Clermont has historic roots back to 1809.  Clermont was a coal mining community, with farming, railroad and later supported by an industry of clay mining and the Clermont Tile Company production of Sewer Pipe.

One of the most important task of metal detecting is to find relics and try to collect evidence to discover what the people of a particular area were like. What clues did they leave behind...small pieces of their lives. Just outside the main street lies a neighborhood referred to as the patch (see the photographs below). This area had forty worker homes but all that remains is rows of cellar holes and scattered broken glass and metal.

The link below is one of the most comprehensive historical  web pages that I have ever found! This page not only provides the detailed history but it also provides a virtual tour of the area. Go to Planet Smethport: Clermont

We found a miner's tag and presented it to the property owner whose family had ties to the coal industry.

Bottles were found in some cellar holes. These ordinary bottles had been considered garbage but today are very collectible. The bottles varied in age; unfortunately most were broken but a few survived.

The evidence left behind, hidden by brush, leaves and earth, tell us a lot about the people of Clermont. They weren't unlike other folks of rural Pennsylvania. They were social people. The photo below shows a large amount of harmonica reeds that were found scattered randomly about. 

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