✅ SOLVED I dont think this is "the" KKK, but what might it be?

[TrpnBils]

I don't think this is "the" KKK, but what might it be?

I dug this at a homesite that's on my 1876 map in Pennsylvania but the house has been gone since at least the 40's. Came up as a 12-46/47 on my Etrac, it is not magnetic, is about the same thickness as a quarter, but is between the size of a quarter and a half dollar.

The front side (pictured) has what appears to be three chain links (they definitely overlap like a chain would even though the picture doesn't show it too well) and has the letters KKK clearly stamped underneath. The back is bare and smooth.

I can't see it being a cattle tag or something like that as there's no hole to attach it with, and just for the heck of it I looked up designs of KKK tokens and coins and it didn't match anything I found. Any thoughts? If it's somebody's initials, they don't match any of the land records I have for either of the two homesteads that were there (which are in the middle of nowhere).

 

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[nhbenz]

The three links make me think it was originally an Odd Fellows (IOOF) token... Maybe modified by the local klan chapter?

 

[BosnMate]

The three links make me think it was originally an Odd Fellows (IOOF) token... Maybe modified by the local klan chapter?

My first thoughts also.

 

[TrpnBils]

That's interesting - have not heard of them before, but a quick image search doesn't bring up any IOOF tokens that resemble that. Would it have been so simple originally as to just have the three links and nothing else?

 

[ARC]

I would say kkk. prolly someone in shop class made it and lost it at the drunkin cross burning. heh

 

[TrpnBils]

I included this with the rest of what I found at that site in the "Today's Finds" section and somebody suggested a counterstamped LC. What do you guys think of this? After that was suggested I think I can pretty clearly see the outline of a head where the stamps are (even in the same orientation). I know this is REALLY rough, but it almost looks like a Matron Head type based on the angle of the top of the head.

 

[TrpnBils]

The homestead is on my grandfather's property and I emailed him about this earlier today. Just got a reply from him saying that he would strongly believe it would be a stamp related to the Klan because apparently they had quite a history in our area, and that some members of our family had actually been members back in the mid-1800s until they found out what it was all about... history isn't always pretty but it's cool how much of a story can unfold from something as unassuming as this piece of metal.​

 

[gollum]

The homestead is on my grandfather's property and I emailed him about this earlier today. Just got a reply from him saying that he would strongly believe it would be a stamp related to the Klan because apparently they had quite a history in our area, and that some members of our family had actually been members back in the mid-1800s until they found out what it was all about... history isn't always pretty but it's cool how much of a story can unfold from something as unassuming as this piece of metal.​

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA "until they found out what it was all about" It has never been a secret what the Klan was/is all about. Its not something they keep from new initiates until they reach a higher level. When you don that white robe and hood, stand there at the Cross Burning that is at EVERY Klan Rally, with everyone yelling "White power, White Power!"

Are you saying that your relatives were in the Klan for fifteen or twenty minutes? HAHAHA Just admit it. Like most people in the South (and many thousands in the North), you had family in the Klan. I had a lot of family in the Klan. I had family members there at the formation and a lot of my family were slave owners until the early 1800s.

Mike

 

[TrpnBils]

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA "until they found out what it was all about" It has never been a secret what the Klan was/is all about. Its not something they keep from new initiates until they reach a higher level. When you don that white robe and hood, stand there at the Cross Burning that is at EVERY Klan Rally, with everyone yelling "White power, White Power!"

Are you saying that your relatives were in the Klan for fifteen or twenty minutes? HAHAHA Just admit it. Like most people in the South (and many thousands in the North), you had family in the Klan. I had a lot of family in the Klan. I had family members there at the formation and a lot of my family were slave owners until the early 1800s.

Mike

Hey man, I'm passing along what I was told. I assumed as much as that they didn't exactly hide what they were all about, but there's no need to be a jerk about things. Glad you're enjoying yourself. If you'd like to go ahead and keep implying that I and/or the rest of my family are a bunch of racists NOW, feel free to PM me and we'll discuss it there. Otherwise feel free to move along to another thread.

 

[jeff of pa]

Hey man, I'm passing along what I was told. I assumed as much as that they didn't exactly hide what they were all about, but there's no need to be a jerk about things. Glad you're enjoying yourself. If you'd like to go ahead and keep implying that I and/or the rest of my family are a bunch of racists NOW, feel free to PM me and we'll discuss it there. Otherwise feel free to move along to another thread.

Very well put Jeff ! Although I'm not sure he meant anything rude by it since he added the following :

Like most people in the South (and many thousands in the North), you had family in the Klan. I had a lot of family in the Klan. I had family members there at the formation and a lot of my family were slave owners until the early 1800s.

 

[TrpnBils]

I came here looking for an answer and I got it. That post added nothing beneficial or intelligent, and was pretty damn rude in my opinion.

 

[TrpnBils]

OOOpps! I read it differently than you did! I read it as, it is true that most people don't realize what hides in their families past. Not, just with that but many things! I didn't read it as him calling you a racist! Sry, just saying that my like of his comment and my following post was not intended to be offensive! I read into it different.

