Millsaps Students Unearth Rare Gold Coin

A rare historic find for some Millsaps College archaeological students. A gold coin from the 1800's was discovered during a dig at the Manship House Museum in Jackson. Millsaps freshman Jordan Taylor was on his hands and knees searching the ground for over an hour when he came spotted something shiny. Taylor said, "I was just you know scrapping the ground with the trowel and the gold coin popped up."

Tuesday he and classmate Elizabeth Albert were excavating the lawn of the Manship House Museum when Taylor uncovered an 1854 Liberty Head Gold dollar. Taylor, a Lake Charles Louisiana native said, "It was really exciting to find something like that. It's pretty rare, and it just took away from the mundaneness of the excavating hours at a time." The discovery came just two days before their last dig. Dr. Michael Galaty's Archaeological Method and Theory Class had been excavating the property for about a month and a half.

Albert, a New Orleans native, had just turned over digging duties to Taylor when he discovered the coin. Albert said, "It's pretty amazing I mean you come out here and you think that you're just gonna find some pot chards. Maybe just little pieces of glass and then you come across this big coin." Dr. Galaty said, "I expect that if you were to excavate this whole yard you probably wouldn't find another coin like this."

The 12 student class had uncovered lots of coal and pieces of brick, pottery and glass before coming across the 153 year old coin. Dr. Galaty added, "This makes the past story these students are gonna tell about Manship House that much more interesting because they have this fantastic artifact to talk about." Manship House Museum Director Marilyn Jones said, "It's very interesting to think that this is something Mr. Manship could have carried in his very own pocket. Perhaps dropped it on the way to his carriage."

The coin was buried in about six inches of earth in the side lawn of the house. It is less than half size of a paper clip. After being researched it will become property of the state and eventually stored in the vault of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Thursday the Millsaps class will return to the Manship House for their final day of excavation.