Pipe stem

About This Artifact

A clay pipe stem was recovered from the spoils of borehole S-6 during Season 6 caisson work in the Money Pit area. Three days before the find aired, S-6 had penetrated what Rick Lagina, geologist Terry Matheson, and the Oak Island Tours crew believed to be the Shaft Six historical searcher tunnel at 101 feet, yielding a hand-cut oak timber, possible leather bookbinding, and iron chain. The spoils were being processed through the large-scale wash plant near Smith's Cove, where Billy Gerhardt's crew recovered pottery fragments, old glass, and the pipe stem.

In the War Room, archaeologist Laird Niven examined the finds alongside Craig Tester, Doug Crowell, and Paul Troutman. Niven identified a Blue Willow transfer-print pattern dating to the 1810s through 1840s, a pipe bit from around the 1870s through 1880s, and a piece of red-bodied stoneware with unusual tool-made striations that he placed in the early 1700s, making it the first pottery from the site to potentially predate the Money Pit's discovery in 1795.

Clay tobacco pipes were disposable items that broke easily and were discarded after use, making fragments common at colonial and post-colonial sites in North America. Because pipe stem borehole diameters decreased at a known rate over time as manufacturing techniques evolved, archaeologists can date a stem fragment by measuring the hole with calipers. The 1870s through 1880s dating Niven assigned to the pipe bit from the S-6 wash batch places that piece firmly in the post-1795 searcher era, when the Oak Island Association and successor companies were active on the site. Drilling in S-6 pushed to 175 feet that day before crane operator Danny reported hitting limestone bedrock at 190 feet of casing, and the hole was shut down.