GKMan
Well-known member
I had the honor of detecting the 1862 Little Red Schoolhouse shown below that serves as the home of our local historical society. The school held classes until 1941 and since 1962 or so has been home of the society.
School 2013
[attachment 270288 schoolhouse.JPG]
School in 1917
[attachment 270298 school1917.JPG]
July 4th Celebrations about 1917
[attachment 270310 horse.JPG]
Yesterday, I went out there and met with the president of the society and spoke briefly about property lines, history etc, and then I got to work detecting. Unfortunately it was in the mid nineties with high humidity so it was a trying four hours of detecting but well worth it. I started in the back of the school gridding off the entire grassy area and was quickly rewarded with a couple Indians and a Barber dime, Normally, I don't use the GPS or Findpoint features of the CTX since I just don't have the time to go home and download the data and even if I did I don't think I would really use it for for most of the hunting that I do. But, being that I planned on donating my finds to the society I wanted to have as complete a record of the hunt as I could.
The back area of the school seemed to be the most productive. I ended up recovering a pocket watch cover, a military button with an eagle and 13 stars, another decorative button, some older costume jewelry and two pocket knives. Before I started detecting I had mentioned to the President that most likely the school had been detected before, and after being there I feel it was. There where hot spots here and there but then it would be dead for a while. I am guessing that whoever detected it in the past just didn't do that great a job since there were still quite a few nice undiscovered finds. I had one terrific signal which ended up being an eight plus inch deep can that was all twisted up. After digging that out I was pretty beat and annoyed since I didn't think I was detecting an area that had been filled in for one reason or another, but that can was a pull top so who knows where the soil came from and could it be hiding anything worthwhile?
The front of the school was pretty scarce for finds,but surprisingly I did find a couple long ago spent rifle shell casings and a shotgun slug. Working my way along the road in front of the school I found some more Indian Heads, a wheat, a mercury dime, and some more jewelry. My favorite find of the day also came from this area. It is a 1913 Dutchess County Dog tag for "Clinton" I believe that Clinton is the dogs name and not the town of Clinton which is nearby.
I detected until around two and then had to finally call it quits before I dropped dead from the heat. In the end I found lots of display worthy items, some clad and some trash. I still have to complete a couple of areas and then detect from a different angle but I feel I did a decent job of recovering most of what is there. Normally I don't share or split what I find with the landowner, but I always tell them that if I find something worth a considerable amount of money we can talk about what is fair for both of us, so far that has only happened once with my 1793 Liberty Cap Cent that I found last month. In this instance I wanted to give back to the community that has given me the opportunity to recover so much history that would have been lost forever or until another detectorist came along. Hopefully, the display I make up although lacking anything near mind blowing or eye popping finds will stay with the society for years to come and be seen by other people interested in our towns history.
The finds
[attachment 270311 schoolstuff.JPG]
[attachment 270312 schoolstuff2.JPG]
School 2013
[attachment 270288 schoolhouse.JPG]
School in 1917
[attachment 270298 school1917.JPG]
July 4th Celebrations about 1917
[attachment 270310 horse.JPG]
Yesterday, I went out there and met with the president of the society and spoke briefly about property lines, history etc, and then I got to work detecting. Unfortunately it was in the mid nineties with high humidity so it was a trying four hours of detecting but well worth it. I started in the back of the school gridding off the entire grassy area and was quickly rewarded with a couple Indians and a Barber dime, Normally, I don't use the GPS or Findpoint features of the CTX since I just don't have the time to go home and download the data and even if I did I don't think I would really use it for for most of the hunting that I do. But, being that I planned on donating my finds to the society I wanted to have as complete a record of the hunt as I could.
The back area of the school seemed to be the most productive. I ended up recovering a pocket watch cover, a military button with an eagle and 13 stars, another decorative button, some older costume jewelry and two pocket knives. Before I started detecting I had mentioned to the President that most likely the school had been detected before, and after being there I feel it was. There where hot spots here and there but then it would be dead for a while. I am guessing that whoever detected it in the past just didn't do that great a job since there were still quite a few nice undiscovered finds. I had one terrific signal which ended up being an eight plus inch deep can that was all twisted up. After digging that out I was pretty beat and annoyed since I didn't think I was detecting an area that had been filled in for one reason or another, but that can was a pull top so who knows where the soil came from and could it be hiding anything worthwhile?
The front of the school was pretty scarce for finds,but surprisingly I did find a couple long ago spent rifle shell casings and a shotgun slug. Working my way along the road in front of the school I found some more Indian Heads, a wheat, a mercury dime, and some more jewelry. My favorite find of the day also came from this area. It is a 1913 Dutchess County Dog tag for "Clinton" I believe that Clinton is the dogs name and not the town of Clinton which is nearby.
I detected until around two and then had to finally call it quits before I dropped dead from the heat. In the end I found lots of display worthy items, some clad and some trash. I still have to complete a couple of areas and then detect from a different angle but I feel I did a decent job of recovering most of what is there. Normally I don't share or split what I find with the landowner, but I always tell them that if I find something worth a considerable amount of money we can talk about what is fair for both of us, so far that has only happened once with my 1793 Liberty Cap Cent that I found last month. In this instance I wanted to give back to the community that has given me the opportunity to recover so much history that would have been lost forever or until another detectorist came along. Hopefully, the display I make up although lacking anything near mind blowing or eye popping finds will stay with the society for years to come and be seen by other people interested in our towns history.
The finds
[attachment 270311 schoolstuff.JPG]
[attachment 270312 schoolstuff2.JPG]
