ELKTON, Va. (AP) — Five bulls, three self-described "dummies," and more than 100,000 broken pieces of pottery.
"We've got this whole pile of information that, in some senses, we can't put it together," said Don Miller, of Elkton, as he walks around his basement filled with nearly 115 1-gallon buckets of chipped and cracked pottery. "I don't know if some of it will ever be put together in a way to know, 'What did go on here?' ... But I think what was going on here was way more than what people have thought."
Since 2019, Miller and friends Chuck Lam of McGaheysville and Gary Haney of Ruckersville have dug up and found pieces of pottery shards on property located in eastern Rockingham County. It started when the property owner, a co-worker of Lam's, shared a pottery piece and asked about it.
Lam, Miller and Haney then began to dig in the area and find shards of pottery, jug stackers and kiln furniture.
"We're Viking archeologists," Miller said. "We're not looting, because it's not for monetary gain. There's no money yet, and there's not going to be."
In 2019, they presented some of their findings to local history groups and were under the impression that the materials had never been found before, but further research never caught traction, they said.
The first site they found was off Mount Hermon Road, in what they call the Mount Hermon Kiln. Once digging, they found terra cotta pieces, redware, and kiln furniture.
"This is not what everybody thought," Miller said.
Miller said they've found about 2,000 pieces of redware, which have accumulated in his basement. Over the years, Miller estimated he's spent about 2,000 hours digging in the property, Lam's spent about 750 hours, and Haney's spent about 250 hours.
They've also found pottery pieces scattered across the site, some with the help of "Moni Moni, the pottery sniffing bull," Miller said. The bull would lick the grass and dirt, revealing pottery pieces, he said.
Lam said he posted the trio's findings on Facebook to try to get more information about what they've found.
"It's like a proverbial needle in a haystack, and you ain't got a magnet," Miller said.
Through research, Miller found a book called "The Conrad Clan," written by Floyd Wilmer Coffman. The family name shared Elkton's prior namesake, Conrad's Store.
The author wrote that Capt. Stephen Conrad operated a pottery near Elkton in the 1800s. According to deed books, Conrad was granted the right to take potters clay from land southeast of Elkton, in what is now known as the "ore-wash."
Miller noted similarities to what is now known as Ore Wash Road in Elkton.
The author's paternal great-grandfather, Andrew Coffman, also had a pottery in Elkton, and it's possible that he took over Conrad's pottery, the book states.
Coffman's clay came from deposits at the west end of Elkton, and there are deep depressions in the vacant land, the book states.
Some pieces were silver and had blue and black designs. They also found jug stackers and jug pieces, and stoneware — the Tupperware of that time — Lam said. Some of the designed pieces were found along the "pottery road," they say, akin to a walking trail full of pottery pieces.
But they've also found pieces with an engraving that reads: "William and JS Ricketts, Rockingham Cty VA."
"We're not too sure where William Ricketts came from," Lam said. "We've dug so many of this, why has nobody ever heard of it?"
Miller also saw tiles with four different markings on them, possibly eluding to four different potters doing work on-site, he said.
"It's just a conundrum after another," he said.
Now, the trio is just trying to find answers from what they've found.
"It's three local men trying to figure out the mystery of history," Lam said.