No offense taken

 

[jeff of pa]

I re read the whole thread and other then he seems to find the comment
"until they found out what it was all about.." a bit funny.
these days everyone thinks they know what the klan is.
I can see where in the early years, many probably hadn't formed
opinions yet, especially since TV , News Papers & people like Geraldo Rivera
weren't born yet. sorry to make a little joke there, But trying to lighten the mood, I Don't see him calling you racist, and as far as the Historical bits of past members of your families.
Isay be Proud or ignore the parts you don't like.
what they did doesn't make you who you are. Right ?

Besides Back then all they admitted to was being a Christian Organization

anyway If I come off insulting PM me i'll delete my post.
But it's meant with respect

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Klan was started as means to resist and try reversing the federal government's progressive Reconstruction Era-activities in the South and its enfranchisement of blacks by white Republicans....

Klan employed violence as a means of pushing back Reconstruction and its enfranchisement of African Americans. Former Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest was the KKK's first grand wizard; in 1869, he unsuccessfully tried to disband it after he grew critical of the Klan's excessive violence??

 

[Ant]

My GGGG Grandmother was a slave (1760), she was called Catherine. She had 2 boys with her French owner. He ended up setting her and the boys free and leaving each of them an equal share of his estate along with his wife and their children.

In 1810 or so the descendents of the slave owner sued in court claiming that my GGG Grandmother Celeste who married one of my GGGG Grandmother Catherine's sons was not a freed slave and that her and her the 5 children she had with a man from the Gens De Couleur Libres community were their property. Good for her and me that she was married in the Catholic Church and that the Church records proved that, slaves couldn't get married and she won her case. I have lots of information about the Gens De Couleur Libres community..

I married into the slave descendents of (Newton Knight (Free State Of Jones), Jones County Mississippi.

We still have 110 acres on Bayou Carron and my wife's family has 60 acers in Forest County MS, we are one of the few lucky ones.

 

[Ant]

I would like to add that slavery ended up being mostly about sex, picking cotton came second. I'm a product of it and after researching my ancestor I have no doubt. In Louisiana people of color owned slaves too, some of them were my Grandparents, and thank God for the 2nd too.

 

[gollum]

His post made it look like he was trying to downplay any family involvement in the KKK. I simply pointed out how silly it sounded to say that his family got out of the Klan after they "found out what it was all about." If he had said the same thing about his family being Scientologists, and had gotten out after they found out what it was all about, I would have understood because when a Scientologist is fresh, they don't know about Xinu and all the souls of all the people he killed being thetins that are the causes of all the ills of society. When ANYBODY joins the KKK, there has NEVER been ANY doubt about what "they were all about". All he had to say was that he had some family in the Klan back in the day. Simple and honest.

He PM'ed me saying that I had accused his family of being some kind of racist hillbillies. I never said any such thing. If he had learned to read for content, he might have gotten to the second paragraph of my post where I said that most Southern Families had people in the KKK. Many in the North as well. In the 1920s and 1930s, the KKK was in the hundreds of thousands. They have never made ANY SECRET of the fact that they are anti-black, anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim, anti-everythingnotwhiteanglosaxonprotestant. I even said that I had a lot of family in the KKK back in the 1800s. Several of my family were slave owners. The last slave owning member of my family freed all his slaves in 1814 and married one. They stayed married until his death in 1851.

Don't deny what your family did. Yes, you had some racist family members way back when. THERE WAS A LOT OF THAT GOING AROUND BACK THEN! If you took offense, that's your problem not mine.

Being West Virginian does automatically make you a hillbilly racist. I swear this is true though (and very funny in the light of this) one of the guys I served with in the US Navy was from West Virginia. Guess what his name was? JEFFERSON LEE DAVIS. As God is my witness, that is a true story.

Mike

 

[Discrimination Dave]

hey gollum,
from both of your posts, i get the impression that you feel the KKK of mid 17th century and the KKK of today are exactly the same thing. That its reputation was as well known as it is today and even that the current media existed back then. Do you know how many fraternity organizations sprang up back then? And no, Scientology was not one of them. Trying to compare it to scientology drives my point further.
Everyone can agree on what it is TODAY. But youll need to crack a few books to truly know what it was back then and how it recruited.
SoCal?
Your finger pointing / calling people out really brings me down dude.
you should
mellow out dude.
Until then,
Happy Hunting

 

[d2]

I do believe that y'all took what Gollum said out of context and didn't read and comprehend his intent. Lighten up people. Woodrow Wilson was the last president that was a Klan member. I find it hilarious that people have the inability to take exception at their family history. We owned several slaves prior to the War of northern aggression and their descendents live less than 60 miles from here and have our last name. I am not ashamed of any of it because I had nothing to do with any of it. But history is what it is...d2

 

[jeff of pa]

well first off I see no Proof This Large Cent with the Counter stamps
Belonged to TrpnBils Family ?
what did I miss ?

Quote

I dug this at a homesite that's on my 1876 map in Pennsylvania but the house has been gone since at least the 40's.

and Quote

The homestead is on my grandfather's property

Do you know for a Fact His grandfather or their family
Counterstamped it ? Or even touched it ?

Please supply Documentation or Stop even making accusations