoe buckle too threw a wrench in things but we'll call that the last fine today it's a treasure some writing on it that gives us a date date range all right well let's let's set up what we found today and get a recap all right well Mike is still out there digging stuff up so who knows if we'll add to this by the end of the end of the day here but we wound up left left to right here we wound up with a couple suspender clips and they're both different which is pretty interesting the first button we found and the last thing we found this button here which are both floral which is interesting I was thought for sure when I saw the back of that it was gonna be a military button but it's a pretty little flower this item we found early in the day and I thought that it was going to be a bridal rosette it's had a chance to dry and maybe you can see that it is what appears to be an elk I say elk because its chest has a lot of fur on it and there's like a mountain range in the back and this doesn't make a ton of sense to me that it would be on a horse bridle I'm wondering now if it's the back of a pocket watch it's just brass pretty thin but it's very cool we have our heel plate of unknown ownership well we'll go with the myth on it our giant croto Bell which is somewhat complete it's broken but it's somewhat complete Mike's clock movement plate ma the thing I'm most excited about today which is this trigger guard for an old long gun your mind tends to jump straight to a military rifle but you know all of these folks had long guns for hunting I suspect that's what that is and the most exciting thing historically for this site is this tag that has the name of the suspected owner of the building and a bed number for what we think is probably a hospital which is amazing so I'll shake your hand off camera at home I have a glove on - thank you very much for inviting us out we didn't mention it before but all of this stuff is gonna stay on the property and we were just happy to be here and explore this beautiful place final that's really interesting stuff that hopefully gives you a better idea how old we have but we have a range what do we decide that button 17:12 or 1812 - probably we found that hurricane lamp which is 1850 1860 it's pretty pretty narrow window narrow as we can get it and then the shoe buckle which we'll say was Krampus alright well I hope everybody enjoyed watching [Music] you

Channel: Green Mountain Metal Detecting

Views: 98,462

Rating: 4.9626842 out of 5

Keywords: treasure hunting, adventure, gmmd, best metal detecting finds, stone walls, new england, buried treasure, mysterious, cellar hole, abondoned, haunted

Id: Q1-FD5PzwT0

Length: 21min 14sec (1274 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 11 2019