After the last trip to the colonial trash pit that I have been working was so successful, I knew I needed to return soon! So on Monday I did, and started where I left off. The first thing I noticed without even sifting was the presence of large westerwald type ceramic emerging from the sandy soil. I turned my attention to looking for more pieces of this and bagging them from where they came. A bunch of combed slipware was also popping out in this layer along with the typical brick and oyster shells, which was nice! Lots of pipestems too. Here are the pieces of the westerwald type ceramic laid out after I got home.
More and more started coming out of this section including a broken pipe bowl marked on the spur with a "22" and two more completely intact 18th century kaolin clay pipe bowls rolled out. A section also yielded more iron than the usual nails and spikes of this pit, with a complete S shaped colonial shutterdog for the shutters of a colonial house and a moderately large hand iron! A decently large fragment of a wine glass or goblet (stemware) also came out of this section intact somehow!
I then noticed a knife with a bone handle that was practically sitting on the surface where I cleared out the leaves and pine straw! As I kept digging more of the same kept coming out, and also some sort of brass or copper band, a nice partially melted bottle base, and some more broken clear glass and a thick stemware. ( The last two artifacts are pictured in the group photo above this paragraph)
Using my detector over the open pit I was able to snag a tiny late colonial lock and a heavy cast brass button. I thought that I had remembered seeing one of that type somewhere before, and soon discovered that it was a French Colonial Marines button from the 1730's to the 1760's. It is convex cast brass with a brazed shank (fell off) and has the characteristic rim for this button. The odd part about this button is during this period this area was British controlled, and the only connection to France that I know of concerning this site is that the owner was of French descent. Some experts have suggested that these buttons were offered on the civilian market, or repurposed which is most likely for this site given the context.
I also got another part of a GR King George jug fragment, which is exciting, a large part of a westerwald jug with a plume on it (maybe similar to the Prince of Wales plume, or I could be dreaming. Here is also the layout of all of the ceramics from the pit that day.
After sorting some of the ceramics I started on some reconstruction. The pie crust rim combed slipware dish turned out nice, and needs more attention for reconstruction of the rest. The westerwald pieces ended up being a wonderful Tankard/stein that with some work came together nicely. Still is missing pieces too. I learned the the 4 marked on the lip means that the contents inside would equal one quart! I'm so happy to have rescued this awesome piece of history and to be able to reconstruct it. In the photo the tankard is on top of a brick salvaged from the pit.
My father and I decided to go back today for a couple of hours early in the morning to try to touch up a certain section of the pit that had lots of brick in it. While it didn't produce much other than pipestems and ceramic fragments, we also got one nice bottle neck with an intact top and a neat chisel. I decided to try my luck with my detector in the area around the trash pit, and about 20 feet away I got a decent 60s-70s signal on my at-pro in an iron patch. At only about an inch down I saw a coin pop out. My first thought was that it was a copper because the tarnish hid any of the silver shine- but after picking it up and rubbing a bit of dirt off I saw the bust of a Spanish King and 177-. At this point I started shaking and *ran* over to dad who was surveying the trash pit and showed him. I was hoping for 1776 after seeing 177- and sure enough it was! It was a 1776 2 Reale minted in Lima Peru, with a perfect hole in the top! I hadn't found a Reale in a long time, so this big 1700s silver was very welcome! I like the tarnish present on it, and it has better detail than any reale I had dug before.
After that, we had to get back to do some work, so that was about it. Thanks for reading another long winded post, glad I could share this awesome history from the SC lowcountry- Happy Hunting!
"Swords into plowshares"
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The other stuff could fill a museum but I can't get past that coin!
Originally Posted by OxShoeDrew
