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This is an excerpt from "Some “The
Flight of a Dove".
Read the complete column in the Central
States Archaeological Societies 2024
July Journal which can be purchased on-line after March
2025
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front and back of the Dovetail found in
Will County, Illinois. It measures 4 ¾” in length. |
Sometimes we question and ponder the journey an artifact has taken,
the miles it traveled and if it acould talk, the story it could tell.
Sometimes that even seems the same way when talking about pieces that
are already found and are in collections. It even seems like fate at
times that pieces go on a long journey away from where they were found
only to come back to be within a few miles or even to the same spot
where they were found. This story in particular is how a certain Dovetail
came back to be within 10 miles of the farm it was found on.
Let us go back to the late 1960s when Kermit Suhling, a long-time
collector and outdoorsman from Kampsville in Calhoun County, Illinois,
went on a pheasant hunting trip up to Fred Bloesing’s farm
in northeastern Illinois in Will County near western Joliet. One
night Kermit asked Mr. Bloesing if he had ever found any artifacts
on his farm. He replied something of the sort saying he had only
found one and brought it out to show Kermit. The “one” is
a finely made 4 ¾” long Dovetail point made out of some
very nice purple, gray and white Avon chert, a large sized piece
for our area of northern Illinois. Kermit acquired the piece after
the pheasant hunt was over and took it back home to Calhoun County,
and put in his collection where it sat until his death. Before Kermit’s
passing it was admired by many collectors, especially ones from up
in northern Illinois, that would be down in that area looking for
artifacts and visiting collectors. Some of these men were Ray Fraser,
Ed Butkis, Ted Kolikamp and the late Terry Schultz.
My good friend and mentor Terry Stumpf acquired the Dovetail in
2002 when he purchased the Suhling collection. Terry had the piece
in his possession for 12 years, displaying it at various artifact
shows and his home. It wasn’t until Collinsville 2014 that
Terry decided to let a new caretaker put the Dovetail in their frame.
Terry told me that the reason he let it go is because he knew it
wasn’t something Kermit had found or was local to his area.
Terry wasn’t sure who would be interested in the piece, until
Dave VanderWall saw it. Dave is from Jasper County Indiana, but his
county is near the Illinois border. Dave does a lot of scaffolding
work in Will County, so it’s a local piece to him as to me.
So Dave acquired ...
Read the complete column in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2024
July Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2025 |
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