CHURCH CREEK, Md. Last fall a team of archeologists dug hundreds of small holes in a marshy, forested and buggy area of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. But there were no obvious signs of the historical site theyd set out to unearth. Frustrated, Julie Schablitsky, the chief archeologist at the Maryland Department of Transportation, grabbed a metal detector and began scanning an area along an old road.

I got this beep, beep, beep, she recalled, expecting it to be just another buried shotgun shell. I dug, and what came up was this coin.