Written by the Treasure Guide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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| West Virginia Woods in the Hills. |
I've had a lot to do lately and haven't done much beach hunting at all this year, but I'll get back to it when I can. In the meantime, there is always someplace to hunt and something to find. I say that all the time, and it is really true.
The basic principles are the same no matter where you hunt. Objects get distributed by the same principles. Rain and wind erosion moves sand or earth and other things. If you can read a beach, you should be able to read a hillside or a desert. Of course there are some differences, for example you get waves and tides hitting ocean beaches, but rain erosion on hillsides and wind erosion other places works basically the same. I've posted a lot about how things get distributed a lot in the past. I talked mostly about beaches, but again, the same basic principles work elsewhere.
So I was up in West Virginia for a few days. I didn't have a metal detector or any of my equipment with me, but I did some eyeballing and used some other simple techniques. You can find metal (and other things) without a metal detector. Of course you just don't have the advantage of an instrument that sees through a few inches of sand or earth, so you have to figure things out and use other techniques and strategies.
It is really good practice to hunt without a metal detector once in a while because it forces you to develop other skills. You can learn a lot that way that will help you when you are metal detecting. Yes, it is harder in a way, but it is good training.
The woods you see above is where my Revolutionary War ancestors settled and fought. You can read about that in books such as The Life and Times of Lewis Wetzel.
I really like those hills, and when I am there, I often think of my ancestors in those same places. I feel really at home there.
Anyhow, after doing some heavy work, I decided to take a little walk to see what I could find.
I've found some interesting things around there before. On my first visit (I think it was) I was surprised to find a 1943 class ring and have found other rings in the quiet woods where you might not expect to find such things, but like I said before, you can find interesting things almost anywhere.
When I started my walk I was thinking about finding older items, such as arrowheads, old coins and things like that.
On this hunt, one location caught my attention. It was an old spring by the trail where there had been lot of recent erosion. The wash-out was deep and long but not easy to get to.
We look for erosion on beaches, but I'm happy to investigate erosion anywhere. Water moves things, whether it is sand or dirt, and deposits things according to their density, shape and the changing water force. That is no secret.
Below is a closeup of a small part of the washout I found. I had to find my way over rocks and through heavy weeds as I moved up the little gulley before I found this big rock. It doesn't look that big in the photo, but it was several feet across, and I don't know how long because it was partly buried.
It had been uncovered by erosion and the water was still running down and around the rock. In the photo below, you can see where the water ran around the rock.
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| Horseshoe and Small Conglomerate. |
This horseshoe is heavily corroded and maybe has one bent nail still in place. The shoe would benefit from some good electrolysis, but I didn't have time to do anything like that, so I left the horseshoe to a young man that lives up there.
The horseshoe was a relatively easy find once I worked through the weeds and rocks. It was partly uncovered by erosion but still partly hidden by mud.
I couldn't see through the muddy water running down and around the rock, so I first inspected the area around the little ditch. Then I did a little digging with a sharp rock to open up the ditch and drain off some of the water. And then I scooped out some stones and some of the dirt and silt in the bottom of the ditch. You can see some of that on top of the rock.
I was hoping to find arrowheads, and found some sharp rocks that I had to clean off to check out, but no arrowheads. I didn't have a sifter or much clean water so it wasn't easy to see everything, but I did dredge up a musket ball in the bottom of the little ditch where the water changes direction at the corner of the rock.
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| Musket Ball and Pot Shard. |
Although I was hoping to find an arrowhead, I was happy to find the musket ball. Once again it reminded me of my ancestor who was known for being able to reload his musket on the run, to the surprise and consternation of the indigenous who referred to him as the one who had a musket that was always loaded. From the books I've read on my ancestor, I'm pretty sure he was in those woods and likely went up that path, but I really doubt that it could have been his musket ball. That would just be too much of a coincidence.
You can also see a pot shard that was found on the side of the gully just a little distance away.
My main point today is that you can find metal and other things without a metal detector. I enjoy searching even when I don't have a metal detector. It is a fun challenge that puts emphasis on other skills.
Even though I managed to get in only about an hour of hunting while up there, it was fun, and I'll be going back some time in the future. Hopefully the next time I'll have more time and be better equipped. I bet if I had more time I would have found an arrowhead. I'd like to do a lot of digging and sifting up there.
Just being there is enough reward for me.
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Here are a couple old posts I did on this wooded area and its history.
And here is an excerpt from the second one.
Six generations back into my ancestry I found information about Captain John Wetzel, who came from Holland, was a captain in the Revolutionary War and was killed by the Indians.
I'm not to the part that blew me away yet.
He had a couple of sons, Lewis, the more famous one, and John Jr., who is in my direct ancestral line.
Captain John, the father of John and Lewis, was killed by the Indians while Lewis was still young, and Lewis was shot in the chest and captured by the Indians at the age of 13 and later escaped. He managed to survive the injury even though it fractured his sternum. As a result of the killing of his father and his own injury and capture by the Indians, he vowed vengeance against the Indians and ended up collecting a rather large number of scalps.
My good fortune is that a book was written about him in the 1800s, not long after his life on this earth was concluded. There are also historical references to him in other history books.
The account of frontier life in the 1780s is fascinating reading. It is hard to imagine that it was actually like that. Political correctness does not permit accurate description of the violence. And seldom do you find such good descriptions of daily life on the frontier back then.
Here is the part that blew me away.
Much of the drama of Lewis' life took place at Mingo Bottom. Doesn't sound like any big deal. Well, I've shown photos of a wagon trail and Indian trail that takes off from Mingo Bottom in this blog. I've detected that trail numerous times. It goes through the property where my wife grew up in West Virginia, and I'm as familiar with the trail as the back of my hand. Numerous arrow heads and artifacts have been found along that trial by my wife's family and I've shown a few finds from the trail in this blog, including things like a horse shoe, buckle, bell, etc.
Now that blew me away. I had no idea that my ancestors had walked the same ground back in the 1780s that I've walked many times myself and detected a few times. I would never in a million years have guessed that. A horse shoe or artifact that I picked up may have actually been from one of my ancestors. I now know that is entirely possible. And before very recently when I discovered the wealth of reference material about Lewis and his family, I had absolutely no idea.
Of all the places in the country, I was absolutely amazed to learn that I've been tromping the same area as my ancesters from the 1780s, and I didn't even know it until a night or two ago.
Many times I've passed a spot on the river that Lewis swam across while making an escape. It is no small river either. The location is precisely described in more than one historical resource. I know it well.
In this blog I've shown some of the Indian artifacts from the same area that one of my wife's family members collected. I didn't know that my ancestors were there battling the Indians hundreds of years ago.
Some coincidences just seem too unlikely. It makes you wonder if it just an amazing coincidence or something else?
Not long ago I used the term personal history. This is certainly personal history for me.
I've wondered why I like the mountains so much? Just the other day I showed a scene of a cabin site in the Rocky Mountains in this blog. Is there something more than coincidence to explain it?
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| Surf Chart from Surfguru.com |
A little more surf for next week.
Good hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net