The Asian coin at left is thought to be several hundred years old and was unearthed behind Ebenezer Hills Jr. house in Latham.Posted on 09/17/2008 8:50:58 PM PDT by BGHater
Dig at 19th-century tavern site reveals possible link to China
COLONIE -- Digging through 200-year-old trash heaps isn't always glamorous.
But a small Asian coin uncovered behind a 19th-century Latham tavern turned a routine archaeological survey into an international puzzle.
The copper alloy coin was unearthed as archaeologists combed through the soil behind the old Ebenezer Hills Jr. house. The one-time way station on a busy turnpike between Albany and Schenectady (now Route 7) was the equivalent of a Thruway rest stop when the trip between the two cities could take a day.
Last month, the Albany County Airport Authority moved the house about 200 feet to get the historic building clear of a runway.
The coin, which has a square hole stamped in the center and is the thickness of a dime, was discovered about a foot deep in the soil around a stone feature that may have been associated with an older wing of the building, which dates to between 1805 and 1810, said Corey McQuinn, project director for Hartgen Archeological Associates, the company hired to do the work.
From the site, the coin was shipped to Hartgen's laboratory in North Greenbush, where conservation director Darrell Pinckney placed it in an electrolytic reduction bath, which uses a solution and mild electric current to remove centuries of crust.
The bath revealed Asian markings -- possibly Chinese, Pinckney said.
Hartgen is looking into forwarding photographs of the coin to experts in the field, who may be able to date it based on the markings, which often show the ruling dynasty during which a coin was minted.
"It had to do some traveling," McQuinn said.
Town Historian Kevin Franklin said the source of the coin may always be a mystery, though he offered a few possibilities.
For instance, he said, the United States opened trade with China in the years after the Revolutionary War. An Albany captain named Stewart Dean commanded the ship "Experiment" on a 1785 trading mission to Canton, China.
"Dean or some of his small crew may have pocketed some coins while there," Franklin said.
McQuinn noted that Albany is only a few hundred miles from both New York and Boston, and the coin could have accompanied immigrants or traders passing through from either of those ports.
With the help of a metal detector, Franklin said, he once found a 19th-century Polish coin off Wards Lane in Menands and, along Broadway, a Spanish half reale -- another unit of currency -- dating to 1741.
The Asian coins are generally not very valuable or even rare -- but they can help tell the story of who called a place home, or -- in the case of the Ebenezer Hills Jr. house -- who was likely just passing through.
"The date of the coin would be kind of interesting," Franklin said. "Chinese coinage has been around for thousands of years (and the coins) have popped up all over the place."
Jordan Carleo-Evangelist can be reached at 454-5445 or by e-mail at jcarleo-evangelist@timesunion.com.
The Asian coin at left is thought to be several hundred years old and was unearthed behind Ebenezer Hills Jr. house in Latham.
Thought it was a pretty neat find. Never know what your gonna find.
Maybe for general inv.
It has been noted by others that Chinese coins were sometimes used as buttons, or rather the cores of buttons. The copper or silver core would be wrapped tightly in thread or cloth. Then sewn to clothing.
Isn’t it the chinese that had an ancient hand drawn map of the arctic north? areas the econuts can’t believe the ice could ever melt off of without evil mans polution? I Think maybe the Chinese got around more than we will ever know. It seems like some hitech NASA or military mapping showed a surprising likeness to this map,
I may have to go see if I can find anything on it, it has been years since I thought of it.
My Father had a couple of ‘bracelets’ made using coins such as those. He bought them back when he was a China Sailor. Gave them to me Mother when they were married. I remember playing with them when I was a kid. No idea what ever happened to them.
The greatest fortunes in the NE in the early 19th century were from the fast-schooner trading families, so these basic coins certainly would be brought back as novelties.
From blue-and-white ceramic, to silk, to tea - trade with China in the 17th - 19th century was “big business.”
here it is http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_1.htm
didn’t mean to hijack the thread, I just thought it might interest ....the coin find is cool TOO !!! :)
This reminds me of another thread I read on FR years ago where an ancient Roman coin was found inside a Texas Gulf Coast indian burial site.
Btw, Chinese coins have been found on the NW[Washington] coast for years.
Colonie is near Albany NY, the State Capital which sits on the Hudson River...There are any number of ways the coin could gotten to that area...The original owner may have been aChinese seaman, or a Chinese worker on one of the railroads or on the Barge Canal...it is a curious piece of history...
