Hit a few cellar holes. Two of 3 items IDed

[MangoAve]

The warm weather is finally here. I could only handle half a day of work bs.... . After getting some lunch I went up to a place I found has a ridic amount of cellar holes. The first one I hit was near a parking area for a wooded park. I didn't expect much as it was right off the main road and the loads of trash. I wasn't disappointed with what I expected. I pulled up a full license plate. The stretch of the main road that went around the mountain didn't exist in 1868 so I think the road into the park was the original carriage road I didnt follow it. There was a pickup with two people in it and I think I caught the earthy/skunky scent of something illegal.

After a short check I went to where I knew the center of an old section of the town was once located. Again there is a school house but no foundation for it. I swung around and didn't hear many targets so I hit the cellar hole near it. Either it was U shaped with a center chimney, or the back edge was filled for some reason. I didn't get too many targets there but pulled up an almost complete mason lid with the complete ceramic disc inside. In the same area I pulled up a pocket knife. Not sure if one side of the wood was damaged in the retrieval. Swiginging wasnt too easy from the small growth and prickers. There was a cap pulled up too for a fire hydrant. The piece says PATENT but no pattent #. The company started in the 1850s. The population in the town population diminished in the 1870s/80s, and as far as I could tell there was a patent in 1926 from one of the company names listed on the cap, but for an entire hydrant. This makes me wonder, tho. Did towns remove the piping and water mains from these old roads? Roads being paved around 1909, and old dirt roads still existing, and fire stations existing since the 1880s it makes me wonder.

I went to the next hole which had the barn and pen across the road. It too had a center chimney and a really large footprint. The nearby hill I managed a 'comb' from a music box. This item I knew right away. Found axe head #7 for the year and a hatchet. One thing that Dave IDed so far was the large brass plate I pulled up. The shape and cutouts were odd to me but I knew it was specific for some reason. Turns out an 1800s clock gear guide plate. Maybe an old grandfather clock from the size of it. Across at the barn, it was either infested with iron or targets were really scarce. Only a few shells came up. I didn't check what they were but either a 9mm or .38. On the same side of the road just 20 feet past the hole I found a piece to a horse shoe. Maybe 40 ft up the road somewhere near the center I was getting a choppy signal. There were 3 spots I could pinpoint and I went with the one more repeatable. It was mid tone so I was hoping for a button or buckle. There was another shell, but I checked the hole again and got some copper piece. This one is the one not identified yet. It's complete and has some small threaded knob to it. Maybe it's a #2-56 size thread. EDIT: my browser hung up and I had to refresh and pics are jumbled in one block below text and now don't show up in my edit window. Any Ideas on pics #7 and #8?

I still tried hitting the next two cellar holes up the road. Both had a lot of overgrowth of prickers around the hole so I need to go up with my machete next time. These are like raspberry/blackberry bushes, not the ornate barberry bushes altho those were around too. One spot on the road had a bunch of liles growing but no known structure. Nothing much came from the other two holes but the furthest one I went to was in such great shape. The top quarry blocks were still there and the walls were completely flat.

[OxShoeDrew]

I always think I have something good on the line when I dig harmonica reeds. But they are indicators of a decent site. Sounds like some people combed those holes pretty good though.
Have you tried working away from the hole? I like to work fields maybe 50yrds and out from the hole that still have iron in them. A piece of iron every few swings is good. Those places still have stuff at beat cellar holes. Conversely, right on the cellar hole lip can be productive with a small coil, going really slow. Usually one or the other produces something.
I like that thing in the 6th pic...I got confused reading which thing was which

[MangoAve]

Kinda yes, Kinda no. The pocket knife was maybe 60 ft from the hole near a big big pine tree. Since there were four along the road I did cover more of the area near the holes versus the land around them. But at the place with barn/pen I focused on the area. It was right next to a big hill so there wasn't much land surrounding the actual hole. The following hole was just consumed with brush that I put the efforts on where the 'driveway" would have been. And I did have my sharpshooter coil on there. It might not be a 4" nugget coil (which I have never used btw yet it came with detector), but it's only a 5.5" wide DD. I did put my coil around the lip of the holes.

The confusion came from the fact the pics are not separated anymore. The thing in pic #6 is the valve cover. The back has a thread to it and the edge looks like a really deteriorated rubber like seal. When I went back through the online stuff it became a bit confusing cuz those manufacturer names were used on mason jar lids as well as the fire hydrant valves.