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A person from Texas has become the unlikely finder of a long-hidden British artifact more than a century old.
Reddit user PorkchopDidgeridew attended an open house in the southern U.S. state in July, and noticed what appeared to be a handle attached to the floorboards inside a closet.
Intrigued, they opened the panel—and found an iron chest, complete with a key, underneath the boards.
They were able to open the chest, and inside found a handwritten note dated March 5, 1894—which declared: “This iron chest is the property of vicar and churchwarden of the parish of Sibdon, H F Baxter.”
Sibdon, a tiny parish in Shropshire, United Kingdom, is around 5,000 miles from Texas, and so far, the finder has no idea how it could have found its way halfway across the world to be hidden inside a random house in the United States.
Between 1870 and 1900, an estimated 12 million immigrants arrived into the United States, many from England, Ireland and Germany, and usually through East Coast ports, according to the Library of Congress.
Crossing the Atlantic on ships could take several weeks before arriving to the U.S.—and it would be a further 1,700 miles from Ellis Island to the heart of Texas from there.
The finder was determined to find out as much as they could about the iron box and note, and revealed in a Reddit update that they had asked the realtor to inquire with the sellers. They had also taken it upon themselves to contact local historical societies in the area the note-writer appeared to have come from.
Their discovery prompted a huge amount of questions after being posted on the mildlyinteresting sub, and they shared what they had learned so far, while explaining they had not touched the note, and only taken a photo of what they could see when they opened the box.
The box was also affixed to the floor, meaning if they bought the house, the box would come with it—so they felt justified in taking a closer look. And, they added: “My personal feeling is that the previous owner left this note intentionally to convey the uniqueness of the item to potential buyers or new owners.”
Since starting their queries, they learned from the realtor that the current sellers found the same iron box there when they themselves bought the home in 2018—and before then, the home had been owned since 1955 by a United States couple, who have both since passed away.
The finder had even attempted to find out if the 1955 owners had been related in some way to the British note-writer, but had come up empty—and “at this point, I’m going to assume this was an antique purchased as a curiosity and installed in their house.”
With more than 25,000 upvotes, the find proved hugely interesting to Redditors, one joking: “Well, I guess it’s time for a pilgrimage to England! Make sure to only walk, ride a horse, or be on a boat for the journey. Anything else would sour the spirit of it.”
Another joked that the house had been built upon an ancient escape room, as another wrote: “Aw man, I never find anything when I go to open houses and start ripping up the floorboards.”
And one shared their own fascinating story: “My uncle bought a house 30 years ago and my dad was helping him renovate. They found the same in the floor of a built-in wardrobe. Dug it out. Spent almost a whole day opening it. £20k ($27,000) into old notes inside. Split it and outside their wives and kids never told another soul.”
Newsweek has contacted PorkchopDidgeridew via Reddit for comment on this story.
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Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Marc Vargas and Emma Lee-Sang
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