4/2/24 Report - Sailing Ships of the Prairie. A Couple Finds. Sugar Spoon and Sugar Egg. Trade Silver. Mystery Bead.

 

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

Conestoga Wagon.

Here is an interesting article, that explains why we drive on the right side of the road unlike some countries. The explanation is that when goods were transported in wagons pulled by a team of horses or oxen, the roads were only rough and sometimes rocky pathways created by animals tracks and wagon wheels.  Many wagons had no seat at all or only a hard sideboard, which would jar a rider to death.  The teamsters, or drivers, very often walked beside their horse or ox team, which they controlled with reigns or whips.  Since most were right-handed, it was most natural for the driver to walk on the left side of his team.

Here is how the author of an MSN.com article described it.

I imagined myself walking down a long dusty trail leading a team of horses pulling this blue-painted wagon. I’m right-handed, like most people. For just that reason, Conestoga wagons had the controls on the left side, close to the wagon driver’s right hand. That meant the driver was toward the middle of the road and the wagon to the right.

Eventually, there was so much trade and traffic between Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia that America’s first major highway was created. The Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Road opened in 1795. Among the rules written into its charter, according the book “Ways of the World ” by M.G. Lay, was that all traffic had to stay to the right — just like the Conestoga wagons did.

Henry Ford simply followed the existing habit when he put the driver's wheel of his cars on the on the left.

Here is the link for the rest of the article.

Here’s why Americans drive on the right and the UK drives on the left (msn.com)

It remembers reading books in which the covered wagons that took carried settlers across the prairie were sometimes referred to as the sailing ships of the prairie.

You could imagine a fleet of covered wagons with their white cotton bonnets crossing the prairie.

As an aside, I still have an old table from my ancestors that crossed the Allegheny Mountains in a covered wagon to where they settled to farm in western Pennsylvania.

I've had an opportunity a few times to metal detect what remains of an old wagon trail close to Wheeling, WV where another line of my family settled before the Revolutionary War.  I've told some of that story before.  I still like to metal detect that area when I get a chance and when I do I feel the history of my family when I'm out there in the woods.  I have picked up horseshoes, crotal bells and other small wagon parts there and always think of one ancestor known for being able to reload his musket while on the run.  The Indians had a name for him that referred to him as the person who had a musket that was always loaded.  I was glad to find a few books on his life.  It adds another dimension to my metal detecting when I'm able to detect that area.

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I took a little walk yesterday to see what I could find. 

Patent Date and Hallmark on Old Blackened Sugar Spoon.

I didn't find any good bottles.  Just a few pieces of copper and a blackened ornate sugar spoon and a blue and white bead.  I know I found a bead just like that before, and I think I found a fork or spoon or something having the same hallmark before.  

I think I know where the other bead is and hope to compare them to see if they are exactl matches.  I think they probably are. 

Blue and White Bead With Piece of Chain.

If you have any thoughts at all on the bead, I'd love to hear.  One thing I'd like to know is if the characters are Japanese or Chinese or what.

It is always nice when you find a clear patent date on an item, like on that spoon.

If you hunt the same locations long enough it is likely you'll find some duplicates.

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Laura Strolia sent the following email concerning the silver find on Oak Island.  

My father, who is an expert on Native American artifacts, believes the recent Oak Island silver piece discovery is a fur trade item. The French, along with the British, Dutch, and Americans, traded European goods with the Indigenous people in exchange for beaver pelts. He said the object served the same purpose as a hair pipe, but took the shape of a cone. It was called a “Tinkler/Dangler/Cone.”

Martha Wilson Hamilton, author of Silver in the Fur Trade, 1680-1820, had done extensive study on silver ornaments wore by Native Americans. She expressed that silver ornaments made up as much as 25% of the trade items by 1780. Hamilton wrote, “Men also wore hair pipes which were tubes of hollow silver, the size of a finger, open on both ends and strung on a narrow braid of hair.” – Hamilton, Martha W. “Silver in the Fur Trade.” The American Society of Arms Collectors Bulletin, No. 73 (Oct., 1995), 40-51.

The collections at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology at Harvard includes a cone with actual hair inside. The metal accessories were likewise worn on clothing. The following photo was taken at the Fort St. Joseph Museum in Niles, Michigan, which houses artifacts from the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project. This ongoing excavation is on the site of a Jesuit mission, fort, and trading post dating from 1691 to 1781. I believe you have reported on this extraordinary historical site in the past.

Thanks Laura.

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Sugar Easter Egg with Easter Diorama Inside.

When I was young my Easter basket, besides jelly beans, marshmallow peeps and chocolate bunnies, included a sugar egg or two.  You could view a nice Easter diorama through the cellophane window on the sugar eggs.  I still have my Easter basket, but I don't know what happened to the sugar eggs with the dioramas.  I don't think they were edible, and I don't know if they still sell them.  I have seen instructions for how to make them.  I haven't seen them in stores or anything but remember them fondly.

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We'll have another high tide tonight.  The surf this week won't be anything special.

Watch out for the oyster bunny.

TreasureGuide@comcast.net