1800s McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

1liquigirl

Sr. Member
Jun 13, 2005
393
13
Bellefonte, PA
1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

I found these items 'yesterday' (sorry for my posting time, but had to clean the pieces up a bit first) 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, near 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

looks like a fun site to hunt -- hope you get back out there soon so we can see what you find -- ;D
 

Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

Well, I'm going to try to post more foundation pictures here in a second. Tuesday's finds were 5 more of the same smaller nails and what we think is an old knife handle, you can see the picture posted under the What Is It? catagory and listed under 1800's McCoy Estate Items. Picture five is of the area in the corner of the concrete foundation where the old manual water pump/cistern used to stand. It still worked about 5 years ago. The rest, well you can check out where they are located from the map.
Kenb, I haven't run the detector around the site yet, just in the foundations.
 

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Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

And a few more for you. Picture 10 is of the rectangular looking depression with two trees growing out of it. I believe this was where the outhouse once stood.
 

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Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

Finally the last batch of pictures for you, huff huff huff :P As soon as the cold streak breaks, I'll be posting the finds, thanks for watching.
 

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Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

Wow, awesome site! Thanks for the pics...
Keep us posted in what you find.
Hope you have a lot of fun hunting (and lots of finds),
Bob
 

Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

that site really looks promising. good luck with it. and thanks for the detailed post.
 

Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

nice pix,s. if i was near that place when it was warm a tent would go up and i would be eating beans out of a can for about a week :-\ i don't know between deer hunting and fishing years ago, that why my first wife got rid of me :D.. like to see some nice finds out of there :) . good luck
 

Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

jon43 said:
nice pix,s. if i was near that place when it was warm a tent would go up and i would be eating beans out of a can for about a week :-\ i don't know between deer hunting and fishing years ago, that why my first wife got rid of me :D.. like to see some nice finds out of there :) . good luck

All I gotta say is I pitty the person who has to be in that tent with you for a week -- bring a supply of bean-o!! :)
 

Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

Gabbit said:
jon43 said:
nice pix,s. if i was near that place when it was warm a tent would go up and i would be eating beans out of a can for about a week :-\ i don't know between deer hunting and fishing years ago, that why my first wife got rid of me :D.. like to see some nice finds out of there :) . good luck

All I gotta say is I pitty the person who has to be in that tent with you for a week -- bring a supply of bean-o!! :)
i would be by my self but i would keep the flap open :D
 

Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

Funny guys! ;D Well, today's high was in the 40's, so here's the results from hunt #3. Top left pic: 2 sizes of doorhinges. Top right: 3 square nails of various sorts and a drill bit to the far right. The large doorhinge holes fit nail # 2 from the left (which has groves in it, so I should say it's a bolt) I believe the bottom right pic is the wheel from the pulley/block and tackle piece in the first photo on my entire thread, from my first detecting day. And the chain, oh my! This is the second one now. It's pretty heavy and measures two and a half inches shy of 4 feet long. Anyone know what it was used for? And just for fun, I threw in the picture of the only item I could label as junk that I found since I've been working this site. A Pepsi bottle with no label, but an intact Nintendo Holiday game piece cap, writing around the sides of the cap are still very well readable. There is alot of Silver, Gold, and Bronze readouts on my machine, but there are so many beeps everywhere I go in Foundation 5, so I'm trying to sift out all the iron nails and heavy hardware first, and then take my time to hit every beep. Enjoy the pics and thanks for reading all!
 

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Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

Is it me or does this site look a bit sacrificial? It's a cool looking place though. Good Luck in your adventure!!

Happy Hunting,

Moon
 

Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

Looks like you might have a lot of work head of you trying to move some of that rock around -- hope you have been drinking milk
 

Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

awesome looking site liquigirl....it looks almost as good as you do ;D ;)

cool finds so far, good luck on finding something other than junk....but, with a place as large and as old as that there has to be some great finds there just waiting for ya


HH
 

Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

Very interesting site. It looks as if you might need more than that Ace 250 to get some of the goodies that might be buried deep. I started out last year with an Ace 250 and then saw some of the old pros around here pulling out old coins at 8"+ in depth and I just HAD to upgrade, haha. Now I have Minelab Explorer, which is definately worth the money if you enjoy detecting. :)

How old are you by the way? You look fairly young and I always assumed there were no girls my age that did this sort of thing, haha. I am 23 and get made fun of a lot by all of my friends, haha, but oh well, I live.
 

Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

Moon, I already have plans to stick all these chains on the wall and label it "the dungeon room." John McCoy was an Iron Master. That's where all this iron is coming from. I think foundation 5 was his workshop.
Gabbit, no milk up there, just beer.
Neverdun, ahh, how sweet. And yes, I know we're going to find some goodies, the McCoys owned the whole mountain, had a river dam named after them, and were loaded $$$$.
bscofield, I love the Ace and will not rid myself of it. I will get all that I can up there with it, since it's light weight for traveling up the slopes. When we've finished the sight with the Ace, I'll rent something better, and spend a few days up there to finish up with it. And someday I'll get something more expensive, but for now the Garrett works just fine. As for my picture, well, that was me in 1933, but thanks for asking. Ha, Ha! Just kidding! I'm 26, and everyone in my area thinks it's cool that I detect, no one has made fun of me for doing it, maybe you need better friends, or you need to find a few good things in the ground to show them and change their oppinion. Thanks for the suggestion on Minelab, I was thinking of purchasing the EX2.
 

Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

Great post, hope you some more cool relics. Tsgman
 

Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

This is an interesting site.....From what I can see is you have a huge area to detect and do'nt be affraid to go hundreds of feet away from the foundations ...those rock piles could have been placed in that area for use on some of the buildings or to use on new ones ...and may have been placed in piles after they have been removed from the fields they may have farmed at one time.... the smaller piles of stones could be old grave sites...It can't be overlooked...What I'm curious about is the ground it self..From the one pic I saw it looks like your on top of a very high hill ...How is the digging...!!! If the ground is very hard with much stone that could give you a clue that the piles of stones could be grave sites....Being unable to dig deep holes to bury their dead!

Keep posting!!!! :)
 

Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

Thanks, tgsman
Seeker, there is alot of stone we are digging through to get these relics. It may be because there was a stone floor in these foundations that now are dirt. The site is on top of a mountain, about 1500 ft. I'm posting some views from the top of the field sitting behind the orchard. The views are from left to right. I ran my Ace 250 over the "grave" site rock pile, nada beep, but I figured that would happen. I probably do need a deep seeker for checking into it further.
 

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Re: 1800's McCoy Estate Foundation Findings

those are some beautiful pics, gotta love the mountains!

you could probably search that place for a year or more and come back tons of awesome finds....and then find some more

hopefully you'll find a cache of gold coins, pretty good chance of it too it sounds like

good luck
 

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