Detecting Report: Salem Academy

Hey everyone!  My friend Jim came by today, and we detected a few spots around Saxapahaw.  We went out to Salem Church Rd. in search of "Salem Academy", a small school found on the 1893 Spoon map of Alamance county.  The building is gone, but I had its location narrowed down to one of two fields.  We asked for and received permission to search the first field, but found very few signals.  Our initial investigation lead us to believe the school was in the other field. 

Sadly, that field is now the site of the Salem Church cemetery, which of course we couldn't detect.  As we were finishing up in the first field, a man came up to us on a gator asking "what we were looking for out there."  I responded "Whatever we can find!" and told him of our quest for the school site.  Jerry confirmed our suspicion that it was on the cemetery grounds, but told us that we could see the school building if we liked.  It turns part of the schoolhouse was moved and used as an addition to a house on his property!

Jerry showed us some great old cart trails on his land, and allowed us to detect around one of the homes there.  The house appears on the 1893 map as belonging to J. Bradshaw.  Despite the amazing potential of this property, the old finds just didn't make their way under our coils today.  We still had a great time enjoying the beautiful day, talking with Jerry, and seeing some more local history.  Hopefully I'll have some more great finds to show you on the next trip out!