Swift Silver??

[boomer]

battle on ohio river

photos and drawing to do with above. some rock alters or forts near battles on ohio river and one fort on ohio side of river before dam destroyed everything. I have looked at indian mounds and stone mounds that were supposed to be Viking or welch. but the stones below are to neat, looks more like stone structures seen in the northeast that were worked by people from Europe?

 

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[KY Hiker]

You might have Corn Island mixed up with Sand Island? or the fortification on the devils backbone at Fourteen mile Creek. The fort, as your survey shows, was on a commanding ridge above the river and creek on a sort of peninsula. This area was an amusement park at one time called Rose Island. It has since been made into Charlestown park with hiking trails with no access to the ridge where the fort was.
Corn Island is now under water and would sit just up stream from the I-65 bridge to Indiana and very near the old rail bridge that is now converted to a pedestrian bridge. The bones that I had heard were found with breast plates and were on the Indiana side and downstream near the falls (McAlpine Dam) which would now be Clarksville, IN. Corn Island would sit in the river near Jeffersonville, IN. They would be about a mile apart or so.
Fourteen mile creek has its name from being 14 miles upstream from the falls, similar to 18 mile creek on the KY side.

 

[Rebel - KGC]

photos and drawing to do with above. some rock alters or forts near battles on ohio river and one fort on ohio side of river before dam destroyed everything. I have looked at indian mounds and stone mounds that were supposed to be Viking or welch. but the stones below are to neat, looks more like stone structures seen in the northeast that were worked by people from Europe?

Like MYSTERY HILL in New Hampshire? (Aka America's Stonehenge...). GREAT STUFF!

 

[Curtis]

Just out of Chillicothe Ohio is a Viking Fort up on a very step hill..like a plateau and it once had rock walls 9 feet tall..now they are gone as the locals used them as foundation stones for years for their barns and houses. One local farmer said they had something like a huge crossbow that shot saplings with a metal tip at attackers. The Indians gathered 5,000 warriors and wiped them out because they would enslave them and eat them! The farmer has one of the tips that were on the saplings. I have walked the area where the fort was and like the above - its in the book by Squire and Davis on the monuments of the Mississippi valley. Kind of an eerie place..the Smithsonian guy that checked it out said he found an old metal breast plate. There is also an area like a courtyard across a small valley that they think is where the Vikings docked there boats as the whole are that is farmland today was under 50 feet of water ..sound incredible if you know the area.

 

[Brushy Bandit]

I had these 2 pieces tested at work today with the electronic gun that shows the % of each element present. We had talked about this earlier and I finally tracked the right guy down.
The large 11 oz piece showed 80% Lead, 12% Antimony, 6% Silver and less than 1% Zinc.
The 3 oz piece shows 79% Zinc, 19% Silver, 1% Antimony.

What do yall think this suggests, I had never heard of Antimony, and have heard of Zinc but dont know anything about it. Gonna do some research but Im excited to see where these unexpected results lead me.

 

[KY Hiker]

I had these 2 pieces tested at work today with the electronic gun that shows the % of each element present. We had talked about this earlier and I finally tracked the right guy down.
The large 11 oz piece showed 80% Lead, 12% Antimony, 6% Silver and less than 1% Zinc.
The 3 oz piece shows 79% Zinc, 19% Silver, 1% Antimony.

What do yall think this suggests, I had never heard of Antimony, and have heard of Zinc but dont know anything about it. Gonna do some research but Im excited to see where these unexpected results lead me.

Sounds to me like you have the spillage of a crude smelt of ore. Crude meaning an uncontrolled temperature run furnace. Lead melts at 621F and Zinc melts at 787F. Its easy to get those temps in a fire pit without a furnace. Silver melts at 1,761F and would require a furnace. Antimony melts around 1167F and probably would require a furnace as well. As long as what you found was not packed out there and lost by someone you should have what used to be a furnace nearby. It doesn't have to be large, it could have been the size of an outdoor pizza oven. Maybe 5-6ft in diameter and 4-6ft tall. You just need a conical shape to focus the heat and draw of air. Simple cast iron could have been used as a crucible since it melts at 2200F. Someone could have just built a deep bed of coals firepit and put the ore on top. Fed the fire all night and once it cooled left what you found in the ground. A good bed of coals from a wood fire with lots of air can get to probably 1500F or more without a furnace.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimony

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stibnite look under occurrence heading and in the United States...

 

[KY Hiker]

I have been thinking about this more overnight, the larger piece is probably from a raw ore deposit and smelted out. The smaller sample is what was left after the lead was removed. Lead being used for ball ammo in a muzzle loaded musket or rifle. Zinc and lead are typically found together in deposits along with trace amounts of silver. I remember reading this from assays published in KY in the 1800s. FYI, lead and zinc are also found in batteries over the last 100 years. Not silver and antimony though!

 

[Brushy Bandit]

Id say you are on the right track Hiker. Im thinkin now that the mines are lead mines with trace amounts of silver in the ore. Unless there were large amounts of silver in the ore that was smelted out and hauled away. These results go along with storys Ive heard from a few older folks that say there parents or grand parents would mine lead in the area.

 

[franklin]

Id say you are on the right track Hiker. Im thinkin now that the mines are lead mines with trace amounts of silver in the ore. Unless there were large amounts of silver in the ore that was smelted out and hauled away. These results go along with storys Ive heard from a few older folks that say there parents or grand parents would mine lead in the area.

