hunter_46356
Hero Member
- Feb 12, 2012
- 502
- 306
- Detector(s) used
- NOx 800, AT Pro
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
I've been researching and area outside the town I live in. I've found I already had a great source of information in a book published by a local historian that I had purchased years ago. Actually never read it till about two months ago. Long story short I found a place that was settled in the early to mid 1800's that over that time had four schools that had been built and lost to fire or out grown. After some map research and field work I'm pretty certain I've located the site of the last school. Now for the permission part. Found the farmer who farms but does not own the ground and located the owner though him. I talked to the farmer about what I was looking for and he said lets take a ride. Taking me to a spot he thought I might want to see. He explained every time they plowed this particular spot they would drag up large stones and sometime old red brick. Typically around here plowing only happens every so many years as no till farming is more of what happens. We have had several days of rain and low and behold looking out into the field you could see many pieces of broken red brick.
Planning my pitch for permission to the owner I compiled all I had found about the area and why I thought the school site might be on his property. Upon contacting him I started by asking if I could ask him some questions about the history of his farm and family. As the conversation went on and when I was telling him more about his history than he knew, he got real interested. When I finally told him why I actually called (for permission to detect) and told him I had still more info to show him he was more than happy to let me come out. He doesn't know about the other three older school sites yet but hopefully that will come next.
So I guess my point is if you can learn as much as you can through good research to the point you peak a landowners interests as well as showing them your interests is in the historical not monetary value of your finds, You may just have them begging you to find something on their property. I obviously offered to show him everything I find and made it clear if anything was family related it was his to keep. His ancestors were some of the original settlers. I did make it clear I would hope to be able to keep at least some of what I find and was mainly interested in coins. He didn't seem to have a problem with that. We'll see, another 2" of rain on top of yesterdays 2" doesn't make for slopping around in the fields. Farmers don't like that either. Hope to have something to post soon.
Planning my pitch for permission to the owner I compiled all I had found about the area and why I thought the school site might be on his property. Upon contacting him I started by asking if I could ask him some questions about the history of his farm and family. As the conversation went on and when I was telling him more about his history than he knew, he got real interested. When I finally told him why I actually called (for permission to detect) and told him I had still more info to show him he was more than happy to let me come out. He doesn't know about the other three older school sites yet but hopefully that will come next.
So I guess my point is if you can learn as much as you can through good research to the point you peak a landowners interests as well as showing them your interests is in the historical not monetary value of your finds, You may just have them begging you to find something on their property. I obviously offered to show him everything I find and made it clear if anything was family related it was his to keep. His ancestors were some of the original settlers. I did make it clear I would hope to be able to keep at least some of what I find and was mainly interested in coins. He didn't seem to have a problem with that. We'll see, another 2" of rain on top of yesterdays 2" doesn't make for slopping around in the fields. Farmers don't like that either. Hope to have something to post soon.
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