Subj: Sharon detects a metal-hounds' backlash
Date: 1/10/01 10:14:45 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: Ste2080
To: WWhikerSharon detects a metal-hounds' backlash
By David Parker © 2001 Republican-American A view of the Sharon Green looking north. The Sharon Town Hall is on the left. David Parker / Republican-American
SHARON - A proposal to limit the use of metal detectors on historic Sharon Green has triggered instant alarm among hobbyists from Connecticut to the Midwest.
"Please reconsider your actions," the Rev. Eric Seavey of Mishewaka, Ind., urged the town fathers by e-mail on Wednesday, just 24 hours after Sharon's Board of Selectmen discussed a proposed ordinance that would require permits for metal detector use or excavation.
Another who protested promptly was Conrad Rasinski of Brookfield. "We are a pretty tight-knit group of hobbyists," Rasinski explained Friday, after his letter to First Selectman Robert Moeller was received at Town Hall. "We keep in touch via the Internet," Rasinski said, "particularly if there's a challenge to our hobby."
Word of such a potential challenge spread swiftly after The Republican-American ran a story Wednesday morning about the Sharon selectmen's meeting the previous evening. By Wednesday afternoon and into Thursday, the newspaper received a stream of e-mail letters to the editor from several states, all voicing concern and urging that Sharon drop or rethink the idea of an ordinance.
The notion of town controls on metal detectors and digging on the Green surfaced this fall when two trustees of the Sharon Historical Society brought the matter to selectmen. William Trowbridge said he and Peter Pettus were concerned that some of the individuals frequently seen walking the mile-long historic Green with metal detectors might be removing historically valuable items and potentially destroying the archaeological record. An archaeologist, Trowbridge explained Friday, "doesn't simply dig up items for their monetary value." Moreover, he said, an archaeologist looks at a buried artifact "in the context of what was around it," digging carefully in layers.
"Right off the Green, we did some excavations a few years ago and we uncovered some foundations. We dated the building by the style of some eating utensils we also found, particularly an old fork. If a metal detector guy had found the fork," Trowbridge said, "he'd have dug a hole straight down, would have taken the fork" and would have damaged the archaeological record.
After discussions with the local historians, selectmen asked Town Attorney Judith Dixon to suggest potential clauses for an ordinance requiring permits for the use of metal detectors or for digging on town property, including that part of the Green not owned by the State of Connecticut.
Tuesday's meeting saw selectmen compile further notes for Dixon in hopes that she will draft an ordinance for the board to consider. Based on Tuesday's discussion, such an ordinance might stipulate that permits would be issued only to representatives of organizations such as universities, schools or historical societies, and that the town would have right of first refusal to any artifacts that were unearthed. The hobbyists take issue with such restrictions on who might receive a permit. "By giving this permit only to those from recognized sources such as a university, archaeological society, etc., you are cutting off the citizens who elected you and who have a right to enjoy the Green as much as anybody else," Seavey wrote.
Reached in Indiana by phone, Seavey said he'd seen the story on Sharon's proposed permits posted on a metal detectors' Internet bulletin board. He said the private hobbyists often benefit professional archaeologists and historians by alerting them to potentially valuable finds. "There are only so many archaeologists," he said, "and so many artifacts to be found."
Another hobbyist who e-mailed the newspaper was Gary Keithline, a self-described "fortune hunter" from St. Charles, Mo. He cited cases in which he and his father had assisted local law enforcement officials in locating evidence with metal detectors. And he said that if not for "detectorists" like himself, many historic artifacts would be lost forever.
"You are guarding something that will rot away within a few years anyway," Keithline warned Sharon officials. "These artifacts, coins and other bits of history are not being preserved to begin with by being in the wet ground. I was up in Hartford this year and most every object that I got that was older than 100 years was mostly rotted and unable to be deciphered." Better, he argued, to let hobbyists unearth valuables than to let them rot.
Trowbridge challenged that argument. "Coins from ancient Greece and Rome are still being excavated today," he said, and are still salvageable. Detectors would never be permitted in historic sites in Greece or Italy, he said. "They'd put you in jail."
A permit system won't come overnight to Sharon in any event. Moeller noted that even if selectmen approve Dixon's draft at their February meeting, it would still take a town meeting vote by residents to put an ordinance on the books.
Note:Well it looks like we are finally getting some attention. This article made the front page of today's Waterbury Republican-American January 13, 2001. I also heard that the Hartford Courant is doing a story about the situation. You can also see this article at the newspaper's website "The Waterbury Connecticut Republican American Newspaper" but the article will only be there for today.
Thanks, Stephen