The day was cold and damp. The brisk wind only added to the discomfort, causing me to pull up the collar of my jacket and try to zipper up the front just a little more. It was a typical March day for Canada, I thought, but not what I had expected to find in Alabama. Weather or not, I was determined to make one good find during my stay in Alabama.
Jeff, Tom and I patiently walked the plowed field, our detectors scanning the ground before us. The area had all the qualifications of being an Indian village site at one time. We hoped that it had been inhabited during the historic period. The finding of a small brass buckle and several musket balls encouraged our efforts. We had spent a full day of detecting and Tom was to be bowling at eight. Soon we should pack up and leave.
Tom called me over to a hole that he had opened. A length of rusty pipe protruded from the bottom of the hole. Tom, being the novice of our trio, decided to dig it up.
The object he excavated from the hole looked like about four feet of rusty pipe and I told him so.
"Does a pipe have a back sight?" he asked. There was a brass back sight affixed to the rusting metal. It was not a piece of pipe. It was a gun barrel.
We called to Jeff, who had been working his way towards the car, to join us in that area. Tom called out that he had another signal and started to dig. As he glanced to his right, he saw six inches of gun barrel sticking out of the ground.
Tom had put me on to an area that he thought he had a signal but was not sure. Using a large coil has its' advantages at times and I picked up a definite reading. The deeper I dug, the stronger the signal. Three feet down I hit metal. I knew it was iron by the rust. I was hopeful that it would be a trade axe.
The recovery of a large relic buried three feet down in wet soil is an experience that only the confirmed relic hunter would cherish. The object revealed its' identity as handful after handful of the dirt was removed. A hand-forged hoe has not the same excitement of a gun barrel, but I was pleased.
The activity at the hole that had produced the second gun barrel had a hypnotic lure. Jeff had joined Tom and they were carefully removing earth from the area that continued to produce responses from the detector. It was just too much for me so I joined them.
Tom was about eighteen inches down when he said with a smile, "I think it is another gun barrel."
We enlarged the hole, carefully checking the discarded earth with the detectors for small relics. Finally the barrel was freed from its' resting place.
In checking the hole with our various detectors, I was sure that I had signal off to one side of the hole that Tom and Jeff were enlarging. I began to dig in the direction of the sign I soon found myself excavating under the spot that I had been sitting. T reading was strong and very clear.
It seems that nothing ever comes easy to me. I followed the signal deeper and deeper, enlarging the hole occasionally to permit the use of the ten inch coil. I was three feet down and beginning to question whether was a signal or just ground mineralization.
Six inches later my digger broke into soft earth. As I reached into t soft earth to remove it, my fingers felt something that was smooth a hard. I took it out of the hole a passed it over the coil of my detector. No response. Totally confused by the object that reminded me of the handle on a lawn mower, I wondered what would a lawn mower be doing four feet underground? Or maybe it was an outboard motor.
As I cleaned the dirt from the object, my confusion turned to rapture. I had found a carved stone pipe.
Tom was enjoying a rapture of his own. Two heart shaped brooches at numerous small pieces of trade silver some rolled into beads and other triangular shaped. Small glass trade beads dotted the earth.
"If you want to get to your bowling, we had better leave now." I said to Tom humorously.
"This is what treasure hunting all about," replied Tom, "Bowling can wait."
In the gathering dusk it became difficult to spot the trade beads. It was only by aid of the detectors that we could find the pieces of trade silver. Our progress became painstakingly slow.
Finally we decided that it was to dark to continue and would return the next day. After filling our hole we drove to Jeff's house to examine and clean our finds.
We had gathered several bags of dirt from the area of Tom's hole that produced the trade beads. The dirt was placed in a gold pan and washed to clean away the clay. When all the clay had been washed away the small glass beads were easy to spot. Another use for the Garrett Gold pan we declared.
My pipe had been carved from catlinite and would have been used with a hollow reed or stem. Two faces are carved at the front of the base and at the top, front of the bowl. When in use, one face would be looking at the sky while the other looked to the earth.
To our disappointment, we could not find touch marks on any of the pieces of silver. A touch mark is the mark that the silversmith would use to denote his work. By these marks we could determine the maker and the date the piece was made.
We agreed to set out early the next morning. The excitement and anticipation was not conducive to a good nights sleep. I think I slept two hours that night. Tom said that he spent the night dreaming he was searching for beads.
