More Questions Than Answers
By Mike Vande Voort

 

One Hundred and forty years ago, who knows what was there? Perhaps a stand of trees, or a plowed field, or maybe a pasture. All we do know is that none of these things exist in this place today. Today you will find an abundance of kids playing, while adults keep a close eye. Today you will find book bags, and pencils. Today, I am quite sure, it is nothing like it was One Hundred-Forty years ago.

 Midway between two of our cities oldest schools, is a seemingly uninteresting piece of grass. In this grass, children have played and learned for almost 100 years. In that amount of time, many neat things have undoubtedly been played with, and lost. In that amount of time, many people with metal detectors have meandered this massive stretch of property in search of kids rings, and mercury dimes. I'm sure many a great item has been recovered from this area.
One day, while at work, I happened to have a conversation with a fellow club member. He had told me about a school in which the city was doing some major excavating. He told me about his trip to the school, and the great things he had found there. These
days, when we hear about finding six silver dimes, Indian, and wheat pennies, our mouths water. Rich, the club member, had told me we'd better get over there, because it looked like the workers were getting ready to finish it off.

So, when the weekend came, and we were trying to come up with a hunting spot, guess what I thought of. After a couple calls, we were over there for a day of hunting. Nothing could prepare me for the magnitude of the excavating that was going on there. I had envisioned a playground sized area with a pile of dirt near it. What I saw, was, an area three football fields in size with the top soil and in some cases more, removed.

We didn't quite know how to approach the site, so we just jumped in. In the first fifteen minutes, I dug a very nice Gene Autry Ring. After that, it was wheat pennies, buttons, and more. Dad, at one point, found two silver dimes, in one hole! We had hunted like this for quite some time, amassing quite a few finds. Then, I made a find that I am very sure I will never make again. I received a great signal that pinpointed like a soda can on the surface. 3 to 4 inches down, I dug out what looked like a round piece of lead. In turning it over, I noticed some detail on the opposite side. Wiping the dirt from it, I saw the unmistakable feathers of a wing!

At this point, I still had no idea what I had. So, I called Dan and Dad over to take a closer look. When we finished wiping the clay from the face of my find, we were staring at a Union issue Civil War cartridge box breastplate!

This got me wondering how it ended up in the center of two schools' yards. The answer is open to speculation. However, 3 blocks north of the schools is a Civil War post. And, about one half mile south of the school is another. We can only imagine the soldiers marching from one post to the other, and possibly losing things in between.


One thing we all, as detectorists, try to do when we make a find, is to answer a few questions. For one, we would like to know who lost the item. We also would like to know when an item was dropped or tossed by the last owner. What I have found, though, is that try, try as I may, I always end up with more questions than answers.