On a cold rainy Sunday afternoon in North Country, NY my wife and I decided to take our Minelab 800 detectors fixed with our 6” coils out to some local cellar holes to search for more local relics. This part of the country was controlled by Indians until the early 1800s but some of the old cellar holes contain artificers that date back into the mid-1700s so it’s hard to say what will come out of the ground. At a cool 41*F with 10-20mph winds we decided we would go detecting in the woods out of the elements and into the forgotten about homes of the past. As we are driving down this old back road we see a cellar hole on public land and get out and start detecting. The usually barn stuff starts coming out of the ground and we quickly decide to save that one for another day as it looks like it’s about to rain. We drive down the road a little further and there are two cellar holes one on each side of the road. We approach the one on the right and began detecting and yet again more barn goods. By this time it has started drizzling and I can see my wife is getting cold and wet which is not a good combination. I told her to wait in the truck as I wanted to take a culture or two from the other hole before we left. My first target was a solid 17 at 6” deep and turned out to be an oil lamp which adjuster. The second target was a solid 10 at 4” deep and was the bottom portion of a skeleton key. I decided this was a good site to come back to on a better day. As I’m swinging back to the truck it begins to rain harder so I began swinging and walking faster. All of a sudden a nice high 23 pings on my detector but by the time I realized it I had already taken another step. So I turn around and go back to the area I think the target rang up but I could only get jumpy signals. One jumpy tone rang between a 23 and 27 one way and nothing but iron the other way. I decided that must be what I heard and I had to dig it to satisfy my curiosity. At 6” down and on its side I found a large Dandy button with what appeared to be a star in the centre so I threw it in my bag and got in the truck to leave. Since buttons, keys, and lantern parts are nothing new to us I didn’t clean my finds right away and decided it can wait til the next day. When I finally got around to cleaning them I realized the single star in the middle was surrounded by 13 smaller stars. This got me thinking on whether it was related to the 13 colonies or not, as I continued dry brushing I could see letters coming through around the edge and finally a word “prosperity” then followed by “Unity” and finally “independence” so like anyone would do I went to google to see if anyone else had ever dug one and to my surprise my “typical dandy” turned into one of the rarest GW buttons you can find. The GW Patriotic Unity, Prosperity, and Independence button.
Daniel– North America
