About This Artifact
A hand-wrought nail and metal washer assembly were recovered from the bottom of a shaft on the island's south shore in 1966. Dan Blankenship discovered the artefacts during excavations that followed Robert Dunfield's departure from the island. Fanthorpe records that the nail and washer were found below the level Dunfield had reached in his South Shore shaft, alongside a layer of large round stones that appeared to have been deliberately placed, raising the possibility they were part of the old south shore flood tunnel system.
Hand-wrought nails of this type were produced by blacksmiths working iron by hand on an anvil, a method standard before the industrialisation of nail manufacture in the early nineteenth century. The nut and washer combination indicates a fastening assembly rather than simple structural nailing, suggesting a more complex piece of construction or equipment at that location. The deliberately placed stones found at the same level point to engineered work at a depth consistent with the flood tunnel system that Frederick Blair's 1898 dye test confirmed ran beneath the south shore, when red dye poured into the Money Pit at ninety feet seeped out at Smith's Cove and at several points along the south shoreline.
The south shore has received less investigation than Smith's Cove despite Blair's dye test confirming a flood tunnel exit on that side of the island. In 1972, P.J. Mallon of Northern Ireland discovered a stone triangle on the south shore, and in Season 7, the team uncovered an intact box-shaped wooden drain preserved in puddled clay along the south shoreline, still channelling water after 159 years. The nail and washer from the south shore shaft remain among the few artefacts recovered from this area of the island's underground works, and their pre-industrial manufacture places them before the era of mechanised search operations.
Historical Context
Triton Alliance
Where It Was Found
Found at South shore, 60-ft deep dome shaft — the shoreline areas of Oak Island.
