Pequot indian hunt w/ Coinnut

[del]

today was the first Saturday hunt the Pequot Indian museum archaeologist put on (before this is was just monday,tuesday and wedsnesday )my 2nd time only going because of work. they are surveying and excavating a 1637 Indian fort that was attacked and burnt by the early English colonists , there are no signs of any evidence of this that shows today and what lays on this land site now is a residential set of older homes (1910 and newer).George has been to this place a few times and has found a musket ball and a brass arrow point from that era and i have found a musket ball the last time i was out there.

well we got there around 9 a.m. ( boy that sure is late for us ) and was greeted by Kevin the head archaeologist with a few pictures , one of George's last point and it was a beauty . Kevin said it still had some type of fiber or material residue still on it (which is amazing after almost 377 years) and the musket ball i had found had hit something with cloth fibers or something similar .
well with that kind of news psyched us up to finds some more but the area we were hitting today wasn't looking to friendly as it was a front yard of a very newer house so the yard had been pretty disturbed , plus add some noticeable emi from overhead powerlines some moderate mineralization and to top it off sprinkle some iron bits , like nails , some modern metallic trash here and there . with both machines acting a little erratic we swept the yard slowly and made adjustments here and there , i dropped my AC some and then dropped it a little more and also bumped up the sweep speed . it seemed to do a little better and after a few hours and alot of melted lead , an old broken cap gun from the 60's and some broken square cut nails , i had my first impacted smaller calibur musket ball ( i sighed with relief too lol lol ). a good while later George had a brass point ( a little smaller but longer one which almost fooled us both ) from then i found three more musket balls , one being a large (50 calibur or bigger ) very impacted and a 1903 barber dime stretcher:.there was another detectorist with us for the day and he came away with 2 or 3 musket balls so the museum had there best day for artifacts and the head archaeologist was pretty convinced where we were detecting was the inside of the Indian fort. a very nice productive day that was almost 7 hours long so Coinnut and i decided to celebrates by going detecting to a nearby colonial cellar for a couple of hours lol lol where i was rewarded with a 1786 vermont copper ( baby head variety rr-9) rareity = scarce , sorry the picture doesn't do it justice .

Dan

[HEAVYMETALNUT]

nice day out guys! a baby head wow! pretty scarce dude and well deserved! thumbsup01

[angellionel]

Wow! Great going, Dan. You guys must have had the museum folks very excited. It's amazing that they were able to identify fiber on the objects after so many years. Those finds are going to make a great display. Nice Barber dime. And congrats on the Vermont Copper! Sweet!

[John M]

Looks like the museum has the right guys on hand. The Preston-Ledyard area had a ton of Indian and early white settler activity so just about any area of woods can produce some great finds. Down by Foxwoods & the reservation there is Lantern Hill which was an area used during the War of 1812. It is so named because the Americans had bon fires set up on top to warn of the British Navy coming in. There were some bombardments when the Brits came up and they were held at bay and never made it to landfall.
So all in all it is a very historic area.

Congrats on helping to recover and help write the history for them.

By the way did you get to keep the Barber?

[sniffy]

wow...thats incredible! And a little Vermont copper for dessert!

[SeabeeRon]

Thanks for sharing Dan, what a neat hunt that would be to take part in!

[coinnut]

Hey, baby head hah? That's one ugly big head lol how did they get a baby from that lol But it cleaned up well and a super coin man!! Congrats on a great Vermont and a quick hit copper, since we didn't have much time there. You done good kid lol As for the hunt, I think we will have the conservator working overtime for a while They seemed happy. Now we have to figure out a new strategy for the next visit to get rid of that EMI. A great day for both of us.

Looks like the museum has the right guys on hand.

By the way did you get to keep the Barber?

Thanks John. We have been pretty lucky to find a good amount of targets. Between all of the YTC (club) members, we have collectively found more that they probably hoped for. We're not done yet and I do feel it is helping the relationship between Archaeologists and Detectorists. It is a blast to exchange information between all involved.

As for the Barber, Dan get to keep the photo rofl All finds go either to the Museum of the property owners, which have been kind enough to let them dig there. Some gold jewelry has already been found by some of the other YTC members and the owners were really appreciative to get them back.

[Epi-hunter]

That is just incredible!!! Wow, congratulations! I can't even imagine what it must have felt like to find those!

[coinnut]

That is just incredible!!! Wow, congratulations! I can't even imagine what it must have felt like to find those!

Thanks Angie, If Del finds any more Musket Balls, we are gonna call him &quotld Lead Bottom rofl Sorry, us old people might remember McHale's Navy. thumbsup01

[del]

.
As for the Barber, Dan get to keep the photo rofl All finds go either to the Museum of the property owners, which have been kind enough to let them dig there. Some gold jewelry has already been found by some of the other YTC members and the owners were really appreciative to get them back.

yes the barber went to the land owners John , that part didn't bother me . what bothered me was that the barber didn't even sound like a silver dime in this ground only until i popped out the plug and it was only about 5 inches . that gives you some idea as to the difficulty the the area gave the detectors . another target was an old pocket watch , they usually ring up there really good but this one was a very junky iffy target and again it was around the 5 inch mark.

[RobW]

Great involvement!

[jkress]

Wow, great opportunity.

Sounds fun to hunt an area like that... and a big congrats on the copper.

Thanks for posting the info.

[KirkPA]

Dan, that Vermont copper is high on my list. You found yourself another awesome Colonial copper. Thanks for sharing.

Kirk

[milco]

It's great to see archaeologists and detectorists working together. There should be more of that!

[Epi-hunter]

It's great to see archaeologists and detectorists working together. There should be more of that!

There should. Usually it's an antagonistic relationship. This is a great example of how it should be.