🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Long shot

Older The Better

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Apr 24, 2017
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south east kansas
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Found this in a site that appears to have an exploded Franklin type stove, I thought it was another scrap of iron / bit of stove but it has partial wording. I figured it doesn’t hurt to ask, other possible relevant info Kansas farm field, possible house, dating as early as civil war but probably closer to 1870’s or later.
Trying to put together any clue I can get because nobody knows of a structure ever being there and I can’t find any maps showing anything. If somehow someone knows what it says it could be a good clue to the age. If not I get it, not much to go on
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Part of an old stove seems reasonable. What is the thickness? What if anything (metal or non-metal) was found nearby that supports the theory that a structure was once there?
 

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1/4 inch maybe less, Square Nails, glass some thin and flat like a window pane, other pieces of bottles, ceramics, a sad iron, thimble, coins, a few buttons, broken silverware, a round stove cover, some stone debris, a possible pistol barrel. Here’s some stuff from this year, haven’t looked a lot because they just cut the beans less than a month ago.
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Some melted
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A larger piece of what I think is the stove
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Other ceramic
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Other Mystery brass
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What I am seeing that is positive is the letters O C K then below that NC with a possible Y. If we discount the Y as just a coincidence then the OCK and NC could possibly be a town in North Carolina. Or if we put the Y back in play it could be ----OCK FANCY need to find out what completes the OCK word.
 

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The button is a yankee Cavalry officer's button. All I can tell you without a discernable backmark is that it was manufactured sometime between 1854 and 1874. That end date is due to the design of the eagle being changed in 1854 and again in 1875.
 

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Here you go, the back was kinda nested in the button and can fall out.
JC Fuller Phil (. Ext?) if I remember right.
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Lots of civil war vets settled in the area normally a settler could get 80 acres for 1.25$ if they showed 5 years of working and improving a claim, vets had that time reduced to 2 or 3 years.

The button, coins, and spoon could be civil war era but I try to keep in mind the useful life of such things not just when they were made, that’s why i think 1870’s is a fair guess. That’s within 10 years or so of the area opening to settlement and still follows where the dateable items cluster.
 

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What I am seeing that is positive is the letters O C K then below that NC with a possible Y. If we discount the Y as just a coincidence then the OCK and NC could possibly be a town in North Carolina. Or if we put the Y back in play it could be ----OCK FANCY need to find out what completes the OCK word.
I was seeing sort of the same thing, at first I thought maybe it was O O K maybe cook but the second letter does look broken like a C my mind keeps going to rock, but it may be a longer word. I thought the second one may be fancy too.
 

Upvote 2
About the brass button-back you found:
According to the book by McGuinn & Bazelon on time-dating buttons by their backmark, J.C. Fuller was in business in Philadelphia PA as a jewelry maker and importer from 1857 to 1867. Some civil war eagle-buttons have been found with this backmark. Fuller is not known to have manufactured any buttons.
 

Upvote 3
About the brass button-back you found:
According to the book by McGuinn & Bazelon on time-dating buttons by their backmark, J.C. Fuller was in business in Philadelphia PA as a jewelry maker and importer from 1857 to 1867. Some civil war eagle-buttons have been found with this backmark. Fuller is not known to have manufactured any buttons.
So a rare button.👍
 

Upvote 1
The list of artifacts you found seems consistent with an structure having been there even though none show up on the map. If you haven't already looked at a website called historic aerials, they may have some old topo maps of your area https://historicaerials.com/. With the soybeans harvested do you notice a slight depression in the area? That may be where the structure stood.
 

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