“It seems anymore that most areas make me wonder about their history, and gardens have a way of unfolding history that might have gone unnoticed. The love and patience gardens require give an opportunity to find its hidden treasures. Many years I enjoyed a garden in my back yard, and shared the joys of abundance and the concern over a tomato blight with my neighbor, Joe. Each year my garden would uncover a bit of its history. Joe’s garden always looked greener and better than mine, but that was okay. We shared from our bounty! I knew my subdivision had once been a part of the old Carr farm in the 1800s. It was excellent soil, and I often wondered if that was from grazing cattle or centuries of leaves from the forest. I was not surprised when my uncle tilled and came in with some good sized metal rusted markers with pointed ends buried deep in the soil. I knew they were property makers from long ago, but was surprised Unk did not know what they were. As years went on I uncovered many marbles no doubt left by some young boys who once lived here. Once I retrieved a little toy elephant. I kept wishing for an arrowhead, but no such luck. I found a little hard ball that was puzzling. My garden has shrunk, and my dear neighbor’s garden now lays fallow. Bad health has finally stopped Joe from his favorite pastime. Joe is still living there for now, but that beautiful garden has now become a memory.”
—PinnacleCreek
Our whole family loves to find treasures from days gone by. We’ve never found anything much as we till the garden areas around our house. I don’t recall ever finding anything except maybe a marble one of the girls shot off the porch back in their slingshot days.
When we helped Pap in his big garden we were always on the lookout for arrowheads. I don’t remember anyone ever finding any glass pieces, but we did find a horseshoe one time. Pap said it likely came from his Grandpa Ben’s mule.
It’s fairly common to find arrowheads in most gardens in this area, and over the years Pap’s produced several beauties along with many that were broken or even never completely finished.
It’s no secret that Chitter loves rocks. She’s also always been extremely lucky when it comes to finding things—from specimens for her business to arrowheads to four-leaf clovers the girl can find them. She was very young when she told me she always got a feeling before finding something. I rolled my eyes and scoffed at her, but over the years she’s made a believer out of me.
One of the best arrowheads she found in Pap’s garden is shown in the photo at the top of this page.
In early May of 2012 The Deer Hunter was tilling in Pap’s big garden and the girls were supposed to be throwing rocks from the fresh turned earth. Instead Chitter was playing with the dogs. Just as she bent over to wrestle Molly, my brother’s dog, she spied the amazing arrowhead just laying there ready for her to pick up.
She ran and showed her daddy, she ran and showed Pap, and then she ran and showed me.
All work was halted as we stood around and admired her great find. Pap told her “The Indian that shot that arrowhead, went looking for it. He would have wanted that one back.”
When she laid the expertly chiseled stone in my hand, I held it against my cheek and closed my eyes. Chitter said “What in the world are you doing?” I said “I’m thinking of the Indian who made it. I’m thinking he used it to feed his family. I’m thinking he walked in the same woods we do.”
Last night’s video: Alex Stewart Portrait of a Pioneer 2.
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The only thing I’ve ever found in my garden is a plastic tag from a milk cow’s ear & my husband hooked into huge metal silo hoops. The original dairy barn on my homestead was hit by lightning & burned in 1984, when I was 4 (right before we moved onto the land) and my grandad bulldozed what was left of the wooden silos over and they just buried everything over rather than clean it up. You can’t walk barefoot anywhere on our property, because the fire burst the barn windows & there are glasss shards everywhere. Lots of rusty metal tossed everywhere too. But I have had a metal detector friend come & he found an awesome, very old coin and a beautiful tiger’s eye, art deco ring from the early 1900s. It fits, too. Pretty much only my family has lived here from before that point on, so it must be someone connect to my family that lost it. They were so poor, I feel a sadness, like the woman probably looked & looked for it.
I usually ready your post early in the mornings, but computers being what they are, it was not to be. There is nothing like history from near and afar. We learn from history and sadly it is not being taught, not being nurtured and I am unsure if it from Grandparents, parents or teachers….whatever it is, we should be insisting that history is taught to the youngest generation. The ‘inds’ we find from unused fields are priceless, whether it is in the eye of the beholder or an actual value on an open market. When we lived in Blue Ridge, Ga part of our property, on the side of the small mountain, had some boulders the size of a small house. It was sheltered by trees, covered with moss and you knew that it had not been walked on by current occupants, but by Native Americans years and years ago. I would sit on top of these boulders for hours on end thinking of what might have been there when being walked by young children, perhaps on the way to school, to friends or maybe just traveling through…what is the saying, if walls could talk…if fields could talk….Have a Blessed weekend and enjoy Monday.
