GKMan
Well-known member
A while back some folks on here had mentioned using Maprika in order to geolocate old maps onto your phone. Me, being a Information Technology guy and an interest in local history, local historical maps and metal detecting was intrigued since I have spent hours trying to get Google Earth or Historicmapworks to do what I wanted it to. But, I digress, that conversation should be something for the mapping forum.
So, a couple weeks ago I was driving around and had some time to kill before I had to pick up my son at the babysitters. I thought I may as well fire up the Maprika app on my phone with an 1850's map of my area overlayed and see if there was any houses in the area at that time. Long story short there was one, Unless you had a map of the area from that time you would never look twice at this parcel of land and say that there was a home there at one time. Later on at home comparing a couple maps the home no longer showed up on an 1867 map which could be looked at two ways. One, there would be no modern trash. Two, there would be less duration of human occupation and so less to discover. So, anyhow the stars aligned with this one since it ends up my wife's coworkers family owns this twenty six + acres of land. A couple of Facebook messages later the wife lets me know that I was granted the privilege of detecting the land I wanted to get on and . . . much to my surprise the rest of the land in the area that they own.
I was finally able to make it out yesterday and of course it ended up being 91 degrees and sticky out. Just a week ago we were covering our plants because of a frost or freeze warning! Crazy weather...
This post is getting alot longer than I normally like so I will wrap it up. In the stream at the bottom of the land I found a neat old pocketknife. There is a bottle dump from the sixties era perhaps that looks like it deserves some attention since it looks undisturbed who knows what goodies may lie underneath.
The old homesite itself was barely visible. The only thing that gave it away was a couple foot section of stone wall only about a foot high and covered in moss that was perhaps part of the foundation. The land in this area is wooded with lots of low brush, weeds and hilly so I am surprised I actually found it. In my time there my more notable recoveries were a nice Batwing buckle ( here is a video of the find https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpLJObLeNkQ ) and some nice buttons.
[attachment 266424 buttons.JPG]
By the time I got back to the car I was hot sweaty and tired. The incessant gnats that had been swirling about my head for several hours looked saddened to find that I was now calling it a day. I said goodbye to them by spraying some Deep Woods Off in their general direction. Checked over the rest of me and removed two small spiders who were none to happy to have their web destroyed and now been taken for a ride on my shirt, an inch worm, and an unidentifiable bug or two crawling through my leg hairs....
All in all.... A great day...
So, a couple weeks ago I was driving around and had some time to kill before I had to pick up my son at the babysitters. I thought I may as well fire up the Maprika app on my phone with an 1850's map of my area overlayed and see if there was any houses in the area at that time. Long story short there was one, Unless you had a map of the area from that time you would never look twice at this parcel of land and say that there was a home there at one time. Later on at home comparing a couple maps the home no longer showed up on an 1867 map which could be looked at two ways. One, there would be no modern trash. Two, there would be less duration of human occupation and so less to discover. So, anyhow the stars aligned with this one since it ends up my wife's coworkers family owns this twenty six + acres of land. A couple of Facebook messages later the wife lets me know that I was granted the privilege of detecting the land I wanted to get on and . . . much to my surprise the rest of the land in the area that they own.
I was finally able to make it out yesterday and of course it ended up being 91 degrees and sticky out. Just a week ago we were covering our plants because of a frost or freeze warning! Crazy weather...
This post is getting alot longer than I normally like so I will wrap it up. In the stream at the bottom of the land I found a neat old pocketknife. There is a bottle dump from the sixties era perhaps that looks like it deserves some attention since it looks undisturbed who knows what goodies may lie underneath.
The old homesite itself was barely visible. The only thing that gave it away was a couple foot section of stone wall only about a foot high and covered in moss that was perhaps part of the foundation. The land in this area is wooded with lots of low brush, weeds and hilly so I am surprised I actually found it. In my time there my more notable recoveries were a nice Batwing buckle ( here is a video of the find https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpLJObLeNkQ ) and some nice buttons.
[attachment 266424 buttons.JPG]
By the time I got back to the car I was hot sweaty and tired. The incessant gnats that had been swirling about my head for several hours looked saddened to find that I was now calling it a day. I said goodbye to them by spraying some Deep Woods Off in their general direction. Checked over the rest of me and removed two small spiders who were none to happy to have their web destroyed and now been taken for a ride on my shirt, an inch worm, and an unidentifiable bug or two crawling through my leg hairs....
All in all.... A great day...
