History Beneath Our Feet

  Baugh's Mill and Dam Franklin, Tennessee, by Frank F. Baugh I cannot believe that I did not know more about this place until I was sixty-five!      Here I had lived my entire life in my hometown of Franklin, Tennessee, and knew little to nothing about this place. But there I stood with my older brother on the south bank of the Harpeth River looking at the ruins of Baugh's Mill and its massive dam located at the bottom of the loop of Baugh's bend of the Harpeth, now bisected by the By-Pass for the first time in my life in March of 2021.      No, it is nothing like standing in awe at the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza. No, it is not like Hiram Bingham stumbling upon the vegetation-overgrown ruins of Machu Pichu in 1911, but for me, it was pretty danged close! [Brother, Joseph Duncan Baugh, Jr. looking at the ruins of Baugh's Mill and Dam, on March 10,  2021]      My mouth must have literally fallen open. My elder brother, Joe, j...

     I just added this new photo of a fired bullet photographed on my card advertising myself as an Historian and relic hunter. The fired bullet on my advertising business card.      I know people who have been able to dig on private property on the Battlefield at Franklin, but strangely, I have never really had that opportunity! But recently I happened to stumble across the opportunity to do so.      In April of this year, (2022) a friend of mine who is restoring a house on Columbia Pike in Franklin Tennessee, in the area of the Civil War Battle of Franklin gave me permission to metal detect the yard seeking relics. He knows that I am always very neat, and it is nigh impossible to see where I have worked. I do not kill the grass or destroy the landscaping, but I do find the History Beneath our Feet!      I discovered long ago that every relic recovered tells a story. They are like pieces to a puzzle that add one more par...