Bear River Homestead

On the way we had a good discussion about some of the metal detectorist’s in Utah that he knew. Apparently, some of them have read my posts and are chomping at the bit to find out what locations I am going to so they can “claim-jump” for lack of a better word.
I wish them luck in their endeavors and I hope they are ready for flying buck shot and handcuffs if they do. It just amazes me how those who wish to find an end-around would accomplish their goal, and more, if they only did it legitimately……Okay, I got side tracked, so back to the hunt.

We got to our location and as the property owners were nowhere to be found off we went. We hunted an area to the south of this camp, basically determining its boundary and then moved into the camp area. About nine hours later, after meeting the property owners on the way out, we were done.

A quick mention on the cartridges on the left of the tail gate. They appear to be 30-40 Krag and some other shorter cartridge. They were all found about 8 inches down in a fire pit.

Okay, onto my finds:

The small eagle button at the bottom left is an Eagle A. Where I found it made no sense…..Actually where I found the carved and dropped Sharps made no sense either. I also found a powder can cap, the top of a shoulder scale, and a ’0′ insignia.

I was pretty excited about the huge folding knife that was 4 inches down until the property owner advised that they had lost plenty of them over the years on the property. They said it looked like an “Old Timer” knife. I also found a lead poker chip which is at the bottom of the photo.

The glass had me excited until I saw that it was in a million pieces. However I retrieved what I could find. If possible I will glue as much back together as possible. .

I have recovered oyster shell design spoon bowls but this was my first with this design. Pretty cool I think.

This padlock plate lock cover had a cool design on it with a letter ‘F’. This cover is almost 2 inches in length so I cannot imagine the size of the padlock that this went on!!!

And now my best find of the day and the story behind it….

We were taking a quick water break after a few hours hunting. DW had sat down on a log and I remained standing as we chatted about the camp and our finds so far.

After a few minutes I commented on not seeing any eagles today. Usually I would see at least one Golden Eagle, or one or two Bald Eagles, flying over head at some point. I decided to press on while DW continued his pit-stop. I swung my coil right where I was standing……..and I got a good clear signal right at my feet.

I dug the plug and staring at me was this green disc. I removed it from the plug and I saw a wheat wreath and one cent written. DW remarked that must be a wheat penny but it looked too fat to me plus looking at the front I could not make out Lincoln’s head on the other side. I rubbed at the surface, broke out my magnifying glass and peered in….

Behold a 1857 Flying Eagle Cent. DW had to take a look himself to believe what I had found. After a hi-five we continued the hunt. As DW walked off swinging his coil he turned to me, chuckled, and said, “You know you finally saw your eagle”…..