2007, from Alaska:
some more:
some (I think) Javanese coins:
|
|
|||
Gods |
Thanks BGHater. |
||
|
· Mirabilis · Texas AM Anthropology News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · · History or Science & Nature Podcasts · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
Coins:
* Roman coins have been found in Venezuela and Maine.
* Roman coins were found in Texas at the bottom of an Indian mound at Round Rock. The mound is dated at approximately 800 AD.
* In 1957 by a small boy found a coin in a field near Phenix City, Alabama, from Syracuse, on the island of Sicily, and dating from 490 B.C.
* In the town of Heavener, Oklahoma, another out-of-place coin was found in 1976. Experts identified it as a bronze tetradrachm originally struck in Antioch, Syria in 63 A.D. and bearing the profile of the emperor Nero.
* In 1882, a farmer in Cass County, Illinois picked up bronze coin later identified as a coin of Antiochus IV, one of the kings of Syria who reigned from 175 B.C. to 164 B.C., and who is mentioned in the Bible.
[T]he regional distribution of coins suggest two distinct patterns for the
Russian-American period. In the north and west, coins are relatively rare and generally of either Japanese or Russian mint. The more abundant coins in the south and east are predominately of Chinese mint, but include the occasional Japanese specimen (Beals 1977). This archaeological distribution is in accordance with what we know regarding the economic history of Russia-America. During the early period (1741-1785), most trade goods arrived in the north Pacific after an arduous and expensive transport from Russian controlled territory. Currency of any type was difficult to obtain, and probably of less utility than beads and bullets. With the entry of British and American traders after 1785, the greater availability of all trade goods, but especially Chinese copper coins, is reflected in the Northwest Coast’s relative abundance of archaeological finds.
So the reason Chinese coins were relatively abundant (at least as documented historically) was because British and American merchants could sail their vessels to the port of Canton, load up on inexpensive manufactured goods, including trinkets like copper coins, then cross the Pacific to trade with the Northwest Coast natives for highly profitable sea otter pelts. The Russians were never allowed such easy access to Chinese manufactured goods. Instead they were required to trade with the Chinese at the isolated town of Kiakhta located in the middle of nowhere on the Siberian-Mongolian frontier. You can image that the Russian traders never wanted to carry much weight in Chinese copper coins when returning to their north Pacific trade.
We think our Japanese coins made their way to Alaska through some poorly documented, but historically fascinating mechanism - possibly a disabled Japanese fishing vessel drifted ashore near our sites, or some illegal trading between the Russian and Japanese started the coins on their journey. In any case, we are looking for more archaeological finds of coins in 18th and 19th century north Pacific sites. I especially think there must be more sites in Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia that we need to add to our analysis. I pasted at the bottom of this post the citations we already have. Any one know of sites we can add?
Chinese coins from the Yakutat site of New Russia. The upper coin dates to the Ching Dynasty (1723-1735). Dave recently “discovered” the lower coin when he was reexamining this collection for our paper. We have not positively identified the damaged coin, but we believe it is of Chinese origin.
NW Coast coin references
Beals, H. K. 1975 Japanese Coins on the Northwest Coast. Screenings 24(4):2-3.Beals, H. K. 1980 Chinese Coins in Six Northwestern Aboriginal Sites. Historical Archaeology 14:58-72.
Beals, H. K. 1983 The distribution and use of Asian coins as trade items on the Northwest Coast of America. In Contributions to the archaeology of Oregon, 1981-1982, edited by D. E. Dumond. Association of Oregon Archaeologists, Portland, OR.
Borden, C. E. 1952 Results of Archaeological Investigations in Central British Columbia. Anthropology of British Columbia 3:31-43.
Keddie, G. 1978 The Reliability of Dating Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials with Associated Chinese Coins. Datum 3(2):1-2.
Keddie, G. 1990 The Question of Asiatic Objects on the North Pacific Coast Of America: Historic or Prehistoric? Contributions to Human History, No.3. Royal British Columbia Museum, Victoria.
Nobody kept curios or novelties in the Nineteenth Century, apparently. Everything had deep import.
Ancient American, “Your money is no good here, Chinaman”
Latham ping...
I'm also from Latham.
Well you have to remember, there was no eBay back then.
could you imagine it taking a day to get from latham to schenectady??? ha! i'm upset if it takes more than 15 minutes on the thruway.
i took route 7 whenever i had to go to union college.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
