It was the fall of 2020, and archaeologist Julie Schablitsky and her team were frustrated. They had spent two weeks digging in Peters Neck, Maryland. They were looking for the site of a cabin where Harriet Tubman, a famous
According to land records, the archaeologists were in the right spot. But after digging more than 1,000 pits, they were still empty-handed.
On a whim, Schablitsky grabbed a metal detector and walked down a nearby road. Suddenly, the machine beeped, alerting her that something was buried beneath her feet. The object she dug from the ground was a coin from 1808—the year Tubman’s parents were married. She also found pieces of broken pottery that dated from the 1820s to the 1840s.
It was enough evidence to convince the researchers that they had finally found what they were looking for: the spot where the home of Tubman’s father, Ben Ross, once stood.