Cellar hole in NH

[ReidMan]

Cellar hole in NH , 4 musket lockplates.

Recent trip to NH wife and I got permission to hunt an old farm and house site from a friend of the family. House site has been in the family 100 years or more. After being told the general location of the cellar hole we set out to see what we could discover. It was our 13 anniversary so we had decided to spend the day relic hunting together. After driving our new Ford Focus off-road then up through a field(no it wasn't good for it) we got as close as we could to the field closes to the cellar site. A trek in the woods and my wife saw the rock walls that outline most home sites in NH, knowing this she called me in and we followed the wall till we came to the cellar hole. At first glance we could see that digging had gone on there for years, piles of dirt and debris were around the large cellar full of glass and iron artifacts. We first started off looking for bottles and soon discovered a lot of more recent bottles form 1850-1900 some broken black glass but no whole colonial bottles. Didn't take long to realize that bottle hunters had cleaned out most of the older bottles at least from the diggings that had been done. Not wanting to give up I started to sift through by hand the dirt in a corner of the cellar and in a short time started to discover iron tools horse tack many horseshoes and other artifacts thinking they might have missed a few things I dug in deeper, to my astonishment a flint lock hammer popped up in a pile I just dug. This was a good sign and my wife got back into it with me sifting through the dirt that was piled up from others. In a short time I had a musket lock plate then another, my wife pulled out a flint lock plate and nice pipe bowl, then I found a pipe bowl. Before long I had 4 lock plates 2 complete pipe bowls a nice complete horse bit then I found a small handgun frame and an early fork with a wood handle. After cleaning things up I have one Springfield 1852 lock plate, one Enfield, and 2 flintlock plates. Horse bit is 1860 or so. I have many saddle parts leather and iron I am cleaning now and a lot of tools. After some research we found out the house was built right around 1700 the last owner was a sea Captain and his son, the house was burned down in 1906 when a cow kicked over a lantern in the barn and it spread to the house. It looks to me that many town people used the cellar as a dumping spot for many years. So needless to say we cant wait to return. More pictures will come as I clean stuff up. Reid

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Diving for Pleasure and Treasure - Grab it through Amazon!

[GioTheGreek]

Amazing stuff, man! It's great to see you two tackle that beast together.

That's a huge pile of bottles! I love those old relics and pipes you found, too. I wouldn't find those pipes with a detector...

Note to self: Get hands dirtier.

 

[wvwildman]

nice finds congrats HH

 

[HEAVYMETALNUT]

awesome relics saved! great job both of you's!

 

[Rick (Nova Scotia)]

With that many cork tops, it is hard to imagine that bottle hunter were there before, wouldn't they have carted them off too ?

 

[Limitool]

Man that sure looks like fun.... good job and keep us posted!

 

[ReidMan]

Because of the location, long walking trek we left maybe 400 bottles on top of the ground only took ones my wife liked and bottles with names and locals on them. There were so many pieces of black glass and bases that it was apparent that they dug out the old black glass which is worth a lot more. I am sure there are many more bottles still in the cellar hole once we cut the trees out we can get better access.

 

[metalev4]

Nice finds Reid. I like the gun parts. Looks like there is potential for more decent finds there with a sifter.

 

[CASPER-2]

 

[PeteWmass]

are you new to bottle digging- I can't think of any bottle digger that would dig through an 1800s dump- ignore the 1800s bottles on the hope there would be colonial bottles beneath...no way.....(what...was somebody bottle digging in 1940?...heh)..it doesn't happen that way.....if you are looking for 1700s bottles....be prepared to go sifting shallow pits for little bits of things....bottles were a scarcity back then...you would likely keep it until it broke....99 percent of colonial bottles come from shipwrecks...you might find a late toss...but...unless its something freaky like a building burning down in the 1700s..and getting filled in....I wouldn't expect to find colonial bottles...I have been digging 30 years and the oldest bottles Ive found (and most other bottle diggers I know) -have been 1840s...MAYBE....its rare to find pre 1860s bottles unless you are digging a privy...I would dare say what you were digging there is better than average .....

 

[PeteWmass]

those are mostly 1920s bottles..by the way...

 

[Bill D. (VA)]

Looks like you guys had a blast, and definitely have a nice spot to return to when you visit that area again. Cool stuff!!

 

[ReidMan]

I know the bottles are from the 1900 they were all over the place, but I know what black glass is and there were piles of it, some melted in the fires. Someone dug this out before me
bottles were piled up black glass was sorted separately from newer bottles so I would assume that's what they were looking for since they left 1700 lock plates and 1850 lock plates in there
own pile of dirt. It was used as a trash dump for years just like most cellar holes. Good stuff is deeper. They dug several holes part of the way down in the cellar that's where the dirt with the lock plates came from. I dug in their old holes couple more feet down found more lock plates and a pipe bowl. We have bottles that dated 1860 up I kept the ones with local names and what they were on them we left maybe 400 bottles all over the place. Not sure what people digging were looking for if it wasn't older bottles as they left many bottles all over the place, some were together but it had been a long time since anyone has been there so they weren't coming back for them. And they didn't touch iron relics that was apparent.