It’s such a wonderful feeling when you find something. I always wonder who it belonged to and how they made use of it in their every day life. It could’ve been something that helped them to survive and provide for their family or it could just be something that was more sentimental than anything, but everything had a use. 🙂
I’m praying for you every day, Awgriff. I hope you and your wife are blessed with a wonderful day. 🙂
I have always enjoyed trying to find things. Before a close friend of mine moved into their new house, we were outside walking around the yard which had not had grass sown yet and something caught my eye. I reached down and it was the prettiest little glass bottle halfway buried in the dirt! I finished getting it out of the ground and we cleaned it up and I told her, “well this is your housewarming gift'” I don’t know how in the world it was not cracked or broken but she put it on her kitchen window shelf. All these years later, she still has it. I also love arrowheads and my brother had quite a collection, mostly found in fields here in Johnston County, NC.
This has nothing to do with today’s blog but I just read the old blog about Appalachian tea. I know someone that made holes in the bottom of a barrel and then buried a little less that half of the barrel in his garden and then fill up some of the barrel with manure and straw and then planted some tomato plants in a circle around the barrel. Instead of watering the plants he would fill up barrel with water and let it seep through the straw and manure and out the bottom around the roots. He had some of biggest and prettiest plants that were loaded with tomatoes.
Randy, I never would’ve thought of doing something like that but it sounds like a great idea. 🙂
That’s a nice arrowhead! I have a few that look like that. I have found many,many arrowheads, the top or bottom of an arrowhead and scrapers in our little garden. I’ve also found many chips of flint, left behind from the knapping of them. I save everything, even the small pieces. We live on a knoll, and there is a creek nearby. A friend of ours who is knowledgeable about these things, says he thinks where we lived was probably a place where hunting parties set up camp. I’ve also found a nutting stone which I almost threw away in the creek, before taking a closer look at it. Look at all your rocks before tossing them!
This article triggered a spark of how important history is. From arrow heads to old furniture and houses and barns. Old stores in small towns.
People, do NOT let us loose our history, talk to you seniors in your family. Sit on the front or back porches and listen to the tells.
Have you ever wondered?
That’s a beautiful arrowhead! We have several my husband has found. Seeing and holding them sometimes takes me to dreamland, too.
What a wonderful specimen of an arrowhead. One can only imagine the time it took for maybe some young brave to carve that arrowhead. Thanks so much, Tipper, for taking me back in time to my memories. I have always totally loved history of any kind, and found my garden seemed to unfold the years of long ago.
Sometime after the discovery of the little strange looking ball, I got deeply into reading more on Civil War and their battles related to my 2x gr grandfather who served as a Confederate soldier while his own brother served on the Union side. West Virginia was fiercely divided during that war, and to a degree there still remains that mix of devotion to country and rebellious spirit. Back to the little ball! I wondered if perhaps it was an old musket ball associated with a brief skirmish fought very near my home at an area they called Pigeon Roost. Not to be confused with the Pigeon Roost in your area you have written about. I have wished since I had hung onto it to at least try to identify what it was. On reading descriptions of musket ball, that old ball relic seemed unlike anything I had ever seen in a ball shape. Maybe not, but since the small battle was close, I feel there might have been a good chance some action on this outlying area within a mile from the battle site. We would all be fascinated if we had a time machine and could look at all the events over the centuries that took place right in our yard. At the very least would be some fascinating animals.
I just have to take this opportunity to tell you how fascinating it is for your Katie to have that deep interest in stones. Even more miraculous that she has taken this love and created her own little business. So great your girls have kept that kinship with the earth. Pap would be so proud of them!
That made me smile Tipper. Holding that arrowhead against your cheek. A great story. Thanks for sharing. Have a sweet weekend.
Seems Chitter is a finding kind of person. I can’t figure out if that is a gift or is learned or is some of each. I know one can learn to “see” specific things, like ginseng, but it also seems like there is something more at work, an ability to spot what is “different” whether color, shape, texture or what. Those with that gift can see new things they never learned about. And the person who can do it can’t necessarily say why they noticed.
I remember years ago in forestry tech school in tree id class the teacher asked, “What kind of tree is this.” I promptly said, “Black gum.” He said, “How can you tell?” or maybe “Why?” and I was stumped. I was sure of what I said but had a hard time explaining. That’s just how that works. It is that because it isn’t anything else.
