MaineRelic
Bronze Member
Fellow T-neter Goldbill called me this morning at work to discuss a site he an Indian Kirk were hunting IN Bangor that I had hunted in the past . We talked quite awhile since I was not all that busy at work . Towards the end of the conversation he told me to make sure I hunted this weekend since it was the 2 year anniversary of My 5 and 3/4 lb silver cache find . and the one year anniversary weekend of my $ 14.00 face value silver cache found at the same site a year and 1 day later. I honestly had not Even thought about the anniversary, I had planed on a sunday morning hunt since I was working till 3:00 PM today. However the weather forcast for Sunday call for driving rain . SO after work I called and changed my plans with my very understanding wife and headed out the door. I decided to go Knocking doors in the area Adjacent to the foundation site I had hunted two weekends ago that I had made a few decent colonial thru CW era finds. First Knock was a beautifully restored late 1700,s farmhouse with some killer looking fields . She was nice about it but said no I would rather you didn;t . Second Knock and I met a very nice Gentleman named Manfred . He was very receptive and was curious as to what I would find on his farm house lot and adjacent rock wall surrounded lot That I suspected had another foundation on it . As it turned out I never found another foundation but I did spot an old farm dump just behind the rock wall towards the back of the property . I was over checking it out and was disappointed that the dump didn't look much older than middle 20Th century when I looked down and spotted pieces of decaying leather on top of the ground. I reached down and pulled up on the leather strap and saw a good sized area of leaves move a little bit .I removed a bunch of the leaves and it hit me , A harness . It was a harness of some sort and it was quite large . I pulled harder at some more and saw some nice buckles come up with the leather some still attached and some falling off the leather that came out of the humus . I then thought that it would be neat to try to keep as much as the leather together with the buckles intact as I possibly could so I started to try to find the boundaries of the harness , About 9 feet long and 3 and a half foot wide area was covered in different forms of leather straps harnesses with alot of buckles still attached . I tried to dig under the Harness and take it out as whole as possible but most of the leather was very fragile and alot of the buckles , D rings and hoops were falling off the harness just from their own weight as you disturbed the buried leather. The going was slow . I dared not use the shovel anymore and just kept uncovering soil with my hands and tried to get my hands underneath as much as possible and just kept finding what seemed like an endless supply of riveted leather . A good hour later later I was amazed that I was still finding buckles. rings and loops some on leather some loose 6 inches down When I felt with my hands and pulled out the first Hame Iron with the hame ball still attached to the end . More and more hand digging anothe hame Iron this time with the ball loose and more and more stuff. 3 hours later with it starting to get dark and feeling like I had not missed much I started the first of 2 trips back to the truck . Boy was I loaded down both trips . I Knocked on Manfred's door and asked him if he would like to see what I found on his property . He was utterly amazed and asked how old it was . I told him I was guessing that it was early to mid 1800,s but was probably dumped there in the early 1950's or possibly later since the leather had not completely decayed yet . Next he started talking about a good friend who owns property nearby that was built on in 1690 and said he was quite sure I could get permission to hunt it and told me to mention his name . 
I got home and started the long process of removing all of it from the truck and laying it out on the driveway trying to keep it as intact as possible . Anyways here are a few pics to start with . I am going to leave most of the pieces of harness with buckles etc .. still attached out in the rain tonight to gently clean some of the dirt off with out having to handle them again tonight . I will give you some more close ups and a count of all the buckles , D rings and loops. as soon as I can . Check out this bridal rossette it is 2 and 1/4 inches in diameter . and thanks Goldbill for reminding me that it was my lucky weekend 
MaineRelic
I got home and started the long process of removing all of it from the truck and laying it out on the driveway trying to keep it as intact as possible . Anyways here are a few pics to start with . I am going to leave most of the pieces of harness with buckles etc .. still attached out in the rain tonight to gently clean some of the dirt off with out having to handle them again tonight . I will give you some more close ups and a count of all the buckles , D rings and loops. as soon as I can . Check out this bridal rossette it is 2 and 1/4 inches in diameter . and thanks Goldbill for reminding me that it was my lucky weekend MaineRelicAmazon Forum Fav 👍
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Holy horse harness.. There has to be more than one set. More than a double team I'm thinking . Maybe some fellow t-neters from out west could give us an idea.. Heck of a job.. Congrats on the leads also . one year, one year and one day, one year and two days?? Better get out there somewhere Monday!!! HH Goldbill
It looks like it was a 3 horse hitch . I had fun 
