Whats this elevated dirt doing here?

[offgridman]

The location is deep in the piney woods near an old early 1700's plantation home site of about 3 thousand acres.
I know they had indentured servants because one of my relatives purchased some property from one of their daughters.

Most all of the property is long leaf pines now once again. Many of which were harvested for turpentine and pitch I am told. There is evidence that the trees were cut down or sold off later until nothing more than the fruit orchards and pasture land remained.
They have since regrown.

I have located the old home site and located a few out buildings that survived long enough to be captured by 1930's photographs.
I have super imposed them over modern maps to pinpoint more exactly the locations of these buildings with great success.

Now with that said here is the item of my question,

In my research of this pine savannah area, I ran across what appears to be a raised earthen mound about eight feet wide and 18 inches tall.
It is mostly straight and continues for about 1 mile. It ends at a old pioneer rd on one end and makes a long looping circle at the other end very near a spot on a river. It did not go to or from any known home on the site.
I am trying to figure out what this was used for. There may have been a turpentine still near the end of it. But I am guessing. I am itching to detect to see what finds are in the area.
I have to wait until the rattlers go to bed however this place is crawling with them. Pun intended.
My wife and I plan on hitting it hard this winter from one end to the other with our detectors.
Offgridman

 

[dave5710]

From what you wrote it sounds like you are describing a sewing needle shaped earthen mound.

If the river flooded in the spring would the long looping circle fill with water? If so maybe the area folks would harvest the trapped fish as the water level dropped. The mound would dry out before the fields on either side of it.
The fish would stay nice and fresh, but they couldn't return to the river. Sounds like you could take a horse and cart or wagon right up to the "pond'.

To think of the manpower that would have taken 150 or 200 years ago it doesn't make sense. Not for fish.But it would give them fresh fish in the spring and supplement their meat with what they could salt and store.

Maybe I'm missing something or have been watching too many historical TV shows, Maybe I'm just starting to lose it!

Will be interesting to read what others think.

Take care, Dave

 

[offgridman]

You have a good ear for the description. Yes it is a sewing needle type of arrangement. The effort to construct this was huge back then.
You do give me an idea. Perhaps this was a mule cart path hauling rosin to the still. I know in this area they once had a long pier almost to the middle of the bay that mules would walk unattended hauling cargo to and fro from ships. Maybe they used something like that to harvest timber or rosin from the pine trees.
Once the cart was unloaded they could send the mule along its way circling the eye and back into the woods to collect the barrels of rosin. Just guessing.
I am hoping I can find something along the elevated earthen path that will give me some clues as to what this was used for. I have run out of places to research for ideas.

Offgridman

 

[GRAY GHOST]

n/t

 

[thepest]

i think your assesment of a mule train road is dead on.... once the mule started its journey... it didnt need watching ... it would just follow the trail... turn around at the eye of the needle.... off load.... and back again..... two guys and a mule could run the whole operation..... i'll bet they did three trips a day .... rattler's and the mule probably stayed away from each other..... if not.... nobody gets it but the mule....
good luck with your search....i'm excited for you.....i hope you guys find some goodie on that trail....

 

[edjcox]

May I suggest you view this using Google maps and seek to view the aerial image, also windows live maps has decent aerials as well as birdseye views tha may let you see this thing in perspective that will illuminate you.

 

[fowlercharles]

Gridman, your elevated ground sounds to me more like an old "dummyline".. If so you will find more railroad nails than you know what to do with. Probably the shorter narrow gauge ones. One man and a mule could move lots of dirt with a "drag" but that may be a stretch just for the mule road. Just my thoughts there. Turpentine and logging operations had a lot in common and with the logging, dummy lines were layed down and picked up as they were needed. Yours may have more likely been used on a more permenent basis since it was raised. If you can still download "TerraClient" you can look at aerials there,zoom, pick up distance measurments, shade dark to light(for spotting old roads etc.)and load a topo that you can fade in and out as an overlay. The GPS #s may be off, but it is a neat site if it is still loadable.Sounds like a real sweet spot soon as the critters hole up. I am waiting on them too. H H. !!!

 

[TURNMASTER]

We have got fences, or had, that are made from the native rock, Cheap plentiful and durable, they had to be raked from the fields before you could realy use the rich soils for good farming.

Just a thought
Jeff