Over the summer months, due to excessive heat and humidity, we usually don’t metal detect. Of course, many of our friends in the hobby find summer the prime time to detect, but they are mostly near the beaches looking for modern valuables. For us history hunters, there is that occasional cool-weather day that works out just right. This time it was an invitation to a local home from the 1950s. The property had been altered a few times, but we knew it sat next to an old farm and figured, why not!

My wife and I were the hunters last July, while my son was working. We started by slowly canvassing the front lawn, digging just about anything that sounded good. We uncovered many modern coins, discarded cans and pull tabs. More interesting items included a 1950s Matchbox car and some pieces of a child’s old cap gun. It was simply a typical front yard and what you would expect from that era.

We then moved to the backyard, staying hydrated and positive. Two hours became three and the air was getting muggy again. We discovered more modern coins and lots of scrap-like buried metal just rusting away with time. One hole contained a piece of an old horseshoe along with a marble. It’s interesting how many marbles we dig up while looking for treasure.

At this point we were about to call it a day, and agreed 30 more minutes and we would move on. Then I hit on something I never expected in this backyard. It was small and made of either copper or brass. I have found others similar over the years, even one complete with its frame. I posted my find on our Mass Metal Detecting Facebook page and titled it, “You just never know what you are going to find anywhere!”

In a 1950s cul-de-sac neighborhood, I uncovered a 1700s shoe buckle, tongue still attached to the chape with two spikes intact and, from the looks of it, I knew it was very old!

The piece is considered a loop hook tongue, double-prong that would have been attached to a frame for a strap to a Colonial shoe. These buckles, with the curved inner support on the chape, started appearing after 1720. Before then, they were only produced with a single spike starting in the early 1690s. Prior to the invention, everyone just used ribbons to fasten their footwear. Originally made by hand, they quickly became mass-produced in mills first in London and eventually America after the 1750s.

My recovery that day was most likely handmade. The chape and tongue were standard items, probably made first and set aside. Later they would be attached to the frames. This is because many frames contained special designs or personal requests that took time to make. In the early days, the frames were much thinner and smaller, almost fragile. They were made with just about any metal available including lead, copper, brass, steel and, if money was available, silver. When later produced in large quantities by machines, the pieces were thicker, stronger, easier to use and mostly made of brass.

So, let’s stop for a minute here and realize this piece I recovered could actually date back to the 1720s and, for those doing the math, that’s almost 300 years back to when Methuen was incorporated! To think the last person to touch this could have been a founder of our town or maybe even our first President George Washington. That might be a stretch, but it really makes your mind think twice when history pays you a visit! Many of these buckles are usually recovered in pieces and mostly found on untouched land development like farms and forest. My one complete buckle was recovered years ago in a forest in the middle of nowhere, a place you would expect!

This find, however, was not expected in a place where land was developed and history plowed away. It was, to say the least, a rare and unexpected treasure. But when you metal detect and you listen to your tones carefully, “You just never know what you are going to find anywhere.” Patience sometimes has a way of paying off and saving more history that can tell us all a story. 

Methuen father/son treasure hunters Steve and Jonathan Stewart were the August 2019 MethuenLife cover story. They run YouTube, Facebook and Instagram accounts called Mass Metal Detecting and have followers around the globe. They love to save history and enjoy talking about it. If you’d like to invite them to your property for a hunt, you may be included in a future article! Please drop them a note via MethuenLife@msn.com.