When we returned to the site the first task was to reopen the holes. This was done cautiously so as to ascertain what earth contained beads and would be saved for panning. It was the better part of an hour before I could begin to open up my hole to accommodate more than just my arm.
The first relic to emerge were handfuls of badly corroded musket-balls. I dug very carefully and was rewarded with a brass thimble that had been holed and worn as a tinkler. Careless digging would have shattered the delicate corroded brass. Five more thimbles of various sizes followed the first.
By this time new discoveries were alternating between Tom and myself. A white sandstone disc, the size and shape of a hockey puck caused a moment of speculation. Jeff identified it as a gaming stone. Archaeologically known as a discoidal, the stone was used in the Indian game of chunkey. A player would roll the stone over a smooth patch of ground and at the same time throw a fifteen foot pole. The skill is to have the stone and the pole stop at the same point or close to each other. Other players competing would throw their poles at the same time. The player whose pole landed closest to the stone was declared the winner. Heavy wagering often accompanied this game.
The telltale signs of rust foretold another discovery. The amalgamation of dirt and rust made it impossible to identify anything until it had been removed from the soil and gently cleaned. This time I had finally hit the jackpot. I had my own musket. At least I had the lock plate and mechanism to a flintlock musket. To some it would seem a hunk of rusting metal, but I could visualize it cleaned and stabilized.
When digging iron or steel relics it is important to stabilize the sulfides in the metal. If this is not done the relic will continue to rust and deteriorate.
Piece by piece I recovered my musket. The side plate was of a serpent design commonly used on the English Trade muskets. Measurements of the hardware confirmed it to be a trade musket.
The barrel had so deteriorated that it came out in three pieces. This I find common due to the poor quality of steel that was used to make these guns. The butt plate and other small pieces of hardware were recovered, but no trigger guard. It may have been discarded by the owner or eliminated by the manufacturer to cut costs.
The musket having been removed, I followed the indications of the detector to the next find. The green verdigris of corroded brass made an appearance.
Curbing my anxiety I carefully removed the earth to get a better look. At first I thought it to be the trigger guard for the musket. As the dirt fell away I saw that it was another gun. It was a flintlock pistol with the wood still intact. I worked with extreme delicacy until I had the complete pistol exposed to view. Then horrified I watched the wood start to crumble. Despite my attempts, the only wood I could recover was the brass covered butt.
The pistol has a Miquelet lock action. The Spanish through the Eighteenth century used this type.
Tom was sorting out what we think was another bag containing 23 gun flints, several knives and a whetstone. The gun flints were of a European manufacturer from a translucent honey coloured type of flint.
I was digging what was to be my last find, a knife blade and a trade axe, when I finally found the relic that I had been hoping for the previous day. With the removal of these items the detectors fell silent. It felt strange that the cache had ceased to produce. Try as we would, we could not evoke another response. Care-fully we packed our treasures.
It took several trips to convey all our treasures to the car. Tom had several pails of bead laden soil to carry the half mile journey. Then there was the job of filling holes and leveling off. While we worked, Jeff detected.
The site still had one mote treasure to offer us. Several feet from where I had found the hoe, Jeff had a suspicious signal. After clearing several inches of soil it was definite. At three feet down he found another trade axe. Such is the way with detecting, one day you get nothing the next time you detect it. The final tally of cache consisted of:

4 English Trade muskets
1 Spanish style pistol
2 trade axes
1 Stone pipe
1 Brass Trade Pipe
1 Sandstone Discoidal (Gaming stone)
2 extra frizzens for muskets
1 French Clasp knife
7 knife blades I whetstone
1 Round trade silver brooch
2 heart shaped trade silver brooch
4 dozen musket balls
23 Gun flints
28 small pieces of trade silver
6 thimbles used as tinklers
Several hundred trade beads

From the items recovered, it would seem that the cache had been between 1760 and 1780. Closer examination of the relics after cleaning restoration may give further clues as to the date and history of their burial.
The discovery of this cache was adventure for me. It is only one of a multitude of potential adventures that await the treasure hunters of North America. Alabama is only one of fortyeight states and ten provinces that others and I have to choose from.

Why are you sitting there?
You have one of your own to find. Good Hunting.

The Indian pipe carved from catlinite that was found along with the trade beads.