Widow? Hermitess? Metal Detecting a Place with an Unusual Story

[Music] folks well today we find ourselves hiking up this old road in the mountains of Vermont which clearly hasn't been used in a long time except for probably four-wheelers offroad trucks but the folks who invited me out here today whose property this is told me that within living memory I think they said their grandmother a great-grandmother actually used to use this road to get over the mountain on a horse-drawn buggy which seems like something that happened hundreds of years ago but clearly not that long for some people so we're out here today to do some metal detecting they said that there was this old stone foundation up here along the road somewhere and you know they have some family stories about this place and they also went to the local Historical Society and were able to pull a name for the person who lived here and I was able to confirm that on an old map that I have it was just a home but just a little interesting detail about this place is that there was no man's name associated with it it was a woman's name which is now something I've seen before on these old maps according to the landowner they said it was just her and probably a couple of her sisters I'm not sure we're necessarily going to be able to get to the bottom of why that is or what happened or what her story is but I'm interested to see what we might find today I think we've just got a little ways left to go up this trail should be right up here [Music] [Music] all right well we've made it this is just a gorgeous place it's still relatively open you know we've got a stone wall here enclosing this whole area I can hear a brook trickling off in the distance would have been a beautiful place to live so from what I've been told they lived here until the early 1900s and in my experience metal detecting a place like this you know if folks lived here into the Industrial Revolution we tend to find all a lot more trash what could be considered trash you know nondescript sheet metal cans things that are gonna make it hard to find really interesting things but we're going to do our best try to sift through that and [Music] well I just found what I think is a the bottom half of like a container of some kind I thought at first it was going to be like a sardine can it's all very rounded on the edges and it seems to be fairly well made see right here there's a couple holes it's a string yeah that was string for what was probably the lid or anything in here doesn't look like it I think that the wood that we're seeing here is after the fact maybe it was originally in there yeah you know what I bet it was to reinforce the hinge your guess is as good as mine a little container for something I already looked for the lid couldn't find it maybe we'll find it elsewhere today that's pretty cool makes you wonder what they're keeping in this thing not a pile of gold coins in here but the box itself is pretty nice see what else we can find here that woodpecker up off in the distance they're looking for some bugs I just found something that is something I've found a lot of in the past but now something I found in a long time at all these colonial sites that I've had the opportunity to metal detect this is very common that these kind of mid eighteen hundred sites check it out this is a nearly intact harmonica the holes the notes are you breathe in the holes for the notes when you breathe out most often we find just one of these reeds technically I guess this is a reed plate and the little thing that's covering this hole usually is a reed but there would have been another stack of wood here that's what it is harmonica again yeah of 1850 to 1870 I would guess harmonica started becoming really popular easy to play you think back then there was no there was no I too and so if you wanted to hear music you had to make it yourself awesome let's keep going here well I believe we have our first coin here for the day and you know it was a pretty good target and I did not get my camera out to film the digging of it because it was just so shallow the machine said it was like less than an inch down and it was very very loud so I thought that either was going to be something modern or something large that would throw a big target but you know I stuck the shovel and pulled a little bit of a plug out and it was sitting on this rock so whenever it was dropped it you know it couldn't sink very deep it hit the rock and stopped and sat there for however long it's been in the ground let's see let me get my toothbrush and give it a wipe well it is a Lincoln we sent so this could be as early as 1909 I was told they were up here until the early 1900s so I would suspect this was dropped right towards the end there you know what we've been used to finding coins from the 1700s in large cents and this is a still a piece of history all right hey let's see if we can find some more maybe something a little bit older all right we just got a interesting little find here and you know I'm not entirely sure but you can see it's it's in our shape of a ring and you know the mind immediately goes to jewelry you know this is about the right size for a finger and it is brass and it looks like it may have had a plating on there I've personally found several wedding bands which don't really look like this they're thicker the klika wedding band that were brass and plated gold but had 14k in the center as if it were gold and from my research I've found that it's unsure whether the farmers and the mountain folks out here were actually knew it was brass or if they were being fooled by somebody down in town hard to say this one doesn't say anything could very well be a gasket but I thought that that was an interesting piece of history let's uh call it a ring for now see what else we could find you know as I'm out here detecting mind wanders and I'm just trying to Rack my brain about why these ladies may have been out here all by themselves and you know according to the landowners folks were living here during this the time of the civil war and if I remember correctly about thirty five thousand Vermonters were sent to participate in the Civil War it's very likely that you know her husband just didn't come home that's probably something that would be easily researchable but I was just told the story this morning so I don't know it's just something to think about it that could be completely off-base time periods match up something to think about haven't found any military items but I suppose of you know he didn't come home we couldn't find any of that anyways let's keep going [Music] [Music] okay so I just found something at first I thought was a bell the brass is far too thin to be a bell and things that come to mind is a oil-lamp piece part of my own lamp but what I'm pretty sure it is is a candle snuffer you know it would have been on a like a stick so down over the top of their lamps that they had back in those days and out they go fairly certain that that's what it is it's not a bell it wouldn't have rung pretty cool alright and it's not even there's even five feet away from that potential candle snuffer look it up we got the candle left the lamp old oil lamp and what's great about this one in particular is that it still has the spinner look at that still spins this would have brought the wick up and down you could make it brighter or dimmer to conserve your fuel and this spinner it looks like it has some writing on it so maybe we can get a patent date alright well there's something on there I'm not sure typically there'll be a brand name usually a patent date but if there isn't one we can just look up who made the thing and see when they are in business really really cool sometimes I'll actually find just these you know it cut reads up as a coin you get it out there's a hole in it and what the heck is this thing but that's what it is we find these fairly often