25 More Musket Balls From the "Cache" Site , a Crusty 2 Cent Piece & Billiards Token

[Goldiver]

25 More Musket Balls From the "Cache" Site , a Crusty 2 Cent Piece & Billiards Token

Today I went back to the Musket Ball "Cache" site before it gets planted and recovered 25 more musket balls for a total of 85 musket balls from that spot. I was also able to snag a crusty 1865 2 Cent piece, the fertilizer they use on the farm fields was very unkind to it. It was still a thrill to dig, it is only the 3rd one I have dug. I dug two in 1987 and no more till I dug the one today. Another interesting find was a cool token that reads "McLaughlin Billiards 11201 E. Jefferson Good for 25 cents in trade" If anyone recognizes what town this is from please let me know. It was probably a town somewhere in Ohio.

 

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[Digger RJ]

Nice!!! Congrats!!!

 

[Icewing]

I'm just curious if you are finding these all in one "cache" or kind of spread out over a large area?

 

[Goldiver]

I'm just curious if you are finding these all in one "cache" or kind of spread out over a large area?

These were coming from a relatively small area. My rough guess would be 50ft x 50 ft area with a higher concentration of them in about the center. The field has been cultivated since the early 1800's. The only thing I can figure is that they were in some sort of bag and have been spread around by the farm equipment over the years. I could find no indicators of a camp in the immediate vicinity such as the typical buttons, coins, eating utensils, nails one would expect to find. The spot is about 70 yards from a river and was the site of a large Native American village prior to the settlement of Europeans and is littered with flint chips and random stone artifacts. There would have been traffic from fur traders and random military expeditions through this area also from the 1700's until the early 1800's.

 

[idahotokens]

Nice token - it is from Detroit, MI. Here's a clipping from the 6 Jun 1941 Detroit Free Press. Please post pics of it on tokencatalog
John in the Great 208

 

[Goldiver]

Nice token - it is from Detroit, MI. Here's a clipping from the 6 Jun 1941 Detroit Free Press. Please post pics of it on tokencatalog
John in the Great 208

Wow, that is awesome lol! Seems like the owner was notorious, the place might not have been in business very long. Thanks for the info. I will get better pics and post on token catalog.

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Very nice work, congrats!

 

[Icewing]

These were coming from a relatively small area. My rough guess would be 50ft x 50 ft area with a higher concentration of them in about the center. The field has been cultivated since the early 1800's. The only thing I can figure is that they were in some sort of bag and have been spread around by the farm equipment over the years. I could find no indicators of a camp in the immediate vicinity such as the typical buttons, coins, eating utensils, nails one would expect to find. The spot is about 70 yards from a river and was the site of a large Native American village prior to the settlement of Europeans and is littered with flint chips and random stone artifacts. There would have been traffic from fur traders and random military expeditions through this area also from the 1700's until the early 1800's.

Ok this leads to my next question and my reason for asking.
Are you also digging iron targets? If not I think you should.
The reason I say that is because I think there's a real possibility that those could potentially be from a fired "Case Shot". If so you might be able to find pieces of the exploded iron cannonball that they were in.

Good luck!

 

[Goldiver]

Ok this leads to my next question and my reason for asking.
Are you also digging iron targets? If not I think you should.
The reason I say that is because I think there's a real possibility that those could potentially be from a fired "Case Shot". If so you might be able to find pieces of the exploded iron cannonball that they were in.

Good luck!

I like the way you think. This thought too had crossed my mind but even small iron targets were nearly non existant in that area. Then by examination of the musket balls seeing that they all appeared to be round and not deformed impact lead me to dismiss that idea. The two that were deformed had animal tooth marks in them from being chewed. I do dig random iron signals especially larger ones that would the size musket lock mechanism, knife or axe head. Excellent idea though, thanks for bringing that up.

 

[xcopperstax]

It's interesting to think about stuff like this. My friend found a hill in the woods that used to be farm fields. The hill is full of musket balls of all different calibers. No battle is recorded there so we think it was target practice possibly by an early militia. They all have a patina that speaks to their age so we think they are old. The area appears to have been used more recently for some target practice as well because there are some modern bullet slugs mixed in with the musket balls. We've made a few trips out there to dig them. It almost gets old after awhile but I love finding them. We guessed that there should be buttons or more stuff around and looked all over where they might have stood to fire the muskets. Very little has been found. My friend found a spill of an IHP and a seated dime but that doesn't really date the site. We speculate that they may have marched through, fired off a couple rounds and kept walking. Thanks for sharing!

 

[A2coins]

Must have been a fierce battle those sre really cool

 

[BLK HOLE]

Very very cool!!

 

[islamoradamark]

That's a lot of balls