Clearing a Path

[Gordon Gould]

Maybe he took the cover off to show us?

Yes - Thanks for assuming that I have some common sense.

gg

 

[HawkinsHollow]

I think if I had a place like that on my land I would have to buy a metal detector and do some searching. You never know what you might find. Probably a lot of worthless junk but maybe some cool stuff too.

 

[Jaybr]

I think if I had a place like that on my land I would have to buy a metal detector and do some searching. You never know what you might find. Probably a lot of worthless junk but maybe some cool stuff too.

I have one, I’m sure I’ll use it some after we get moved in and things settle down

 

[Jaybr]

I find Civil War history fascinating, and it’s cool to be able to visit the sites where it took place and still contain many of the structures that were there at the time.

Plenty of it around here, I'm about 45 miles northeast of Appomatox. My son lives 10 minutes from the Petersburg battlefield with the crater.

My old place was in Chesterfield and there where graves in the woods behind the house with just rough shaped stones marking them. Not far away, also in the woods were a couple marked headstones. I know at one time that property was one much larger property so the assumption is the poorly marked graves behind the house were slaves and the ones with headstones a few hundred yards away were the property owners.

I had a friend that used to hunt civil war relics at the bottom of the James river just east of Richmond, amazing some of the stuff he pulled out. The confederate army dumped cannons, weapons, supplies into the river to keep the union army from getting them when they took Richmond.

Then theres revolutionary war history in the area too, Yorktown isn't that far.

 

[ultrarunner]

Interesting stuff there. Have you been to the Stonewall Jackson shrine in Guinea Station VA ? It’s cool to see the bed that he laid on when he passed, and the clock up on the mantle, that was there and still marks the time that he made it to the hereafter.

That old house does look like a slave cabin and is similar to one I’ve seen, that is open to the public, at the Bushong farm in New Market VA:
View attachment 2976216

I find Civil War history fascinating, and it’s cool to be able to visit the sites where it took place and still contain many of the structures that were there at the time.

Old graveyards are cool too. Our kids are the 8th generation of our family to live on our farm, way up north, near the Canadian border. It’s pretty neat to be able to ride our bikes over to the cemetery, just around the corner, and see the markers of our ancestors. That of my great great great great grandfather, born in 1790, is the one there with the oldest legible date. View attachment 2976217

German?

 

[wolc123]

German?

Yes, he and his brother sailed over here from Germany and he homesteaded our upstate NY farm, around the year 1825.

There is still a town in Germany with our family name. Someday, after I retire, I may get over there and check it out. Not sure if any of my relatives are still around over there.

 

[MossRoad]

Yes - Thanks for assuming that I have some common sense.

gg

Well I did say "Maybe"

 

[ultrarunner]

Yes, he and his brother sailed over here from Germany and he homesteaded our upstate NY farm, around the year 1825.

There is still a town in Germany with our family name. Someday, after I retire, I may get over there and check it out. Not sure if any of my relatives are still around over there.

I reconnected with a distant relative showing up on his doorstep in Germany about 25 years ago… his side and my side trace back to 2 brothers born in the late 1700’s… one brother his side and the other my side…

It was an interesting get together that started by showing drivers licenses…

Many similarities in music and career paths…

 

[RayIN]

It's only about 18" in diameter. They must have dug it out big enough for a man and then laid the rock and back filled the perimeter on the way up. It is a little over 15' deep.

gg

I have such a hand-dug well in front of my garage, laid up with creek rocks. I have it covered over with large rocks and a circle of Peonies planted around the well, so it's never ran over by accident.
My abstract says the property was initially part of the Wabash and Erie canal land grant from the U.S. government.

 

[wolc123]

There was an old hand dug well just off the corner of one of the old timber framed barns that my great great grandfather had built in the late 1800’s. It had a concrete cover on it that had to have been added later, probably in the 1920’s or so. I pumped water from it on crops a few times, but it never did them much good and seemed to turn the leaves black on pumpkins and other broadleafed plants. The water must have been high in iron or something.

Unfortunately, I had to replace those old barns, because the foundations and roofs were failing simultaneously, and it would have cost a fortune to repair them, compared to putting up a new metal sided pole barn.

After demolition and when clearing the site for the new barn, I filled that old well (about 6 ft diameter, no idea how deep), with busted up concrete. It took an awful lot of that to fill it, and I had to keep adding more, over several years, until it finally stopped sinking in. Finally now, I can’t tell where it was.

 

[hayden]

You really want to either cover or fill that well.

My understanding is that they should be filled in to protect the water table from possible surface contamination. It also reduces the potential hazard to wildlife and humans.

 

[Jstpssng]

A friend bought a house with an old well, and the insurance company made them fill it in. It took several dump truck loads of gravel. At 10 yards per load, just think how much work it took to dig that out by hand.

 

[bigtiller]

I filled in an old 65' deep bored well. The county required either a county rep. witness the work or a licenced well drilling/boring contractor do the work and turn in an invoice for the property county records. It was cheapest to fill it in with Bentonite.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

A friend bought a house with an old well, and the insurance company made them fill it in. It took several dump truck loads of gravel. At 10 yards per load, just think how much work it took to dig that out by hand.

I filled a shallow well on my property. I used sand because I figured it would be easier to shovel than gravel. Even with the assistance of my tractor it was a bit of work.

 

[Milo]

......just think how much work it took to dig that out by hand.

I can only imagine!

 

[CoyPatton]

I love old oaks! The house I was raised in had several close as a child. Now at almost 64 (in a few weeks) all have been gone for several years. I remember 1 right beside the approach concrete to the house’s carport was struck by lightning when I was a kid still living there and died and was removed. No proof, but 2 I think died from overly aggressive trimming and died and then removed. I thought the same about another that was very close to one one the others, but when removed a tree that was over 3 feet diameter at 1 foot above ground level inly has a 8” of non rotted wood on the outside of the tree, completely gone in the center. The person removing it wanted more money after it was on the ground, because he lost money he was expecting from the wood—only got firewood from if no lumber.

 

[Jstpssng]

^^^^

The person removing it wanted more money after it was on the ground, because he lost money he was expecting from the wood—only got firewood from if no lumber

Most mills around here don’t want trees from residential lots anyways, there is too great of a chance that they will find iron of various types, as well as various other kinds of forgotten trash.

 

[oregonrr]

A cabin like that was found in Virginia a few years ago, and ended up being the 1712 home of my 7th great grandfather, among the first immigrants from Germany. You might contact your local historical society and see if they have any information about your find.

 

[EddieWalker]

there are a couple really big oak trees by the old shack that I find impressive. No idea how old they are but I'd have to guess at least a couple hundred years.

Without cutting it down and counting the rings, I think you might be off on how old that tree is. My land was cleared by the US Army in 1942 to build a Training Base for soldiers going to WW2. Every tree was removed.

Since closing the base in 1945, the trees have been cleared for farming, but not all of them, and some are probably from 1945. None are any older than that, and I have quite a few oak trees that are as big as yours, with a couple that are quite a bit bigger.

 

[Jaybr]

Without cutting it down and counting the rings, I think you might be off on how old that tree is. My land was cleared by the US Army in 1942 to build a Training Base for soldiers going to WW2. Every tree was removed.

Since closing the base in 1945, the trees have been cleared for farming, but not all of them, and some are probably from 1945. None are any older than that, and I have quite a few oak trees that are as big as yours, with a couple that are quite a bit bigger.

interesting, I'll have to do some measuring and research. Maybe the pic doesn't do them justice, or maybe I'm just way off.

I've been to Sequoia national park and seen those and heard 1000 years old, these are as big as a sequoia but they are very large for an oak tree.