For the past 5 years every time I go up to my cottage I find amazing relics and every year I seem to find more! Last week it was crazy! Crazy as in 68 pcs of silver crazy! and all from the 1700s to 1800! ...well maybe 1820's?
Let's start with some War of 1812 era buttons. I visited a site about 5-6 miles away and managed 4 more buttons. My Mom and my kids and I have found probably over 70 buttons at this site. My first this year was a plain silver wash button and the others are Artillery buttons.
I also found a few musket balls (all at my cottage) and a part of a pipe stem in the same hole as one of the buttons.
Now back at my cottage I have found lots of items over the years...Musket balls, tinkling cones, about a dozen pcs of trade silver among other relics. I of course have found lots of modern stuff too. My family owns 4 cottages in a row along the water front and it is quite obvious that back in the early 1700's this spot, where these cottages are, was the spot where trading between the Indians and fur traders and the occupants of Fort Mackinac and apparently the Jesuits too, took place. The Indians were here long before all of this and copper points have been found by others who have told me that the copper items are 3000 to 5000 years old...I am not sure about those dates. I have heard that the Jesuits were going about trying to Christianize the native Americans as early as the mid 1600's in this area too. My mom did find a Jesuit ring in our back yard. But again I really am not confident with those dates either...I just have not done the research. I do have a book about Fort Mackinac and what kind of things were unearthed there (By U of M if I can trust them!) and all of the items below are in that book and they date the items from 1720 to 1760 or so. So there is some more background info of my area.
I used the Equinox 900 with the small coil which was key to my main find. I came across a 21 signal which is just under a nickel and was a target I was definitely interested in. But I noticed that there were all kinds of beeps around it ranging from 7 to 14. When I dug up the 21 signal it was a pc of trade silver in a triangle shape with a hole. Awesome! then I dug up the 10 signal about 2 inches away and lo and behold it was another pc of trade silver about 1/4" x 1/4" in size. For the next hour I dug about 30 pcs of small trade silver! I was in disbelief.
The item above I originally thought it was a kettle point but after a rubbed it some silver started showing through and then it cleaned up quite nice. Perhaps the silver was not always 90% pure. Maybe this pc was tarnished because it had more copper in it?
One of my favorite finds was an accidental one. I was about 2 ft away from the main hole and got a scratchy 10 signal and I found an iron arrowhead! There was also a pc of silver in with it.
Below is a silver ear ring! I found one last year too and dates back to the early occupancy of Fort Mackinac.
Below is something that I have some questions about. It is a silver cross that was likely cut from larger pcs of trade silver. The Jesuits were around trying to Christianize the native Americans and supposedly were around in the 1600's doing this...not sure when they left though. I am wondering if this was related to them? Or perhaps this was just a design and not Jesuit related at all? I found two of these about 15-20 ft away from the main trade silver hole. It also appears to me that all the small squares of silver could go into the corners of these crosses. So was this spot where they made these crosses?
The main hole had about 40 pcs of silver and I found another 20 plus in a 20 ft circle around the main hole. The rest of the silver came in yards of my other family's cottages. I also found most of the tinkling cones with the silver pcs. In total there is 68 pcs of 1700's trade era silver. I found 2-3 more after I took the below picture.
So it was a fun 3-4 days at my cottage! The fishing sucked but the dirtfishing was ridiculous!
I found most of these with the Nox 900 with the small coil. That was key to help separate signals that were literally lying side by side with each other and modern pcs of trash. Minelab has yet to come out with the other coils for the Manticore. I did make a few videos so I will put them all together sooner than later and put it on youtube.
Jared
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