TrpnBils
Hero Member
Need some advice researching pre-1850's sites
I live in one of the oldest parts of the country, so I know they're around. My first goal of the year was ending my silver drought, and my second goal (still yet to be met) is big copper. Lately I've been door knocking quite a bit and having good success at it, but the problem is I can pretty much only find sites that are so old with this method. I have one house I've worked on and off that was built in 1799 and still standing (still inhabited, actually) but even that's a rarity.
So let's say I wanted to go older and look for colonial era sites...or let's make it more broad even, they stopped minting large cents in the late 1850's, so let's say I'm looking for anywhere prior to that. I dug one colonial coin last year by accident, but that was a fluke and I've been back there at least a dozen times (it's on the grounds of a school built just a couple of years ago) with nothing else old to show for it aside from a couple of Minie balls. Next oldest coin is late 1800s... Since the vast majority of those sites are gone, bulldozed, and/or paved over, what's an effective way to research such sites? I've found maps of the township I grew up in back to the 1860s, but that's hours from here and I can't find anything detailed enough to use around where I live now. It seems the best I can do in that regard is a county map with a few towns plotted out on it.
Where do you all suggest I start?
I live in one of the oldest parts of the country, so I know they're around. My first goal of the year was ending my silver drought, and my second goal (still yet to be met) is big copper. Lately I've been door knocking quite a bit and having good success at it, but the problem is I can pretty much only find sites that are so old with this method. I have one house I've worked on and off that was built in 1799 and still standing (still inhabited, actually) but even that's a rarity.
So let's say I wanted to go older and look for colonial era sites...or let's make it more broad even, they stopped minting large cents in the late 1850's, so let's say I'm looking for anywhere prior to that. I dug one colonial coin last year by accident, but that was a fluke and I've been back there at least a dozen times (it's on the grounds of a school built just a couple of years ago) with nothing else old to show for it aside from a couple of Minie balls. Next oldest coin is late 1800s... Since the vast majority of those sites are gone, bulldozed, and/or paved over, what's an effective way to research such sites? I've found maps of the township I grew up in back to the 1860s, but that's hours from here and I can't find anything detailed enough to use around where I live now. It seems the best I can do in that regard is a county map with a few towns plotted out on it.
Where do you all suggest I start?
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