I go looking for things pretty much all the time, the ‘whatever is different’. I don’t say I’m gifted at it; more likely just trained and experienced. I’m reasonably sure I overlook lots of things I ought to see. But I also know I do see things others without my background would not see because they lack the understanding that makes it visible. In their own normal environment, they could do the same to me. I worked with a fella once who had been long absent from the city but when he went back visiting one of the first things he noticed was a drug deal going down. I would have been clueless.
That’s long side trip from the garden though. I’d much the rather be there.
Maybe do you find it kind of indescribable ‘zoning in’ on something? I find that when my mind is in that place, all outside falls away…sounds, smells, other sights, etc… Its a very weird feeling/sensation & then its like everything comes all rushing back at one time. Sometimes I find myself like this when I am berry hunting…other times, too. I can spot a berry bush from a mile off & it is like the reality drops away for a moment. Maybe it is some sort of hyper focus. I can also find myself like this during something unpleasant. I noticed that when we are wrangling our one pig to medicate it daily, my mind shuts down to everything else. I never even hear the deafening noise it makes until my husband lets it go. he has to wear earmuffs, but it dawned on me the other day that I never even NOTICED the amount of noise.
Based on comments by author Randy Daniel on page 62 of his book, Time, Typology, and Traditions in North Carolina Archaeology, I believe your point fits the description of the Taylor Side-Notched point. It is also similar to the Small Hardaway on page 60. In either case it would have been made slightly over 10,000 years before present. Great point!
“preferred to live in” … I think too fast and type too slow. LOL.
Such a wonderful way to remember, holding it to one’s cheek. Tsalagi (Cherokee) were farmers too and preferred to fertile flatter lands near creeks and rivers. They grew “the three sisters” and other crops.
When I was a kid, I hunted arrowheads in freshly plowed fields along South Chicamauga Creek. I’ve found them in other places too, especially in rock houses on the Cumberland Plateau where I live. It’s always an amazing and wonderful thing to find one and hold that small piece of working art in my hand.
Fifty years ago when my family was very young, we had little money, and more time to spend with them on weekends, we walked the fresh turned soil in hopes of treasure. We would take note of a freshly turned fire lane (used to break a fires’ progress) and if it rained (Florida has constant rain!) we would pack up the kids, brown paper lunch bags, a water jug, and head to the treasure spot. We walked along the sandy path and arrowheads would present themselves on tiny towers of dirt that were easy to see and we all just bent and picked them up and stuck them in our bags. The kids did this as early as 2-3 years old and we never tired of it. Once we came home we dumped the bags in the middle of a table made from a sheet of plywood and gather around to sort through. The littlest kids would have mainly ‘chips’ or the pieces that chipped off a rock as it was worked by the early natives. Every so often they had a real treasure: a serrated head, a two tone head, a rifled head probably used for fishing, and once we found the other halve of a head that broke from the tractor tilling. Amazing. I know a man that rode the fire lines and noticed a tip sticking out of the low bank of dirt along the edge. He pulled it out and it scraped something. He dug and found 5 spear points about 6-8 inches laid next to each other. He thought maybe they had been in a basket for storage that got lost but I’m sure whomever lost the basket was VERY upset. We found quartz heads probably from trading with other tribes as quartz sure isn’t commonly found here in Florida. Once a farmer got University of Florida to come and go into a sink hole on his farm where he had found so many heads. They went along an underwater cave to see drawings. They dated the heads that were found and saved from earliest to latest and found the skill had deteriorated so that the oldest were the finest over hundreds of years. It is amazing what is found/learned in dirt!
We gave my grandson a cheap metal detector one year for Christmas and he filled a bucket up with metal stuff he had found just in my yard. I live on my grandparents home place and the land was farmed by him and the ones before him by mules. Everything he found was junk, a lot of it was pieces of old metal plows. I have found broke pieces of clay pots and some arrow heads.The story has always been told of the man owning the land before granddaddy having buried money on the place. If he did none of us has found it in past 100 years.
