Red Clay soil of Alabama.
dlimb2
Posts: 3,449
Has anyone detected in the Red Clay Soil? Which detector works best for this type of soil...Thank You.
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Childersburg, Alabama is proclaimed as the Oldest Continually Occupied City in America..... Dating to 1540. The city's beginnings date back to Coosa, a village of the Coosa Indian Nation that was located in the area.
With the beginning of exploration into the wilderness of North America approximately four hundred fifty years ago, Spanish conquistadors found a lovely fertile land abounding in lazy streams, clear and clean, stocked with numerous fish. Dense woodlands full of wildlife stretched for endless miles. An abundant wilderness awaited explorers as they began their long penetration into this unknown land.
One such conquistador, Hernando DeSoto, Governor of Cuba and Adelantado of Florida, accompanied by an army of six hundred men, began his march across the Southeastern section of North America in June, 1539. Traveling from Espiritu Santo, known now as Tampa Bay on the west coast of Florida, northward through Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and then into Alabama, his men began their desperate search for gold and other riches unequal to any of those found by others in this new wild land of North America.
After having spent thirty days with the chief of the town of Chiaha, located on Burns Island in the Tennessee River where the river passes into Alabama, DeSoto and his men resumed their journey in late June 1540. DeSoto’s expedition was in what would become the State of Alabama, having discovered it "not by sea, but after dangerous and difficult marches." Following seven days of slowly marching down the bank of the Tennessee River, DeSoto entered the town of Coste on July 2, 1540. From Coste the expedition proceeded to Tali also located on the Tennessee River and then to the banks of the Coosa River.
The middle of July saw DeSoto and his expedition reach the mighty empire of the great Coosa. On July 16, 1540, the vast army of Spaniards arrived at the town of Coca Coosa, located on the east bank of the river between the mouths of two creeks, now known as Talladega and Tallaseehatchee. The twenty-six year old Chief of the Coosas came out to receive DeSoto . . ."bourne in a litter on the shoulders of his principal men . . . surrounded by many attendants playing flutes and singing." For approximately a month, these travel weary invaders enjoyed the hospitality of the youthful chief and his tribe, even receiving an offer of a region of land to establish a Spanish colony. After offering many reasons for not accepting, DeSoto and his men left the Coosas in August of 1540. Seizing a number of slaves to be used as bearers for his many supplies as well as the chief himself to assure his safe passage through the remainder of the Coosa domain, DeSoto departed to resume his search for the wealth he so greatly desired.
The report of the DeSoto Commission, U. S. Congress, House, Final Report of the United States DeSoto Expedition Commission, 76 Congress, 1st Session, 1939, House Executive Document Number 71 which was chaired by John R. Swanton offers telling evidence of DeSoto’s route through Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama. Swanton and other members of the commission stated irrevocably that the site of Coca was noted to be the area in proximity to the present town of Childersburg, Alabama. Dr. Walter B. Jones, Secretary of the DeSoto Commission and noted Alabama geologist, has written many articles in support of the commission's conclusion.
Albert James Pickett stated in History of Alabama and Incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi From the Earliest Period that DeSoto left in Coca Robles "a Christian Negro, too sick to travel" and Feryada, a white man, thus giving the residents of Childersburg claim to the fact that the town has been continuously occupied since 1540 or earlier — first by Indians and then by the descendents of Robles and Feryada, and later by enterprising traders who lived among the Indians before the influx of pioneer settlers.
Tristan de Luna y Arellano sent an expedition from Mobile who followed the trail to the Coosas sometime in 1560 in search of food for a stranded Spanish force at Pensacola Bay. Leading this trek was one of the captains who had been to the vicinity earlier with DeSoto. In his report, the captain stated that he stood on a hill and could see the Indian village of Coosa and looking to the north he could see a wall of mountains going from east to west. Coosa, according to this report, was much smaller in size than the village visited by DeSoto’s expedition. Captain Juan Pardo, another Spanish explorer, is reported to have sent one of his men with Indian guides to Coosa sometime in 1566 or 1567. On the whole, however, European contact with the area that would become Talladega County came to a close for over a century. Traders mostly from the Carolinas came to the area of Childersburg in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, some bringing wares, selling to the Indians, and returning home with articles bartered in trade. Some of these early frontiersmen, however, made their homes among the Indians with whom they traded, some took Indian wives, and some even became leaders of the various tribes.
David Taitt, a surveyor and cartographer for the British government, stated in his journal published as Travels in the American Colonies that on March 29th, 1772, he visited Tallassiehatchie about half a mile from Coosa Old Town. Having found much of the former village grown over with small oaks, there were new houses being constructed and plantations being developed where the old town of Coosa had formerly stood.
an account compiled in book form and published as Creek Indian History written by "One of the Tribe", George Stiggins, Stiggins recounts information concerning Coosa Old Town. According to Stiggins, a half-blooded Creek Indian born in Talladega County in 1788, the Abeka Indians living in the valley of Talladega were descended from the people visited by DeSoto as he passed through Coosa-wattee or Coosa Old Town. Stiggins recounts that the particulars of the route of DeSoto were shared with him "during his boyhood from the lips of the oldest Indians." Thus from "One of the Tribe" is written documentation that the Childersburg area is the site of Coosa town which Stiggins says was located along Tallasseehatchee Creek.
This article leads me to believe that my farm was one of those plantations and could have been the original site of Coosa Town.
"David Taitt, a surveyor and cartographer for the British government, stated in his journal published as Travels in the American Colonies that on March 29th, 1772, he visited Tallassiehatchie about half a mile from Coosa Old Town. Having found much of the former village grown over with small oaks, there were new houses being constructed and plantations being developed where the old town of Coosa had formerly stood."
If this is the case then I should have an archaeological dig!!!!!!
Don't mean to be cold about it...I never really new my cousins...my dad had his cousins and sisters ...now they are all gone and there is literally no one left on either side of my family...I have my mother but she is with me...in the early Fall we are coming back down....her choice....as I try to make her as happy as I can since my fathers death...I will stop by the farm and detect a little bit, where I think the house once stood...then we will go on down to Gulf Shores for a week and see the beauty of Alabama from one end to the other...yes it is a great heritage there is no doubt!