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Early Ghost Town adventure

A

Anonymous

Guest
We decided to head back to the cellar holes we found in the woods last weekend that tuned up that cool pewter knee buckle. We knew that deer hunters with guns starts Monday, so this would be our last effort in the woods. We already found 2 homesites & a millsite. Armed with a topo map & GPS units we headed out in search of more. We had a feeling there was an entire village out there......
[attachment 9842 BjohnBarn.jpg]
Passing the first site we hunted last week, I snapped a picture of the perfect intact barn foundation......
The topo showed a cemetary so we headed that way & soon discovered another large foundation. This is what I call a full basement center hearth type. Hearth still intact....
[attachment 9840 bJohn3.jpg]
This looked like it could have been a tavern it was so big......There must have been alot of colonial foot traffic, as I found 3 more 1700's shoe buckles here :surprised: (I'm gonna need a new display case). 2 have the pins & one is an ornate frame (I added the knee buckle from last week to this pic).
[attachment 9841 BJonShoes.jpg]
This site didn't look too promicing & it looked hunted out already & someone even left a sifter there.....But it was pretty productive using both an Excel/C$ as I also added 2 large colonial coat buttons, & what looks like a fake large cent with a drill hole...
[attachment 9843 BJonFinds1.jpg]
We ate lunch and continued deeper into the woods. Just before it began to get dark we discovered another very interesting area. We heard running water & came up on some huge stone work above another, better looking mill complex. It was clear we had a significant ghost town by now built around 2 mills. We had no time to detect it, so we got GPS numbers and I snapped a picture of Rob next to one of the biggest stone walls we ever found....
[attachment 9844 bJohnGate.jpg]
Notice the orange clothing, as it IS bow hunting season. We won't chance going back until gun hunting season is over in a few months. But, it will be worth the wait....
I like this new format of attaching pictures...this is my first attempt at type between photo's. Hope you enjoyed it......
HH, Bill
 
Any idea why the "village" didn't survive? Epidemic or what?
 
that is one of the things we'd like to research further.......
One of the reasons I didn't think that foundation w. the chimney would be that great was that we saw like old stoves & iron junk all over the ground. Stove parts & stuff like that indicates a couple of the holes were active until early 1900's. Local mill history may hold some clues.....
 
Maybe they had problems with consistent water supply at the site. Could have been a real war if someone upstream cut the flow or something.

Tom
 
Jackpine,

The site was probably abandoned for the same reasons that hundreds of other farms / small mills were abandoned in the 1800's in New England -

The lure of much better farming lands available further west and the better paying jobs in factories that sprang up during the industrial revolution in cities and towns all over the the north-east.

Good thing for us they had better opportunities elsewhere as they left alot of places like this to explore!!

HH,
GH
 
& we actually saw several dams.....
GH is correct, as the soil is rocky & sandy. Good for copper coins as Don knows, but not colonial farmers ;) So they got by with sawmill & shingle mill work....
Maybe that huge foundation was the big shot mill owner??
It's a beautiful patch of woods now protected by a land trust to preserve open space. This is great to see rather than another neighboorhood, & hunters & hikers use it. It's not an easy place to get to. You need a 4 wheel drive to get somewhat close, & we probably hiked like 6 miles or something to the scattered sites. A GPS is a must or we might still be out there ;)
 
looked like a great weekend of treasure hunting Bill - you sure you don't need some help with them sites???:twodetecting::lol: Hawkeye Jim.
 
Great stuff, guys! What a tease that you can't go back now until the season is over! Love those buckles.
 
What kind of maps are you using? Just regular topos from the 1800s and are you overlaying them onto current maps. Great finds:)
 
open muti-use forest land. It's nothing like those Govt. type places like the guys down south got arrested. We stay far away from those. Hunting, hiking, horseback riding, mountain biking, ATV's are all encouraged here.....
 
Bill, You guys had a great day. I spent the day getting "Adventurer" ready to get hauled and put on stands for the winter. I completely agree with Rob's assessment. Most of those mills we find are sawmill/gristmill/early small scale textile mills, in essence "subsistance
type entities rather than the big organized mills that sprang up in the 19th century.
The money was better in the city and the soil was much better in the mid west.
 
actually we never even consulted any old maps. Story is that some deer hunters said there was foundations out there. We were using a modern topo just to check the lay of the land.....streams, dirt roads, etc.....
 
I'm in total Awe! What a great site, should keep you busy for a long time!!! This should be a serious story. Hope you document it for the rest of us to see. The buttons look like many I have found here in Germany dating 1700s-1800s, the buckles are different than my finds as I have not found any with that forked pin. Good luck, I think I might camp out there, LOL! HH, Mike
 
& I hope you enjoyed my Bavaria Mike Style post with several pictures & type in between ;) Your's are still better but I'm just beginning.....I would have had more pics but my cam batts died :(
We are thinking alike, as I'm thinking it may be a good magazine story. Also, a camp out is actually a good idea, and one I discussed we may definately do next summer.....
 
On the contrary about finds and sites, I'm digging in 1000 years of civilisation, my 1700s finds doesn't mean much, I get excited when I see a 1600s coin. You are digging in the foundations of America, hard to place some of your relics that have come up and will come up in the future as to what country they derive from? So much potential at the site. Camping would take just a light weight plastic cover over one of the cellar holes. A rake could help clear out some areas and get you somewhat close to the original foundation of some areas. What a great opportunity for you and your friends, share it with us and get serious about documenting it, you just might revive an old settler town. Hope you scan some of those walls, just might be a small cache hidden in there. Looking forward to an update and HH, Mike
 
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