I had been waiting on a nice relic to pose with this map. I got out with Danny LaMontagne and Dave Wise this past Sunday for some colonial cellar hole digging. Danny had the hot coil and made some finds that make you "green"! I have found many bale seals in the past but they were all from the late 1880's to the early 1900's. All of those were used by railroads except for one "pony express" seal.
Sunday, I found another really special relic. I dug a bale seal from the late 1700's!John & Jeremiah Naylor were cloth merchants in Wakefield, England. This bale seal was used to guarantee quality to the importer in the colonies. One of these seals has been archaeologically dated to circa 1775 - 1800. The hand enscribed numerals and symbols on the reverse were written in the late 1700's. How cool is that?
I would really like to know what the 18th Century hand written letters and numbers mean on the seal. I can only assume that it was some sort of identification or an inventory of the cloth in the shipment.
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