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1700's trade silver and other relics at my cottage!
I guess I will start this post by admitting that I am spoiled with the location of my cottage and the history that occurred all around it and even in my front yard.
Last week I took 5 days off of work and my oldest son and I went up to the cottage to open it up and enjoy some fishing and detecting. I first visited a trade post site that I have found lots of War of 1812 Era buttons at. This trip I found a ball button and my first Script A 1st Artillery coat button.
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I am sure that there are many more relics around this place but the downed trees and in and around the site are too big to allow me to easily detect it. If it was my personal property then I would be very tempted to at least take a chainsaw and my tractor and pull stuff around. So after awhile I decided to go deeper into the woods and I cam across 6 signals that were all within an 8ft circle. They were all raw copper of various sizes and probably dropped by Indians perhaps 300 or more years ago. Hard to say really. I took one of the pcs and ground of a side of it to confirm if it was copper.
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My Mother got a copy of a book about Fort Mackinac (or Michilimackinac) that has a ton of information about the relics found at the fort and basic time periods of when these relics were used at the fort. Now that does not mean that these relics originated at the fort but more than likely were brought in via trade with indians and fur traders and perhaps colonial settlers. So here are a few pics from the book...
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Now here are some pics of the trade silver that I found...in my front yard and also the Uncle's yard next door.
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Pretty cool heh! I believe that this silver was US or Canadian made most likely. And probably made in early to mid 1700's. These small pcs were used as trade silver and it appears that the Indians would use them for decorations kind of like the tinkling cones which is why they have small holes in some of them. I found a pc last summer and another one 4-5 years ago and thankfully I checked and found them to be silver and saved them. These are pretty small and kind of look like aluminum siding clippings so I hope I have not thrown any out accidentally.
The silver Ear Ring is very delicate and I am fortunate I did not damage it when I dug it. The book mentions that it is likely French in origin...not sure it that means that it came from France or if it means that it was produced here in America and when the French occupied the fort that they brought it with them to trade with?
Here are more tinkling cones I found in another relative's yard. There are a couple that are partially bent and the I found a flat pc with one of the other cones. Perhaps it was just never rolled up or perhaps it is something else.
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I did find a part of a trade ring. I searched all around for the other parts but I did not find anything. Also in the pic is a small item that I am 99.5% sure is a tip to a small harpoon. There are pictures of these in that book too. The left side is the dulled tip, top is the first barb, and the right side is where is snapped.
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And some lead. The musket balls are all about 50 caliber. Not sure what the flattened pc is...perhaps a weight for fishing?
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Here are the buttons I found. 2 I mentioned from above and the others were near my cottage along a sidewalk that goes in front of all the cottages. The oval one might be a cuff link? Two of them have drilled out shanks so I am thinking that they are 1700's but I could be mistaken.
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And here are a couple silver coins I found. Oh and a small 14k gold pin thingy.
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Thanks for looking! Jared
