Peninsula In Passage

Pieces of the Past Marge Nance of Chesapeake literally finds treasures in the trash – or fields – or wooded lots – or sandy shoreline. She’s been exploring with a metal detector since she was 19. North Suffolk is one of her favorite hunting grounds. The daughter of an Iwo Jima veteran, Nance has always respected the past. Fortunately her husband, Robert Nance, who owns a heavy equipment company, supports her efforts and laughs as he remembers, “She made me go out and clear out around a graveyard with a back hoe – took me two days.” The couple met when they were 13 and 16 so he knew what he was getting into she says. She’s explored much of the North Suffolk peninsula, always with permission she stresses, and made some interesting finds including a tiny buckle from the late 1600’s/early 1700s, a Masonic ring, bale seals that guarded bales of fine fabric, old slipware pottery in the brown and beige tones that hint of late 1600s and dozens of clay pipes – and pipe stems. Ever wonder why some clay pipes are found with long stems and others much shorter? Nance says that the Colonials would break off the end of the pipe stem as the stem became clogged and replace the pipe only when the stem was too short to use.

She’s found more Spanish silver than she ever expected in Suffolk. Silver Spanish reals were currency of the Spanish colonies in the Americas. Nance has found them (including a 1746 half real) as well as the irregularly shaped clumps of silver known as Spanish cobs (including a 1688 cob). She’s found 1777 Continental uniform pewter buttons off Nansemond Parkway. She’s found a rare pine tree shilling, circa 1652. She explains that early coins often had a hole in the middle so they could be strung on a string when people didn’t always have pockets in their clothing and that some coins were made to be chipped off to make change. “It’s like pulling history from the earth, “Nance says. “I’m intrigued by the artifacts and won’t sell or give them away – they are pieces of the past.” But when she found a ring with initials, A. E. C. inscribed inside, she researched the initials at length until she ultimately found the descendants of the likely owner.

Marge and Robert Nance

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