I met with Rob on Friday night to finally drop off his new ID-Edge that he bought from Mr. Bill. He really wanted to try it out, so we picked an area of woods we had been meaning to explore. I had only the morning free, so we were just going on a hike. We had found several cellar holes on one side of the road already & figured the other side could produce. All the rains we had this year had washed out the dirt road into the site.
So, we drove as far as we could & just hiked into the woods with our backpacks loaded up. Before long we saw Colonial stone piles which are evidence the ridge we now walked was once farmed long ago.....next we picked up a faint cart road & then some stone walls.
Look close....can you see the ruts of what was once a Colonial road??
[attachment 30961 FrankilinPath.jpg]
Here's Rob ahead of me on the cart road about to go through an opening in the stone wall big enough to get the wagons through. This type of evidence starts to get the juices flowing.....
you really feel like your "close" to finding an awesome new site.
Unfortunately, the cart path went right into the backyard of a house. So, we decided to backtrack & check out a stream we heard running down the hillside. It got a little swampy in areas, but we crossed it & headed up the other side to higher ground knowing that no homesites would be in wetlands.
We picked up some more stone piles and then another nice stone wall on a nice terraced ridge. We decided to split up.....I walked the front of the wall & it wasn't long before we found futher evidence of early occupation exactly 1-half mile into the forest.....
Can you see the stones sticking up here??
[attachment 30962 FranklinCem1.jpg]
This is what I call a long lost family plot. Colonial settlers buried family members in cemetaries they erected, & on land they owned. In this case it's surrounded by a stone wall enclosure. The latter stones from around 1811 or so, & all had the last name of Franklin. I call these "lost cemetaries" because our state lists all the known cemetaries & places signs there & takes care of them. This one is taken care of by nature only. Perhaps an occational hunter or hiker would be the only one to view these.....
Here I am reading the 1811 slate stone........(butt crack cropped out)
[attachment 30963 FranklinCem2.jpg]
So.......like my new hat?
Now we just KNOW we are close to a homesite on this ridge. We split up again & soon I was yelling for Rob to meet back at the cemetary to get all the gear we had dropped there.....cause it's ON!!
Out from the ferns was a nice Colonial cellar hole supported by this huge granite boulder I have my hand on. I jumped inside the basement & gave Rob a thumbs up sign.....we did it again.
[attachment 30965 FranklinCellar.jpg]
Like many of my adventures, when you find a site like this deep in the woods you just wanna fire up your machine & swing like mad dreaming of all the largies under your boots just waiting to be dug!
In fact, it's hard for us to stay cool & not run all around too fast
Right about where Rob stood for the last "thumbs up" photo, the first piece of proof that this site went back to the 1700's emerged. I dug this nice Colonial shoe buckle inner flap part using the C$...I often try to "marry" these to one of the many shoe buckle frames I have dug over the years....
[attachment 30966 FranklinShoe.jpg]
LIke I said we were only on a hike, & didn't have alotta detecting time. We really just were happy to GPS another nice Colonial site for future weekends. The complex has a barn foundation & also the walls around the cemetary to hunt (outside it, as we don't ring raven stuff). We really hoped for a copper, but not this time. But, it's a real good sized area, & all the ferns stopped us from getting alotta stuff outta the ground. I did poke my coil into the ferns to end the hunt with a nice Colonial tomback button with some kinda dot pattern inscribed. Here's the relics after like only an hour swingin' for both of us......all looks early so we feel this site may have burned down long before the Civil War.
[attachment 30968 FranklinFinds.jpg]
Hope you enjoyed another one of my JL-style picture adventures
HH,
Bill
So, we drove as far as we could & just hiked into the woods with our backpacks loaded up. Before long we saw Colonial stone piles which are evidence the ridge we now walked was once farmed long ago.....next we picked up a faint cart road & then some stone walls.
Look close....can you see the ruts of what was once a Colonial road??
[attachment 30961 FrankilinPath.jpg]
Here's Rob ahead of me on the cart road about to go through an opening in the stone wall big enough to get the wagons through. This type of evidence starts to get the juices flowing.....
you really feel like your "close" to finding an awesome new site.
Unfortunately, the cart path went right into the backyard of a house. So, we decided to backtrack & check out a stream we heard running down the hillside. It got a little swampy in areas, but we crossed it & headed up the other side to higher ground knowing that no homesites would be in wetlands.
We picked up some more stone piles and then another nice stone wall on a nice terraced ridge. We decided to split up.....I walked the front of the wall & it wasn't long before we found futher evidence of early occupation exactly 1-half mile into the forest.....
Can you see the stones sticking up here??
[attachment 30962 FranklinCem1.jpg]
This is what I call a long lost family plot. Colonial settlers buried family members in cemetaries they erected, & on land they owned. In this case it's surrounded by a stone wall enclosure. The latter stones from around 1811 or so, & all had the last name of Franklin. I call these "lost cemetaries" because our state lists all the known cemetaries & places signs there & takes care of them. This one is taken care of by nature only. Perhaps an occational hunter or hiker would be the only one to view these.....
Here I am reading the 1811 slate stone........(butt crack cropped out)
[attachment 30963 FranklinCem2.jpg]
So.......like my new hat?
Now we just KNOW we are close to a homesite on this ridge. We split up again & soon I was yelling for Rob to meet back at the cemetary to get all the gear we had dropped there.....cause it's ON!!
Out from the ferns was a nice Colonial cellar hole supported by this huge granite boulder I have my hand on. I jumped inside the basement & gave Rob a thumbs up sign.....we did it again.
[attachment 30965 FranklinCellar.jpg]
Like many of my adventures, when you find a site like this deep in the woods you just wanna fire up your machine & swing like mad dreaming of all the largies under your boots just waiting to be dug!
In fact, it's hard for us to stay cool & not run all around too fast
Right about where Rob stood for the last "thumbs up" photo, the first piece of proof that this site went back to the 1700's emerged. I dug this nice Colonial shoe buckle inner flap part using the C$...I often try to "marry" these to one of the many shoe buckle frames I have dug over the years....
[attachment 30966 FranklinShoe.jpg]
LIke I said we were only on a hike, & didn't have alotta detecting time. We really just were happy to GPS another nice Colonial site for future weekends. The complex has a barn foundation & also the walls around the cemetary to hunt (outside it, as we don't ring raven stuff). We really hoped for a copper, but not this time. But, it's a real good sized area, & all the ferns stopped us from getting alotta stuff outta the ground. I did poke my coil into the ferns to end the hunt with a nice Colonial tomback button with some kinda dot pattern inscribed. Here's the relics after like only an hour swingin' for both of us......all looks early so we feel this site may have burned down long before the Civil War.
[attachment 30968 FranklinFinds.jpg]
Hope you enjoyed another one of my JL-style picture adventures
HH,
Bill
I guess it's safe to say you guys will be hittin that spot again. You know there's more good stuff there. By the way.......Thanks for the crop work! We ALL appreciate it! 
