Meet William "Bill" Gray, The Metal Detective
get a glimpse into this local metal detector's findings and how they have helped uncover bits of local history
William "Bill" Gray, The Metal Detective, isn't just in it for the thrill of the hunt. Metal detection can also help genealogists and historians by uncovering bits of history. Bill will share some of his metal-detecting finds at the "GENEA-OGRAPHY: (Metal) Detecting History" event on Saturday, June 14, from 10-11am at the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library in downtown Eau Claire.
Gray's presentation will be the third and final one in the library's series, "GENEA-OGRAPHY: When Genealogy Hits the Road," which promoted experienced genealogists' knowledge that researching places can be as important as researching people.
“You know, there’s a saying that you need to dig 99 holes before you find anything significant,” Bill said as he followed the beeps, peeps, tweets, and grunts of his metal detector in my backyard on a recent Saturday afternoon. “I also need to remember to remove my wedding ring, because the detector will pick that up through my gloves,” he added.
I live in the historic Shawtown neighborhood, one of the oldest Eau Claire neighborhoods (named after lumberman Daniel Shaw, of the Daniel Shaw Lumber Company, whose former company offices are now apartments just behind the Do-Dodge Inn). After inviting Bill to do some metal detecting in my yard, we chose the earth beneath a 100-foot-plus tall pine tree with a trunk about seven feet in diameter. This tree has been around since Eau Claire was known as Sawdust City and logs were floated on the Chippewa River from what is now known as Half Moon Lake.
"I get a kick out of finding things that have been buried in the ground, whether it's for a family or for history."
WILLIAM "BILL" GRAY
THE METAL DETECTIVE
Bill has been metal detecting as a side gig for over six years. His experience shows. Each pitch of sound means something different; depending on the sound of the detector, it could have picked up on copper, silver, nickel, lead, or something else. Once Bill hears a sound over a patch of ground, he refers to the gauge on the metal detector to find out how many inches he’ll need to dig to get to it (and sometimes, if it shows a negative number, he won't pursue the treasure underneath).
He has three different sizes of detector, and the day he perused my Shawtown yard, he used a smaller one – about five inches in diameter. His largest is 13 inches in diameter. Soil type and ground beneath the surface determine which size detector Bill uses, he said.
Once there’s a significant beep, like a surgeon with a scalpel, Bill carefully removes the grass turf top and hand shovels the dirt onto a white dish towel. He then uses another handheld detector, to better pinpoint the location of the detected item. After digging up the find, he methodically returns the dirt from the towel to the earth, and caps it off with the grass turf top – the holes he dug become unnoticeable.
After a half hour of searching beneath the old pine tree, Bill found a bunch of old nails – including a square nail, first produced in the 1890s – shards of an old and small rectangle jar, a squished-up pop can of some kind, a huge gob of metal glommed together, and a padlock key I lost in 2018.
In other yards, Bill has found historically significant finds. With the owner’s permission, Bill donates such finds to the local history museums, such as the Chippewa Valley Museum, or town halls. Recently, in a Third Ward yard in Eau Claire, he found an old key along with a silver key chain with the name "Bucklin Moon" engraved on it.
Moon was born in Eau Claire in 1911 and was the son of Chester D. Moon, an Eau Claire lumberman. As an adult, Moon became an author and magazine editor in New York City. In the 1940s, the House Un-American Activities Committee charged him and others with Communist sympathies – which he vehemently denied – and was ultimately fired from his job. It is said, he considered taking his own life during that period. He eventually moved to Florida where he had gone to college, resumed writing, and a favorite past-time, fishing. He passed away in Florida in 1984.
In another yard, Bill found a compass from World War I. In yet another, a dog tax tag for Chippewa County from 1920. Plus, lots of old coins, too.
And if a find is not historically significant, it usually is meaningful to the family or home owners he is detecting for. “Sometimes, I’ll find a children’s metal toy, particularly from underneath the canopy of a tree, which kids back in the day might have climbed, and then the toy fell out of their pocket, and got buried,” Bill said.
Recently, on a farm founded in 1848, Bill's digging revealed several items, including a bicycle license plate, which meant the world to the farm’s third generation owner, along with other meaningful family artifacts: axe heads, pieces of chain, and a small, cast iron child’s fire hydrant which screwed on to the end of a garden hose to water plants.
Bill is a U.S. Army veteran, joining right out of high school and most recently serving in Iraq from 2004 through 2005. He served in the Army Reserves for 15 years. Bill has also worked 28 years in law enforcement, which includes his service as a military police officer. His first full-time law enforcement job was in Cornell (six years), then in Chippewa County (10 years), and finally with the Wisconsin State Department of Revenue as a Special Agent of the Alcohol & Tobacco Enforcement Unit.
Metal detecting became a therapy for Bill later in life. In November 2014, while serving as deputy investigator for the Chippewa County Sheriff's Department, Bill was stabbed 14 times in the face, hands, and neck, after managing to grab the gun from an individual police thought could lead them to a runaway from Florida.
In an interview with FOX in March 2015, after he was released from the hospital and back at work, Bill spoke about the experience. “Mentally, I don’t think you could ever prepare yourself for something like that," Bill shared. "It was the most horrifying thing I could ever imagine going through." He was awarded the Law Enforcement Purple Heart a few years later for his actions.
The life-changing and -threatening experience ultimately led Bill to metal detecting, something that allowed him to walk about and work quietly, waiting for any sound that indicates something of interest underground. The thrill of it provides a dopamine kick, he said.
“I get a kick out of finding things that have been buried in the ground, whether it’s for a family or for history,” he concluded.
Bill's presentation as part of the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library's three-part geneaology series is free to attend, though registration is required.
Attend William "Bill" Gray's presentation at the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library (400 Eau Claire St., Eau Claire) on Saturday, June 14 – registration required. Follow up directly with The Metal Detective by reaching out at (715) 313-3331 or RetiredSA@pm.me.
