Cannister shot base?

[parsonwalker]

Found a few days ago near Cold Harbor in an area known to have given up a lot of cannister (grape) shot. Wondering if it could be a base to the grape stack? Hole in middle is square. One side flat, other side has raised (stepped) round portrusion. Help?

 

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[TheCannonballGuy]

Seen lots of those. Even dug one myself. I'm 100%-certain they have no relation to artillery projectiles. I do not know their specific ID, but I think they are from some sort of farming equipment, because they seem to be frequently found in farm-fields (or long-ago farm fields which have been allowed to turn back into forest).

 

[parsonwalker]

Thanks! I've read many of your posts and hoped you'd see this one. Would you also check out my posts in this forum regarding the .45 cal bullet and the "small copper disc dispenser?" I grew up ON the Cold harbor battlefield (1/4 from Gaines Mill). The What is it posts I'm referring to were posted tonight. I grew up around the early, early hunters. I knew Mac Mason, Harry Cassidy, Elwood Tally and Pop-eye Hott personally. My dad found the first oval CS (On Watt House Hill) anybody around here had ever seen. I have something I think is totally unique - My dad was the "caretaker" for Gaines Mill back in the '60s, and as a thank you, he was given a Confederate bond signed by Dr. William F. Gaines.

 

[BosnMate]

I do believe it's a disc harrow washer. Here is a photo of a modern one. Located on the harrow where arrow #1 is pointing.

 

[BosnMate]

When the ground is worked up, ie: plowed, it then has to be worked down for planting, which is where the spike tooth harrow, and the disc harrow come into play. Spike tooth harrows go back to the invention of the plow in Europe, but the disc harrow was an American invention patented in 1847.

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[parsonwalker]

GOTTA be! Great detective work. Thanks!

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Parsonwalker wrote:
> Would you also check out my posts in this forum regarding the .45 cal bullet and the "small copper disc dispenser?"

Sure, Parsonwalker, I'll take a look at them and give you my opinion.

Back in the 1980s, I knew the first three of the oldtime Central Virginia relic-diggers you mentioned. Mac Mason was a personal friend. He was one of my mentors in the civil war bullet ID field. He sold me his artillery shell collection in the mid-1980s, including the ones that he owned which are shown in the McKee-&-Mason book. (Reid McKee owned the others.) Mac was a very Educational and very "entertaining" guy. You'd never get bored listening to him.

 

[parsonwalker]

Did you know Raleigh Cassidy, David Young or Melvin Gaulding? Oh, and ever throw horseshoes with Mac? he was a killer player, and he threw OVERHAND. I was in the Virginia Arms Collectors Association with him.