Colebear's Cellar Thread - *regularly updated*

One word - Persistance!

You know they are there, you just have to continue to look.

Good luck man, wish I could help you find the locations in person.

Greg

haha thanks Greg, you get the gold I'll get the old and we'll have our bases covered



I guess I should probably clarify too: for example
1. What can one derive from stone walls and which way they open etc.
2. I've been told that cedar trees tend to only grow here with some intention or assistance, do you find this to be true?
3. I often find what appear to be cart track depressions but they rarely seem to lead me to cellar holes, are they good proximity estimators?
4. What plants, geographic features, etc etc are giveaways?

how do you know your looking for cellar holes and not cabin sites ?? do these maps just point where houses sat because finding an "on grade" site is a lot more difficult than an actual cellar.

Put your machine in 2 tone mode and listen for iron. That's what I do, when the iron starts becoming more prevalent then your getting close.

Good info Copper and Jress

Copper, I suppose it's a bit of a guess but considering the houses were build at permanent residences between 1650 and 1780 there is a high probability of them being at least rear mount chimney stacks, but more likely center mount chimneys. So even if I can locate the brick pile from the chimney that counts as a successful find.

unless the residence was very wealthy your not going to see a center hearth chimney on a house before 1750-ish. the houses between the years you listed are typically very small (unless added onto at some later point) . the best indicators of a site very close by are the type of walls , very large trees , plants (such as myrtle , lilies , briar berries , large grape vines) and common sense of house construction.

ahhh that is certainly insightful, I knew to look for lilies but the other info is important, today when I was looking for one of the cellars I came across the largest collection of Cedars I have ever seen, I mean they had to have been 20+ inches across and there were 10+ but they were down in a very swampy area. When I came back to recheck the map it made me think that the new development had been built over the old homes which is a huge bummer.

The second location was the best looking in that the trees were full and tall, undergrowth was minimal and I found several faint ruts that seemed to indicate paths. But no solid marks of the house. I will open this one up and fish to see if anyone can find more info on it.

According to the map I have, ----------- built the house in 1690 in Pembroke, but the only info I can find anywhere is the handdrawn map I have now. Any ideas?

Colebear , i'm not familiar with the Pembroke area as i'm out in the western Ma. area. I do know that most all of your older 1600's era homes stated out as cabins (unless the owner's were very wealthy) and if the family prospered and had more children they usually did one of two things. 1.added onto the home and usually dug a cellar under the addition or 2. moved the location of the house to a better location and build much larger and abandoning the original house site.Barns were always about a stone throws away and within sight of the house.

After some serious additional digging I found a newspaper article that confirms I was in the right area so I edited to remove the name. I'll just have to go hammer that whole area again.

It sounds like you'll be there if there is an actual cellar hole to find.

Cole, one good resource is hunters who use the woods.

That's a great tip Dave, ironically two of the holes are either directly next to or contained just within the perimeter of a local hunting and rifle club

Hey CB. You're doing the right things, keep at it and you'll be rewarded.

My advise is to look for those HUGE old trees that just stand out while out in the woods. They are called "Wolf Trees" The younger ones will be around those. I've found in some locations those older trees grew right out of the old wells.

Also use bing maps to get good overhead details. Look for the stonewalls & the pens (boxed stones walls) Some holes have smaller boxed walls around them.

Also look for water sources, as the wells might be close to them.

Keep an eye out for unexplained rises in the geography. As Copperhead said sometimes there were no holes but just a cabin built with a dirt floor. I've found 1 site that way.

Keep us posted on your results!
Roger

Jressman said:

Put your machine in 2 tone mode and listen for iron. That's what I do, when the iron starts becoming more prevalent then your getting close.

Click to expand...

^^^^ this. Best way to tell you're getting close is listen for the iron.

Swinglow said:

^^^^ this. Best way to tell you're getting close is listen for the iron.

Click to expand...

Oh! This is a great idea!

Yeah, you can find any random stuff anyplace, but if you get into a debris field of stuff like iron tools and hardware, you have to be close.

Keep up posted! !!!!, I wish I could be out with you!

improving odds

so today I went 3 for 7 which skews the picture a little, sites I hunted I was 1 for 5 with locating the intended structural remains.

