The discovery of a discolored and worn-thin penny rarely generates enthusiasm, unless the discoverer is digging into history and the coin provides insight into the life of another era.
Brianne Reynolds, an anthropology student at the University of Maryland, College Park, found the 1891 penny while sifting through what remains of an Irish-American enclave in Baltimore County just north of Timonium.
"It's greenish so it stuck out in the red clay," Reynolds said. "It's definitely in the right period. It's larger and has the face of a Native American."
And since it was found among very old discarded bottles, it may have been spent a century ago at the local tavern.
"You never know what might have dropped out of people's pockets," said Stephen A. Brighton, assistant professor in the university's department of anthropology, who is directing the dig. "There were no recycling bins or garbage pits for household waste then. We could find things that date to the earliest inhabitants."
At the end of Church Lane, just off York Road in Cockeysville, Brighton is leading about a dozen archaeology students in what historians believe is the first survey of an Irish immigrant village in the United States.
The students have unearthed numerous bottles, coins, buttons and shards of pottery that help tell the story of the Irish quarry workers and their families, who settled the area and named it Texas, after the original destination that they never reached.
"About half that original town of Texas is a giant quarry today," Brighton said. "But imagine the road is not here and only a train traveled up and down with mail and other goods for the stone duplexes that were the homes of the Irish quarry workers."
The field school, which is funded by the university, was two years in the planning before Brighton chose Texas as the place most likely to yield information about the Irish diaspora.
"The idea is to find objects people owned and used so we can piece together life stories and create larger stories of the daily life in Texas," Brighton said.
"Many studies have focused on the prominent families, but this is the first to look into the Irish working community."
