Charley’s Story

 Growing up in the beautiful rolling hills of southeastern Pennsylvania has been very rewarding to me in many ways. The land here is some of the richest agricultural land in the world. Our family farms have been producing crops since the early 1700’s. I never thought much about the history of our farms or family until I became older. 

The area was settled by the Quakers, Germans and French Huguenots in the early 1700’s. Some of the more common local names at the time were the Boone and Lincoln families. 

When I retired from teaching and farming, I wanted to do something that was active and enjoyable to me. My interest in history along with my love of the outdoors gave me the idea to look into metal detecting. I had a Bounty Hunter that we would take to the beach on our summer vacations. Finding clad coins and sometimes jewelry was truly exciting. Since I wanted to take up this new adventure of metal detecting as a hobby, I needed to learn more about what to do, thus, I started watching youtube videos. The Hoover Boys was the one that drew my interest since the area they detected/hunted was similar to Pennsylvania’s topography and history. 

The time came when I was ready to try my new adventure of metal detecting. It didn't take long to find stuff. Pieces of iron from broken farm equipment and a horseshoe were my first finds. Then…Kaboom, silver! A 1916 Mercury Dime. As you can imagine I was hooked. 

My wife, Judy, was very supportive of my new hobby. She gave me ideas of where to detect in our area. One location was the farm meadow, supposedly there was an early 1730 log cabin once built there. You could see a mound of dirt, thus indicating something had occurred there at one time. Well, it was now time to check it out. All I can say is this, “ A truly incredible experience”. King Georges, Liberty Caps, Matrons, Reales, Rev. War buttons, on and on! Shocking to say the least. 

I now have connected with many people in this hobby. Made many new friends. Have traveled to many other areas to detect, including to England where I had the opportunity to dig for coins and relics thousands of years old. 

It gives me great pleasure inviting people to go detecting with me in my home area. They have found some “bucket list’rs” themselves. The joy we all have being together is priceless. The fond memories will be everlasting. I will forever be thankful for the kindness that my brothers and sisters in this hobby have given to me. Let's all continue being ambassadors to this hobby, thus adding joy to many new lives.