Vernon in Virginia~Formerly Alaska
New member
[size=large]Chris and I were told where a possible old house site was, on top of a hill in the woods by two springs. We hiked up there and started looking for it. It was so old that it didn't jump out at you; there were no standing chimneys, old timbers, or surface junk to indicate that anything was there. But as we got closer, little clues started popping up, sticking out from under a leaf or limb... such as this old sawed deer bone that I eyeballed as we got near the hilltop. Ciclk to enlarge photo [/size]
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[size=large]You practically had to be standing on it to see it but this is a huge pile of handmade bricks, covered over with moss, leaves, and sticks.[/size]
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[size=large]Careful observation also shows several stone foundations nearly covered by the passage of time. Besides the house site, we found four of these outbuilding foundation stones. If you look carefully you can see them in a line here. [/size]
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[size=large]Hmmm... what do we have here? Looks like English boxwoods, certainly not indigenous to North American woods. English boxwoods on average grow about an inch a year. This row of planted boxwood was nearly 20 feet high. I'd say that pretty much puts this site back to the 1700's.[/size]
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[size=large]Lots of iron signals... old iron such as this household implement, well-worn. We found lots of plow points, pocket watch frames, eating utensils, ax heads, the normal stuff you'd find in a colonial type family farm. [/size]
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[size=large]The most well-preserved part is this stone-lined hole. I'm guessing possible ice house, root cellar or somethinf along those lines. It's approximately 5 x 6', not sure how deep as it's filled with leaves, debris, etc. Down in the lower part of the woods in front of this house site you could actually see the furrows in the land from a plowed field. Of course this was also covered with moss, grass, trees growing in it, etc. We found some Civil War Spencer casings and bullet, brass finials, more house items, lead top Mason jars, lids by the dozens. We only had 2 hours, plan on hitting it several more times.
Vernon[/size]
[attachment 158271 6.jpg]
[attachment 158266 1.jpg]
[size=large]You practically had to be standing on it to see it but this is a huge pile of handmade bricks, covered over with moss, leaves, and sticks.[/size]
[attachment 158267 2.jpg]
[size=large]Careful observation also shows several stone foundations nearly covered by the passage of time. Besides the house site, we found four of these outbuilding foundation stones. If you look carefully you can see them in a line here. [/size]
[attachment 158268 3.jpg]
[size=large]Hmmm... what do we have here? Looks like English boxwoods, certainly not indigenous to North American woods. English boxwoods on average grow about an inch a year. This row of planted boxwood was nearly 20 feet high. I'd say that pretty much puts this site back to the 1700's.[/size]
[attachment 158269 4.jpg]
[size=large]Lots of iron signals... old iron such as this household implement, well-worn. We found lots of plow points, pocket watch frames, eating utensils, ax heads, the normal stuff you'd find in a colonial type family farm. [/size]
[attachment 158270 5.jpg]
[size=large]The most well-preserved part is this stone-lined hole. I'm guessing possible ice house, root cellar or somethinf along those lines. It's approximately 5 x 6', not sure how deep as it's filled with leaves, debris, etc. Down in the lower part of the woods in front of this house site you could actually see the furrows in the land from a plowed field. Of course this was also covered with moss, grass, trees growing in it, etc. We found some Civil War Spencer casings and bullet, brass finials, more house items, lead top Mason jars, lids by the dozens. We only had 2 hours, plan on hitting it several more times.
Vernon[/size]
[attachment 158271 6.jpg]