1800s McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

1liquigirl

Sr. Member
Jun 13, 2005
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13
Bellefonte, PA
1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

I found these items yesterday in an old foundation known as the old McCoy Estate and apple orchard. There is dirt inside each room with outlying foundation of the house still standing as well (to a height of a few feet, but one has a concrete floor with little troughs, which could have been a barn. To reach it requires a long hike of about 2 miles I'd guess, up the side of a mountain in our valley, some areas are very steep going. Judging the looks of things, I don't believe the sight has been MDed before, although people do camp near there. I found an older Pepsi bottle without its label, with a Nintendo Game Piece cap on it close to the foundation, just laying there. Also, rear the path into the estate, there is a pile of rocks, which looks to be an old Indian grave or just a regular grave, with many years of moss growing on it, maybe just a pile of rocks, but the correct size to be otherwise. Good thing the brush was bare so I could see it from the path. I'll post pictures of this and the looks of the foundation on the next trip there, although I need to do some recovering from this one, huff, huff :P. I'm posting a few pics below. I'm not sure what the one object is, there are a few close ups of it. My friend told me, he saw something similar to this at his great grandfather's barn, but never saw one in one piece. He said it could be an item used to hang tools, like wheelbarrows, etc. It was hung over a rail, or track, to move the items quickly. And that on the back (the curved inward side), a wheel would be attached to move it on the track, the wheel would attach to the area furthest away from the ring part. There is a rounded off bolt through the front side that is bent and is folded over touching the iron piece in the back in the correct spot for a wheel. Also there is lettering on it as well, but it is hard to make out. My guess is B(or R)-E-A(or the letters N or R)-D-I-N-G. Does anyone know what it may mean? We do have a town of Reading here in Pennsylvania. Maybe it is just to tell us where it was made, but maybe not. The back curved area looks to be broken off because it is not straight at all there and may have had an identical piece structure on the other side. These pieces were all found within an hour (we were afraid of dark setting in before we made it back to the truck, and it was sleeting on us the whole time we were there), all pieces are made of iron. Thanks ahead of time for any help or oppinions on this piece. ;D
 

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Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

Hey liquigirl,

The round thing looks like a handle that would be bolted on the end of a spindle on old machines for turning it ie. old sewing machines, lathes etc... The chainis made for lifting large things definately. The links are designed to fold over on themselves in order to lay flat and apply max. pressure, the thing in lower left hand corner of picture is a type of "quick release" the round link at the top is where you hook in for lifting. If the round thing has knurls or little bumps on it then it is almost definately a handle because these would help eliminate shearing of the handle, it could be half of a two piece pulley but they aren't very popular becaise of seperation, that's why most iron pullies are cast one piece. Maybe this helps some.

Take care,
fldiver
 

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Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

ok back to the chain could be off a old trappers trap leg hold (foxs,wolves bobcats)or body grip(muskrat,beavers,weasels) the end of it looks odd with the different sized linkage .after all they stored them in the barn maybe if a fox was raiding the chickens?
 

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Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

Take a look at this item on ebay.. and it just so happens that the seller is in PA.

Looks similar to me.
 

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Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

Angelo, I didn't even think to check e-bay. I'm getting to that after I finish reading all my posts here on the TNet. Thank you.

fldiver, the wheel does have a notch (bump) and 4 round circle areas of the same size as the notch evenly spaced around the smaller round area of the wheel. In circles I'm referring to the color difference from the rest of the wheel, slightly lighter, and may be areas where other notches were. Hope this helps.

Thanks so far, you all, for all your help and suggestions, there's going to be alot of this IDing to be done at this area. I have some more pics of last Wednesday's trip. Any help with IDs here would be appreciated as well. First picture, from top left and down, is either a weigh scale or the end pieces used as hooks to hold up a heavy item (like a cow for slaughtering)? Second item an old iron lock for a gate? Third pic is a sickle, for sure. I was chitty chopping all the small branches off the trees overgrowing the site as soon as I found it. Fourth pic down, are unknown items, but the left hand piece in that picture slides right into the back of the dagger object in the second picture I posted (which was IDed In Nana's thread in Today's Finds as either a sickle slide or another farm implement (such as for a plow). The sickle is too small for this dagger to have been it's sickle slide (the pointed ends stick out from the blade on either side. The dagger was found close to the sickle and the left hand object in the fourth pic. All these heavy pieces were found on the eastern side of Foundation 5. Below these is three pictures of the same shot bullet which was found inside Foundation 5!? Who was shooting and what were they shooting at!? I was told it's either a .45 or .54 calibur deal. To the right top, a pic of more square nails of various sizes, a stake on the left of the row, one very large bolt (the fourth in from the left) 2 unknown at the bottome may very well be very very encrusted nails, but not sure yet, as they are still being cleaned. Keep me updated all with any responses as to positive IDs for any of my pieces to this date. For reference, the Sharpie is 5 and 1/2 inches
 

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Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

Liquigirl,

The dagger like things are sickle guards, used on sickle type mowers. If the points are tipped up or down, then they are probably older (1940 or older), if they are straight, then they are newer than that. They are still being used, but the modern ones are not as spindley (sp) and are shorter than the ones you found, and with straight points. Hope this helps.

Jerry
 

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