Site 1 - forgot the battery for my detector in the car 10 minutes back down trail. continued to search for stone remnants anyway as this is one of my best leads, the cellar remnants are explicitly mentioned in 3-4 historical non-fiction reference works. No luck, though some 1920's-1950's junk metal was located in the vicinity. Will try again later..... with my detector.

Site 2 - coordinates put me square in a swamp, fought my way back out to search upstream. Area is extremely low lying throughout though several swales seemed to offer more promise. Found 1 cut nail in a low lying area after switching to relic mode. No structural remains found within 150' diameter search. Location is only indicated on 1 of the 5 maps of the area which I have reviewed, no family name included for further text research, map is 1850 so accuracy is variable, may attempt again at a later date.

Site 3a - Began with cross street detour as textual reference is highly open to reader interpretation "Established a large pottery works south of ****** hill in 1730 .... moved his works to ***** around 1745 to ******" (the hill is generally oriented sse-nnw and is oblong). Cross street search produced surprise finds of 3 wheats, 1 buff, 1 pocket knife, turn of the century cabin remains found nearby

Site 3b - I had coordinates but I knew they were from a map with questionable accuracy for detail, more of a general guide than a location pinpointer. There were a 3-4 sets of walls moving up the slope, so at first I simply followed the existing path to see if it would take me where I needed to go. It did not so I began to trail blaze and cut back, as I traveled lower on the hill I noticed several strikingly large trees. I found a walled in section about 120'X80', there is an immense (by my standards) Beech tree growing out of the upslope wall, and as I detected nearby I found half of an ox shoe both pictured below. There appeared to be opening in the wall, that was tacked in on both sides (short rock segment jutting perpendicular to the opening) and a flowering bush (dormant) that I have only seen in yards until today.

Grand Beech


Ox-Shoe


One side of wall turn-in


Shrub dormant flower tips


Base of shrub


Site 4 - Mill site that I learned of and researched only this morning, I found the site with relative ease which was a great relief after going 0 for 7 in the last 3 days. I was even able to pull 2*[edit] pretty excellent IH right off the top of the dam (1863 fatty, 1864 no L in xf+ condition after a little loving) so I was really excited as site 5 were seemingly close by "Remains of the old bridge, and the cartway leading from the road to the mill, are traceable south of the old cellar"

Rear of Mill, earthen damn, and the brook


Site 5 - Total bust, no traces of the house were found, nor any highly discernible old paths as there is full housing development to the west and a field to the east. Further searching northward revealed very soggy conditions, with some stone walls, high at times but without break for part or passage.

Site 6&7 - My battery was fading and my back was starting to ache but there were two locations very neaar the road that I thought to check along the way home, amazingly both locations were found with minimal searching, though they both are heavily overgrown with thorns and briars.


This brings my cellars attempted to found ratio to 15:5

Now you're on it...great persistence!

Keep on looking, those other sites will be there as well, maybe just not obvious at all. But is sure seems like there was once a lot in that area, so simply wandering and swinging may serve you well!
Good luck, and nice job on those two Indians!

upstatedigger said:

Now you're on it...great persistence!

Keep on looking, those other sites will be there as well, maybe just not obvious at all. But is sure seems like there was once a lot in that area, so simply wandering and swinging may serve you well!
Good luck, and nice job on those two Indians!

Click to expand...

Couldn't have said it better myself! WTG CB!

I think I forgot to mention that I am insanely jealous right about now!

Well today I had put it in my head that I would not go trudging for cellar holes, as I had done so the prior 3 days. Instead I thought to take a quick jaunt a town over to hunt a former school house which now serves as the american legion hall in that town. But after finding that location unwelcoming I hit 3 common area spaces. The first had been thoroughly hammered by another detectorist, and a good one at that as all of my 10-15 signals were old beavertails with a few trash blips in between but not so much as 1 coin in the whole space. The next two were full of modern junk so I decided to go door knocking in an effort to more accurately locate the cellar closest to where I lived.

Low and behold I met a wonderful couple who warmly welcomed me to explore, though they warned me it was heavily filled with trash and a very slight depression instead of a well defined cellar as I was expecting. I was able to locate the hole but it has either been hit before (likely since there use to be public tours in the 80's and 90's apparently) or they never dropped much because the only decent find I came across was a seriously corroded two piece military button.

The cellar or what is to be seen of it