That is the same type of ore that William Byrd and crew mined at Ingles Ferry near present day Radford, Virginia. The vein runs from Radford, Virginia through Tazewell County where silver dollars were counterfeited and on into the Breaks area. Someone must have located the rich vein near the breaks and was mining it. Could very well have been the poorer lower mines mentioned by J. Swift? The mine at Ingle's Ferry was listed as a lead mine but they extracted silver, that way they did not have to pay the King a ransom in taxes.

 

[KY Hiker]

Just makes me wonder where the Antimony came from in your sample. Doesn't seem to exist East of the Mississippi Rvr. Arkansas is closest area of occurrence in the USA.

 

[PirateLabs]

Man, I wish we had stuff like this around here in Bowling Green, Ky. We have a lot of caves though.

 

[franklin]

Man, I wish we had stuff like this around here in Bowling Green, Ky. We have a lot of caves though.

You may live right where the silver mines are located?

 

[PirateLabs]

You may live right where the silver mines are located?

No, nothing like that around here. I was a geology major at WKU (Western Kentucky University) for 2 years, and they pretty much drummed into our heads that there is no gold or silver in the state of Ky. Later, I found out a little was found here and there so...seems like they were/are wrong. You can google this state and read reports of geologists saying that there is nothing here. Since the glaciers did not make it this far south is the reason they give. My understanding is that all of the gold on the planet is equally distributed and it is just not as accessible in some areas compared to others. There is a lot of limestone here in my area which is not associated with gold or silver deposits...BUT...not far away is a place called Gold City, which was named after some rocks found by a guy digging a cistern, which later turned out to be fool's gold. (Iron Pyrite) But the funny thing is that gold is often found in the same area as iron pyrite, just like silver. So, while there is no history of any commercially viable gold discoveries around here, I believe there are some deposits to be found scattered about. Of course, I could be wrong.

Bill

 

[franklin]

No, nothing like that around here. I was a geology major at WKU (Western Kentucky University) for 2 years, and they pretty much drummed into our heads that there is no gold or silver in the state of Ky. Later, I found out a little was found here and there so...seems like they were/are wrong. You can google this state and read reports of geologists saying that there is nothing here. Since the glaciers did not make it this far south is the reason they give. My understanding is that all of the gold on the planet is equally distributed and it is just not as accessible in some areas compared to others. There is a lot of limestone here in my area which is not associated with gold or silver deposits...BUT...not far away is a place called Gold City, which was named after some rocks found by a guy digging a cistern, which later turned out to be fool's gold. (Iron Pyrite) But the funny thing is that gold is often found in the same area as iron pyrite, just like silver. So, while there is no history of any commercially viable gold discoveries around here, I believe there are some deposits to be found scattered about. Of course, I could be wrong.

Bill

You need to read about the longhunters. William Pittman and Henry Skaggs found silver on top of a small hill while out hunting in the "Bush". Later after the Battle of King's Mountain which both men fought at they received land bounties and their bounties were near Bowling Green. You should check these guys out in your area. There is a Pittman's Creek near you where they owned land. Good Luck.

 

[PirateLabs]

You need to read about the longhunters. William Pittman and Henry Skaggs found silver on top of a small hill while out hunting in the "Bush". Later after the Battle of King's Mountain which both men fought at they received land bounties and their bounties were near Bowling Green. You should check these guys out in your area. There is a Pittman's Creek near you where they owned land. Good Luck.

Thanks. Pittman's Creek is in Pulaski County which is way to the east of me, like maybe 2 hours east. I am in Bowling Green (Warren County) and am not able to venture very far from here at this time with my old high mileage (240,000miles) minivan. But thanks for the information.

Bill

 

[KY Hiker]

I thought I read that what the long hunters found was on Log Mt. not far from Cumberland Gap? <<shrug>>

 

[franklin]

I have not found where they found the silver but they made long excursions in to the "brush" They stopped at Martin's Station where John Redd saw the almost pure silver in their shot pouches. John Redd wrote about it in the Draper Manuscripts. Since their land bounties was on Pittman's Creek that seemed the most likely location for the silver wouldn't you think?

 

[KY Hiker]

I have not found where they found the silver but they made long excursions in to the "brush" They stopped at Martin's Station where John Redd saw the almost pure silver in their shot pouches. John Redd wrote about it in the Draper Manuscripts. Since their land bounties was on Pittman's Creek that seemed the most likely location for the silver wouldn't you think?

Not if you look at it in the context of time. Long hunting was done prior to and during the settlement of KY. The area around Pittman's Creek was probably granted to them at a later date since that area was most likely surveyed in the late 1780s to 90s. You might want to look up the date they were actually given the land, it was most likely many years after the time the silver was found on top of the mountain (Log Mt). The battle of King's Mt was 1780? I think...? Longer hunts were done into Indiana and Western KY from the Louisville area as the city was being established (1790s) but they weren't for months, usually a few weeks at a time.


Interesting read
http://vagenweb.org/lee/HSpubl35.htm N.W. side of Cumberland Mt. (Pine Mt.) 1776

 

[Brushy Bandit]

I'm curious about the antimony too Hiker.

 

[KY Hiker]

I'm curious about the antimony too Hiker.

Yea its either a more modern alloy you found or an out of place deposit in E. KY. I was thinking maybe someone was tinkering around trying to make fake coinage. Its odd that the metals are grayish in color too. Antimony is a crystal in natural form? I wonder if that is something that is found in caves? Or in deposits in rock? Geology is not my best subject!