Tipper, I love finding old things, too. When I was about 9 yrs old, my family was visiting our Indian friends on the Cherokee NC Indian Reservation. The men were all fishing & all of us kids were playing a game of “who could hold their bare feet in the creek longer.” The water was so cold that one by one the kids dropped out of the game. I stepped on something sharp in the creek & cut my foot. When I reached down to see what cut me (because that would be the first thing my Mom would ask me), I discovered it was a point of an arrowhead. I was off the chart excited & ran to show our Indian friends & my parents. I am 70 yrs old now & still treasure that arrowhead so much that it is in my bank lock box. It was a long white arrowhead (maybe quartz) & was in perfect condition. I was always puzzled that our Indian friends, who had a really nice home on the reservation, could live on the reservation because they had light brown hair & blue eyes. Me, my Mom & brother had real black hair & dark brown eyes & my Mom, brother & sister had olive complexion. We looked more Indian than our Indian friends! However, my Mom is Cherokee & French-my Dad was German. I was the only kid with real white skin like Dad. I looked funny with dark black hair & dark brown eyes with such white skin. My sister was mean, she would tell me I was adopted or that I had leukemia! Great memories! AWGRIFF, Still praying for you
Thank you, Cheryl!! I believe God always answers prayers.
I love this!
My aunt once sent us some arrowheads that she and my uncle found when tilling their garden one year. We never found arrowheads in our garden, but one year we did find a tiny leg off a china figurine. It had a little show and a garter painted on it.
I really enjoyed the story and your gardening share too, Tipper! I think it is true one never knows what will be unearthed while digging. That arrowhead is one of the nicest I’ve seen. I like the fact Chitter wondered about the man who used it to feed his family. She is a deep thinker-it is obvious. I found a tiny wooden car in the garden and some marbles. I had a friend who’s dad owned an antique shop. She gave another friend a beautiful, intricately carved purple jadeite elephant. There was always something in the elephant shaking and making noise. One day the friend got curious and out of its mouth came a baby elephant. She became pregnant very soon after that. Now both young ladies are deceased (one from gall bladder surgery awry and the other cancer,) but the story, the son born, and curiosity continue….
I’ve never found anything in my garden other than rocks or garden tags from the previous year. I love how you look at things or places and wonder about the people who were on the land in days gone by. When I was younger I use to wonder about people from days gone by, but now that I’m older I don’t wonder much like that any more. I don’t know what changed, but I’m sure thankful you still share your thoughts and stories of lives gone by. Tipper, I hope and pray you never change.
The biggest treasure I find in my garden is “volunteers,” those hearty little seeds that refuse to give up and are intent on growing no matter what. In my particular area the water table is extremely high so a good bit of my gardening is done in containers. Specifically watering troughs bought from Tractor Supply. Each year I always fortify the soil with homemade compost and that can yield volunteers from Lord knows what. This year, I have some of the most beautiful plants in the world and I haven’t a clue what they are. I’ve really narrowed it down to what it can be. Either squash, zucchini, cantaloupes or watermelon. As it continues to develop, I can narrow it down more. Now if I’d planted whatever it is, it wouldn’t have done nearly as well, but it being a volunteer, it’s gorgeous. I might not know what it is (YET!) but anything with that much will to live, I gotta help! 🙂
Love this story about found things! I’m also following along with your reading about Alex
Stewart by John Rice Erwin. I have his book on quilts and as a quilter, I treasure it for its quilt
history. Now I know what the expression “getting your ducks in a row” means.
Keep up the good work, Tipper!
The place I use to live for many years is only about a mile and a half from where I live now, and I had a garden there also. I spent a lot of time in the garden and my wife was seldom in it, I don’t remember finding anything in it, but one day my wife came to the garden and found a spear point with the tip broke off. I probably had broken it off with my rototiller, but I was glad she found it even though I was a little envious. My mind wondered, was this part of a lost collection or had an Indian lost it eons ago.
The place I live now I made a new garden spot and plowed up where they use to burn their trash and found a silver quarter. Have found several marbles and with my metal detector dug up many wheat pennies. No arrowheads.
Tipper, surely you know of the Appalachian author, Jesse Stewart who wrote, “The Thread That Runs So True”, The Beatinest Boy” and other wonderful books. When I saw you mention Alex Stewart, it made me think of him, and just wondered if he could possibly be a relative. Probably not – but I hope you’ve read those books. I know you’d love his writings!
Keep up the good work! I look forward to reading your piece every morning!
I would STILL like to find that video again of Paul and the girls singing that hymn! They had such close, pretty harmony! (Would it have been, “No, Not One”?) I’m still trying to remember the name of it. Did they do that one?
Mary Alice-they didn’t do that one . I wish I could figure out what it was 🙂
We used to find arrowheads in my grandmother’s garden. It was cause of awe and wonderment to find them. It was like it was from another world and in a way, I guess that was true.
Imagine years from now what people will find where we now live. Given our penchant for buying I’m guessing they will find great mounts of garbage filled with plastic containers of all sorts that will not degrade!