you know they were pretty common mid 1800s okay see what else we can find all right well I've said in the past you know I find these things and no matter what I call it I always get corrected in the comments whether it's a suspender clip or it's a garter clip and because they look so similar with their justice it's just a size difference but I just found one and it's funny I looked at the back when I go got a suspender clip but I flipped it over look at that it's a butterfly pretty one too I've never really found one with a an image before usually it's just kind of a scrollwork but this is a pretty little butterfly that's awesome you know it's always interesting middle detecting places from like 100 150 years ago because the variety of things that you find it's just so much more that at these colonial sites I've been at lately really beautiful see if maybe we can find the other one all right well I I wasn't expecting this at all this is a very very pleasant surprise you know after that wheat scent I wasn't really sure what we were gonna find out here for more coins but this was just a very very scratchy target I'm like right next to the cellar pulled it out and I'll show you what I saw see that that is the rim of a silver quarter now you know because of that wheat penny it could be a Washington quarter I don't know yet we'll find out together it's definitely not a Washington oh sweet 1897 that's a Barbour quarter all right let's spray with some water okay I didn't scratch it too bad when I dug it out there's a lot of rocks here look how beautiful that cleaned up 1897 the face looks good good scratch it the price we pay for sticking in the woods that's okay I don't think it's actually too too bad it doesn't look like my shovel did that it was probably probably hit a rock or something on the way out of the hole doesn't silver clean up beautifully you know silver and old don't deteriorate in the ground like copper coins do so and finding a lot of unidentifiable copper coins lately this is this is a nice departure from that all right let's see if we can find some more of these about moving here so has I'm out here wandering around detecting you know I'm reminded of a lot of these comments that I get on the videos people asking why the people who lived at these places lived so far out in the wilderness I tend to forget to mention it but you have to imagine this road that this home was on was well-traveled you know both sides of the road were likely cleared you know there wasn't a forest here there would have been travelers and farming done and this was a community now Nature has taken it back and it's returned to wilderness but when folks were living here it didn't look like this most of the places that I do the metal detecting where it seems like I'm middle of nowhere back then it was somewhere you know anyway we're gonna do some loops around the outside of this kind of stone perimeter so we can find a few things that maybe you've been dropped in the fields [Music] [Music] [Music] all right well I just found something which I don't know what it is I've got quite a bit of experience metal detecting homes of this age there's quite a few sellers like this on some of my family's land so that's what I kind of started out doing and you know we've found the harmonica reeds we found the candles in that first we found the oil lamps but this thing god I'm stumped it has a hole in it as as if it was a pendant look at that it's got like a little leaf ornamentation on there and a little glass bead and then there's what looked like they would have been a hinge down here is it a pendant is it hinge for a small box this is something new to me it's I mean it's very decorated I've got lots of scrollwork on there the leaf and a little bead beautiful all right well hey maybe we'll keep going here and see if we can find the rest of it to solve this mystery well did we do it I just found these fragments here get that it's like a very thin it's a silver plated probably thing little decoration I was thinking you know does this go to that other similar thing I found earlier and I got it out and I don't think so you know this has like hearts on it and this has leaves on it they're not quite the right size this is quite a bit more heavy than this is I guess is as good as mine it's pretty let's keep on going all right this is a weird one I just dug what I thought was gonna be like a like a bangle see that like a bracelet of some kind it's like oh that's kind of cool it's all bent up it's super hard and I rechecked the hole and there's still something down in there and check oh I just got another one they sound like a little like lead or something they say it's a strange material and I checked the hole again and there's still something down there look can you see this look another one and there's a I don't know what this is this is this is just an enormous complex machine of some kind I don't know what this is remember this is alright let me clean the hole out get all the pieces and we'll see if we can assemble it alright well I think we have all of it now I did find a couple more fragments of what appears to be the side and I found these three pieces which again this thing has three sides so I suspect they went to the size though I don't know what it is but it has three of everything here three these rings three of these butterfly pieces you let me know what you think I'm gonna try to figure it out on my own before I post the video but it's a weird one what do you say on that note we maybe we should pick up and get out of here that's uh gather our stuff up and see what we found today alright well we're gonna pack up and start hiking on out of here we've got a road to walk though which is gonna be a lot nicer than when I'm usually walking we did pretty good today and you know the fines were very feminine which makes a lot of sense found a couple coins as well overall really good day let's take a look at it all alright here's everything that we found today - the dozens and dozens of shotgun shells that I found today and this thing in the way back you know your guess is as good as mine if I had to guess I would say something to do with the kitchen or fire because of the way this handle is designed I feel like you could hang on to this if this was very hot but this stuff man I don't know it's a peculiar thing not sure bottom piece to a container did not find the top we found three lamp pieces all slightly different and a snuffer to go along with it - harmonica reads both of them are completely aside from the wood kind of cool maybe the ladies were out here you know playing songs in the evening a bunch of utensils here we have three and a half spoons pocketwatch little brass horse tack buckle we did find another little piece of ladies underwear here to go along with our ladies suspender clasp which is beautiful with a little butterfly on there I only found one button today and it was this big Tom back cope button which I thought when I saw it was silver then I was very surprised again when that silver coin came out 1897 Barbour quarter and then we also have a dateless probably early wheat penny this you know it could or could not be a ring probably not a wedding band but it is a brass finger sized ring it's too small for my fingers overall a lot of really really cool artifacts that make a lot of sense for where we found them and you know the time period that this place was supposed to be here so I want to thank you again for watching and I'm excited to show this the landowners and they'll probably then show the Historical Society and we can connect a couple of dots exciting stuff thanks again for watching hopefully I'll see you next Friday [Music] [Music]

Channel: Green Mountain Metal Detecting

Views: 72,528

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: YLGsvjmUvis

Length: 21min 6sec (1266 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 27 2019