Metal detecting is an absorbing hobby for the history buff, coin collector, or wayfaring explorer. Our friend Paul, the Connecticut Dirt Fisher, is all of these. Besides coins from every period of American history, he has found many other assorted relics from the past, including an old pencil sharpener, belt buckles, shotgun casings, toys made of lead, and a wax seal.
And now he has found something of much personal interest to me, a souvenir spoon, dating from about 1891. The spoon portrays an interpretation of my 10th-great-grandmother, Mayflower passenger Priscilla (Mullins) Alden, knocking on a door inscribed with the words, “Lord have mercy on us.” Priscilla is also Tim’s 10th-great-grandmother – yes we’re distant cousins!
Americans began collecting these engraved souvenir spoons depicting historical events in the 1890s and the “craze” lasted for about thirty years. I seem to have one in my possession, which came out of a box of family keepsakes, but I have no idea of its history or who it belonged to. It has an engraving of the Mayflower on the handle. Another mystery for me to investigate…
Please enjoy the following video as Paul brings us along on one of his digs!
Fascinating!
I thought so, too! :)
How darned cool is that?! I agree with snowbird press – FASCINATING!
As Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote, the world is so full of a number of things… :)
That is amazing and so interesting
Thank you, Flamingo Dancer!
How fun about that spoon, Barbara. (And that you and Tim are distantly related.) Wondering if we are ALL distantly related if we go back far enough?
Definitely yes, we are all distantly related. Cousin marriage was much more common in times past and there were very few people on this planet (for us all to descend from) thousands of years ago.
A few years ago I had my Dad’s DNA analyzed by The Genographic Project. It was interesting to follow his genetic markers back from the Ukraine to the Ural Mountains and back to Africa. I had it done because he is the last male in his line and the paper trail of his ancestry does not go back very far.
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/about/
It’s great about the spoon with the historical connection to you!
I get a bit worried about all the rings (seen in a still in the video). All those lives attached to these relics, and that’s all that’s left. Who can possibly know anything about those people? Whatever will be left of us, I wonder, that other people might learn about after we’re gone?
Those are questions I never stop asking myself, Val. On the one hand putting the clues of the history puzzle together is a fascinating occupation, but on the other hand knowing that nothing material lasts forever makes it seem pointless to preserve anything. Even as a child it amazed me that the objects in our lives could survive long after we are gone, but then, it slowly dawned on me that even those things will eventually be gone. I think for now we can enjoy the discoveries as we find them, and try to be content with what glimpses into the past we’re given.
What a wonderful find, Barbara! I love this kind of artifacts–so personal and yet connecting us all to the past. Fascinating post.
Very happy you enjoyed the post, Diane! We never know when a new connection will pop into our lives.
Dear Barbara, Reading your recent posts and sending love to you and your family. I’ll watch the video now…Blessings and prayers, Ellen
Thank you so much, Ellen, for your kind words, blessings and prayers. Long good-byes are emotionally draining and it’s comforting to know that others understand.