Treasure Hunting

It’s getting hot out there lately, so I decided I should start coming in and writing blogs again when I stumbled on a story that is truly amazing. It isn’t about metal detecting, but it’s about history - our other favorite subject here at TreasureHunting.com.

The Emory family, prominent tobacco and wheat farmers who settled in Maryland in the 1660s, apparently saved every last scrap of paper they ever wrote on. Talk about a “pack-rat!”

Their plantation home “Poplar Grove” is still in family hands and the mansion is used as a hunting lodge. Washington College has had access to the plantation for years, but only recently did some students begin to sift through the boxes and boxes of paper in the attic.

When they realized what they found - they called for back-up.

Now Adam Goodheart, a history professor at Washington College, state archivists and a crew of student interns are working to collect and categorize the documents. The collection includes letters, maps, financial records, political posters, and printed bills provide a first hand account of life from the 1660s through World War II.

“Historians are used to dealing with political records and military documents,” said Goodheart, “But what they aren’t used to is political letters and military documents kept right alongside bills for laundry or directors for building a washing machine.”

“Look at this: ‘Negro woman, Sarah, about 27 years old, $25,” Goodheart says, reading from a 19th century inventory. “It was as though this family never threw away a scrap of paper.”

Mary Wood, an Emory cousin whose son inherited the plantation in 1998 said “I don’t believe any of us knew these papers were there. We didn’t go there all that often, and when you do, you don’t go up in people’s attics and look around.”

I’d say there’s a great deal of looking to be done from here on out! And I have a feeling we’ll learn quite a bit about the nuances of life in Maryland during those 400 years - things we never knew about.

- Shaun

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