Barbara Eppich Struna: Digging around the Cape

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Digging around the Cape

Almost everyone likes to dig in the garden. It feels good to get your hands dirty, to smell the sweet spring soil, and then relish in your efforts of growing tasty vegetables or beautiful fragrant flowers. But sometimes your shovel can uncover some unexpected surprises and not always in the garden.

I found this toy gun buried in the dirt alongside our driveway. I'd worked in this little garden for many years and never saw it. After one summer of heavy storms, I noticed its handle peaking out among the ground cover.

At the time, the discovery frightened me but then I realized it was only a toy. It also prompted me to make use of the incident in my historical fiction, The Old Cape House.

When my first novel, The Old Cape House, was in the process of being edited, the planting of the seed for my second historical novel, The Old Cape Teapot, began to grow. Researching the story of Sam Bellamy, Maria Hallett, and the pirate ship Whydah piqued my imagination further to ponder the fate of the two survivors of the Whydah. Were they actual pirates? Not according to the courts of Boston, who found them innocent by reason of coercion. So what happened to them? I began to craft my second novel.

Several other things pushed me along in the writing process of The Old Cape Teapot.

I joined a group of Cape Codders trying to find the original cornerstone markers of the Cape Cod towns. Sometimes we would sidestep our original hunt and follow other Cape historical mysteries.
One spring afternoon we ventured into the woods of Orleans. We were told to spread out and look for anything that looked odd in the ground, specifically large stones or something that might look like a marker.

I was lucky. I spotted an aberration or mound on the forest floor that had a small, seven inch in diameter, gray circle that was visible at its top. I began to pull the grassy moss aside.

By the time I was finished pulling, a whale of a rock was exposed. They called it Barbara's Rock! Oftentimes the early Pilgrims would use natural markers when marking off property lines. This rock almost lined up with the Magnetic North. Interesting....
Another day we returned to the same area and discovered the possible site of an old Windmill.
Here's a link to a video posted about the discovery.

Old Windmill – Orleans

While exploring with The Cornerstone Group, my imagination took flight once more and I used the discovery of the Old Windmill as a major plot point in my historical fiction, thriller and mystery, The Old Cape Teapot.

The circle foundation of the windmill is not perfect but the step stones are clearly visible.

It was fun and exciting. Can you almost make out a large arrow that seems to be carved into the bigger stone?

Treasure can be found in all forms and places, be it diamonds, archeological evidence, or just meeting a new and interesting person. The thrill of the hunt for 'treasure' never gets old, at least not for me. I'll always be ready for the challenge. I hope you are.