We found buried treasure while clearing up to an old wire fence. I had a guy on a track loader and grabber pulling brush to clear up to the original wire fence on an old farm property. It was woods behind the fence. He notified me about an old chain sticking out of the ground a few weeks ago. I could see that a hackberry root foot had grown over it and was about the diameter of a baseball. My 11 year old niece and i finally went to dig up the treasure and it was better than I thought. At first it looked like an old chain that I'm thinking may be civil war era?? Maybe someone can tell me how old the chain is - the part with the long links.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/16191/Chain4.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1501470043)
As we dug, the chain turned out to be longer than we thought. There was another section of chain attached to the first with a hook. It looked like a more modern sized chain, but there were two links that were longer than the rest. It seems like there was some weld spatter on one so that chain may be more modern and someone repaired it making the chain section longer by welding in those longer links?
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/16191/Chain2.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1501470041)
I was surprised at how clean the first chain section was compared to the more modern sized one. Maybe the first is more iron than steel? Anyway, we kept digging and I hit something larger and metal with my shovel. I worked it up out of the ground and Eureka! This was truly gold to a logger/sawyer! It was an old logging hook with ring on it's own chain section. This too is not pitted with rust like the second chain was. This chain and hook have been here at least 30 years, but probably more. It took a bit of work to dig enough space under the Hackberry root without damaging it, but we got it out! It's going to hang in the barn and may even get used - the hook part, not the long link chain. Can anyone tell me how old the long link chain is? Or the hook? I'll have to wire wheel it to see if there are any markings.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/16191/Chain3.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1501470042)
I don't have a clue about its age, but if that big hook and ring are in good condition, I'd clean 'em up and use 'em.
The section of chain with the grab hook does look modern. I have a section of long-link chain resembling the other that I used to use for holding my oxy-acetylene tanks in place. It came from an old singletree that was mostly rotted away.
Nice find!
I see old chains with long links in the junkyard often. .
The long-link chain looks like the same chain as used on the end of the tugs on a work-horses harness!
All-in-all, great find!
Quote from: Kbeitz on July 31, 2017, 03:31:04 AM
I see old chains with long links in the junkyard often. .
What don't you find? :D
Kbeits ( AKA junk yard digger ) :D ;D
Found a small very rusted broad ax (maybe 3 lb) in the chicken lot recently. Never has been a house here before, maybe lost by loggers in early days. Land was logged in 1920 era. Chickens love to dig, waiting for fossils to show up.
This is where I found the treasure. The root foot from this bunch of Hackberry trunks in the foreground grew over the chain. You can kind of see the disturbed soil where I was digging to get the chain out.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/16191/IMG_0239.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1501673565)
Not near enough disturbed soil there. Might find an axe, and then an old logger at the end of it. "What took you so long, sonny?"
I found a couple of old wagon rims -- well, a 'dozer operator found one of them, so it's not exactly round any more. The hammer-welded joint was pretty clear. No way to tell when they were made.
That is what my friend said - "There could be an old logger dead at the end of it!" If I find bones....
I do plan to metal detect this property...as soon as I break down and spend the money on a metal detector!
My uncle and cousin tore down an old garage that my uncle had moved onto the place probably back in the early 60's, under the floor they found an old lever action Winchester. I asked them if anyone was down there holding on to it :D. The garage (actually shed) was really old and all the wood had rotted off the gun so who knows how many years it'd been under there.
That looks almost like MM's. He must have lost it. bg
What's the movie where a trapper comes across a note on a man frozen while holding a rifle?
"I ____ being of sound mind and broken legs, hearby bequeath this here rifle to whomever comes along and finds it."
Kind of what this thread mad me think of. :)
Jeremiah Johnson
The dude was Hatchet Jack.
I had an Uncle who was extending a garage for a friend and when he was tearing out one of the walls, he found a 1910 401 Winchester Self Loader.
It would function, but was not safe to try to fire it!
Really deep rust pits and the wood was gone/rotted/etc!
Axe head chickens dug up. Wish it could tell its story...
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/15399/Hatchet~2.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1502019629)
I have a friend that was a home builder in the 70's & 80's. When he closed up the interior walls, sheetrock or wood paneled, he hid treasures. He bought newspapers, baseball cards, pictures of the home going up with the family around, etc. He has got calls or run into people that have remodeled their home and they have found the items or some of them. He says always makes him smile at how those small things made them so happy decades later.
Brad, a close up pic of the ring and hook esp around the eye of the hook would help.
Tree farmer, what you have there is what is referred to as a carpenters hatchet or a hewing hatchet.
Here is a closer view of hook/eye. FYI I don't see any markings on the hook. I took a wire wheel to both sides.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/16191/IMG_3943.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1502751046)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/16191/IMG_3944.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1502751046)
Yep, believe I'd put that thing back to work. Might need to weld a rod over the top of the hook's eye where it's getting thin.
I'm thinking the long links is a trace chain. Went From the collar ( hames) to the single, or double tree. Someone needs to correct my parts and pieces on this description.
Brad I don't see any evidence of the hook or ring being hand forged. The ring is a little too perfect and I don't see any evidence of a forge weld. The hook lacks any hammer marks and the eye doesn't appear to be slit and drifted which would have been a very common method to make an hole in flat stock.
That being said I have only been blacksmithing for 12 years and I ain't no expert.