# Historic artifacts



## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/crim ... e/7210675/

I found this article very interesting. It made me think about the Corps watching people along lake Sakakawea so they don't pick arrowheads. It also made me think about where my grandfather homesteaded. He was in North Dakota so early that a friend was a fur trapper for the Hudson Bay company. He showed my grandfather where Sully trained his soldiers along the Sheyenne River. I looked around one day and found an 1849 Colt Powder flask that evidently got to close to a campfire and blew up. I only found one side. 
I have had people want to pay me to show them the area. I have not. I called the state historic people in Bismarck one day and they were just ho hum about it. Perhaps they don't think anyone knows the area Sully referred to as "the big bend of the Sheyenne). Anyway, I have been going to go back with a metal detector, but have never made it. I suppose your not supposed to do that. 
One time I went there and a fellow had a tree stand right next to it. So many trees have grown up in the ditches the soldiers dug that you would not know you were there when standing in the ditch. A neighbor found an 1866 Henry in the river close by and had it restored for display in his home. I think I'll have to go back, then one day perhaps walk into the state historic office and see if I can't dent their arrogance.


----------



## Sasha and Abby (May 11, 2004)

please do... don't go to your grave without showing me or someone else your secret, before it is lost forever.


----------



## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

My kids and nephews all know where it's at. My brother and son's live ---- well the closest a mile away. My mother and twin sister were delivered in a cabin along the river just 300 yards away from that spot. That was 1908.


----------



## rowdie (Jan 19, 2005)

If its on private land, you just need permission from landowner. If its on CORP land then you're risking it.

Even native artifacts can be taken form private land.


----------



## huntin1 (Nov 14, 2003)

I know where it is too. 8)

huntin1


----------



## north1 (Nov 9, 2010)

If private land your okay as long as you have permission. If on state or federal land you will be in deep if the respective authorities find out. Not to be an a-hole, but federal or state land is the peoples land. So in effect you are stealing from us all.


----------



## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

north1 said:


> If private land your okay as long as you have permission. If on state or federal land you will be in deep if the respective authorities find out. Not to be an a-hole, but federal or state land is the peoples land. So in effect you are stealing from us all.


The land belongs to a neighbor of ------- well I don't want to give to many hints.


----------



## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

I'd have sure liked to see some of native stone workers at their craft. You see some of the hammer stones that must have taken all winter to make by pecking the ring around it. Parts of the Sheyenne Valley were inhabited by the ancient Woodland culture. Lots of pottery shards in their old camps. This goes back thousands of years. A friend was doing some backhoe work there and hit a fire pit 8' down that was full of bison bones.


----------



## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

There are three burial mounds near my brothers house, but we have never found the encampment so don't run into much for hammers or arrowheads. The area around Stump Lake is full of those types of items as is the Arrowood National Wildlife Refuge. There is a lot of history around North Dakota that I think is only known by the local people. When I was young I would sit in a tree archery hunting only about 100 yards from a grave site of an old French fur trapper. The area Sully trained his soldiers is only 400 yards from there, and 400 yards the other direction is where my mom and twin sister were born in a log cabin along the banks of the Sheyenne river.


----------



## blhunter3 (May 5, 2007)

We have a buffalo rub in our pasture. Just a big rock with a ring around the base that the buffalo would walk around. How the scientists ever determined that what it is, is beyond me.


----------



## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

blhunter3 said:


> We have a buffalo rub in our pasture. Just a big rock with a ring around the base that the buffalo would walk around. How the scientists ever determined that what it is, is beyond me.


This is a pic of one of those rub rocks on school land. First the bison then the cattle. The pic doesn't show it well but the dirt is wore down a couple feet deep around the rock.


----------



## blhunter3 (May 5, 2007)

If I remember I will take a picture of it this summer.


----------



## Gooseguy10 (Oct 10, 2006)

Interesting stuff. Kind of a related story. In 2010 my dad and I went to the Little Bighorn battlefield. Being history geeks, we really enjoyed our trip out there. The week we got back to Minnesota my dad bumped into a guy at the local cafe who was about 80 + years old. They started talking about the normal cafe banter and the guy said he was originally from Montana. Of course, my dad said we just got back from the battlefield in Montana. The guy laughed and said his old homestead is very close to there. He went on to say that when he was a young boy he and his brothers would go over to the battlefield area and "find all sorts of stuff." He said somewhere in his family barn out there he has barrels full of arrows, guns, equipment, canteens etc. He said when he was a kid the battlefield really wasn't maintained and was just open fields. He said they used to play over there all the time.

Man would it be cool to see those barrels!


----------



## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

So much history is being lost. I went to that battlefield a long time ago. Then just a couple of years ago I went again. I asked the lady where the pictures were with soldiers full of arrows and some with arms cut off. She said "oh that never happened, we have a new head of our park who is a native American lady and she is rewriting the correct history of the battle". There goes the truth a victim of political correctness. I seen the pictures with my own eyes on my first trip to the battlefield.


----------



## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

We took the bus tour of the Little Big Horn 25 years ago. The driver was Cheyenne as was the tour speaker. He had a masters in Western History from the U of NB. You picked up the tour a the park headquarters and it lasted about 2 hours. Maybe it has changed but was worth every cent then and my wife and I still talk about it. Nothing at all like the history books of old.


----------



## blhunter3 (May 5, 2007)

Plainsman, people change what they want you to know about history all of the time. Take the Civil War for example, what was the war really about? States rights versus Federal rights. What do the history books tell us? It was over slavery. Depending on where you get your information, anywhere from 10% to 20% of the people in the south actually owned slaves.


----------

