250th Anniversary Celebration Facts: The Botetourt Meteorite
Botetourt 250th Anniversary Celebration Facts. This week we have a legend of sorts about a large meteorite in 19th Century Botetourt County. Our contributing reporter , Anita Firebaugh shares the mystery of this object from space. On the free market, meteors bring a big price!
Does Comet Neowise have you looking at the night sky more often? Have you seen a streak that’s known as a shooting star?What you’re really seeing is a meteor. It’s called a meteorite if it hits the Earth.Somewhere in Botetourt or Craig Counties there may be a really big meteorite atop a rock wall.
Found in Botetourt County in 1850, this hunk of metal from space is missing, and specimens of the meteorite, while documented in papers, cannot be located. Botetourt County is a large area to cover, and in 1850 it was even bigger, as it also encompassed what is now Craig County. So the meteorite could be anywhere in this part of southwest Virginia. The meteorite is listed in a book called Catalogue of Meteorites and noted in other official lists of named and recorded meteorite finds. It is called the Botetourt County meteorite. The Meteoritical Society online lists this meteorite as being made of iron.
Documentation at the United States Natural Museum (USNM) on the meteorite shows fragments of this meteorite were once part of a mineral collection bequeathed to the Smithsonian by C. U. Shepard, a 19th century professor at Amherst College in Massachusetts and noted mineral collector.
In his papers, Shepard lists the Botetourt County meteorite and in 1866, he wrote:
“This iron was discovered more than fifteen years ago in a mass so ponderous that the finder, having attempted to transport it on horseback a number of miles to his house, was obliged to abandon the undertaking. He left it upon a stone wall by the road-side, after having . . . detached two or three small angular fragments.”
Shepard wrote that the finder gave the fragments to N. S. Manross, another Amherst College professor, who took them to Gottingen, Germany, for analysis. The fragments were determined to have a very unusual presence of nickel. Manross eventually gave one of the fragments and the information about its acquisition to Shepard. Shepard acquired all of the fragments after Manross died.
Shepard described the fragments as “whiter than most irons … fine granular like cast-steel.”
The Botetourt County meteorite is similar to a 20-pound meteorite called Babb’s Mill, found in 1842 in Greene County, Tennessee. It is possible the rocks may be from the same meteor or could even be the same meteorite.It is not unusual for meteorites to be found from the same fall, as such an event is called. A large meteor falling from the sky can break apart. A matter of seconds can separate the rock masses over hundreds of miles.
Meteorite study was well underway in 1850, so a knowledgeable person could have realized the rock was significant and sought out a scientist. Mineral testing was available back then. This meteorite appears to have weighed several hundred pounds. The iron content makes it a unique meteorite. Most likely, the meteorite would be black and pitted.
Online, meteorite fragments range from less than $100 to $30,000 for a sliver, depending on the meteorite and its characteristics.
The Botetourt County meteorite has apparently been named and classified but the majority of the meteorite has been lost. In 2006, The Fincastle Herald unearthed a report of a meteorite in private hands in the Nace area of Botetourt, but it allegedly fell during the 20th century. The owner declined comment at that time. Meteorites on private property belong to the owner.
The following points are useful in the identification of meteorites.
(1) All are heavier than common volcanic rock.
(2) All are magnetic, except that stony meteorites may be only slightly magnetic.
(3) Newly fallen specimens have a black or brown fusion coating and shallow pits resembling thumbprints.
(4) They are irregular in shape.
(5) Weathered specimens may appear very rusty in color.
(6) Certain tests can be done in a scientific laboratory to determine mineral content.
Meteorites are truly rare; only 13 (according to online documentation) officially have been recovered from Virginia
— Anita Firebaugh, special to The Botetourt Bee, Photo “Mystery of night” by Cathy Benson
