Metal Detecting on Old Wagon Road

I guess the song I was singing last night - Mary Chapin Carpenter's "I Feel Lucky" at Karaoke got me going this morning and just made me feel like today was the day to do a little metal detecting.

There's an old wagon road across the road from my place and I haven't really spent that much time detecting on it. I've been told by old timers and have some old maps that show the road in the mid 1700's. Prior to being a wagon road, it was believed to be a footpath that was used by the Cherokees and early settlers to make their way around the mountains and up towards Asheville, North Carolina.

The road is both interesting and beautiful. I want to share it with you and will. My camera's broken right now and I'll make sure to take a picture and add it to this post when it's fixed. You can easily see the deep ruts and the way the old road winds through the woods. There's a paved road in place now and in some places it rests on part of the old wagon road. It's so interesting how we stick to old paths and ways. What was once a footpath graduated to a wagon trail and now to a paved road.

I took my White's MXT out for a stroll and it wasn't long before I had several good hits. The first two items that I found were pretty shallow and were odd looking random globs of iron.

Next I found a shed rifle cartridge that was new and then hit on something that showed as a bullet. My detector pin-pointed the spot and I dug up a round ball. It looks like a musket ball of some sort. I have no clue of it's age and really don't know how to tell. If you know something about musket balls, please pass it over to treasureholic@gmail.com Again, when the camera's fixed, I'll post a pix of the ball.

At first I thought it might be a "bomb bullet" which is what we call the lead balls that we find around here. Take a look at my earlier post about Camp Wadsworth and you can read about the bomb bullets and the shelling that went on around here during WWI. Go to the old posts link at the bottom right of this blog - it's small print so you really have to look for it.

The ball I found is much smaller than the bomb bullets so I feel sure it's a musket ball. The next hit I had delivered a small horse shoe that had a really deep heel on it. I find a lot of horse shoes.

If you know anything about metal detecting, that's a great thing 'cause where there are horse shoes, there were people. Where there were people, there were things that belonged to them that they lost. Where there are things that are lost, there is treasure to be found!

As I walk along, I imagine the sounds and sights of a wagon creaking and pitching as it drops down the hill. Everyone onboard is bracing and holding on as the horses find footing in the creek on the exposed granite bottom. Lurching and pitching again on the way up, something falls off as she gets dragged up the rise.

The wagon settles and moves on down the trail.

The coin that fell off of the wagon into the soft soil rests on top waiting to be pushed in deeper when the next wheel hits it where it will stay until I come along years later to find it.