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08/19/2015 08:00 AMAt 91, Charles Arthur “Art” Heidtman has spent a lifetime culling a huge collection of Native American arrowheads, stone tools, and other artifacts from local dirt and beaches. Now, hundreds of those pieces are on permanent display at the Thomas Griswold House Museum—and that’s just the tip of the arrowhead.
“Art has given us what must be thousands of arrowheads among the pieces he’s donated,” says museum director Pat Lovelace, who invited Art to come in recently to view the new display.
“Ninety-nine percent of them were found in Guilford,” says Art of those arrowheads. “But I found one of my first when I was kid in East Haven. I was eight years old, lying across a tire hanging from a tree, looking at the ground, and there it was!”
The museum crew is now hoping to hunt down that special find for him. Made from red jasper, it’s one of the rarer pieces among the boxes and boxes of arrowheads amassed by Art. The heads are made from several types of stone, but those crafted from quartz all come from Guilford, he notes. Some have points broken off from hitting rocks, others have a noticeable flange at the base to aid in fitting.
“They would put that on the stick with pine sap and sinew,” says Art of each arrowhead. “So when the arrow got into you, and you went to pull it out, you pulled the stick out but the arrow stayed in you; and that would infect you.”
Art says most of the arrowheads crafted by the area’s Native Americans were made for hunting, not fighting. They also created stone tools including hand axes (Art’s collection includes axes of all types, both roughly hewn and highly polished) as well as knives and scrapers used to clean pelts.
Among the collection, the oldest piece is an Ulu knife—a thin, U-shaped stone with finely honed edge and distinctive handle.
“That knife goes back to the Ice Age. Squaws would use that for cutting meat and skins,” says Art.
Together with Carl Balestracci, Jr., Art gave a well-attended talk and slide show on his collection at the Guilford Free Library in May. That’s about the same time he donated his collection to Guilford Keeping Society (GKS). Non-profit GKS owns and operates the Griswold House on Boston Street as well as Medad Stone Tavern historic museum on Three Mile Course.
Art thanks Balestracci for suggesting he entrust his collection to GKS. He says he enjoyed seeing the pieces arranged for public viewing at the Griswold House and hopes many residents and visitors from out of town will come to take a look.
“I want people to see them. If I had them in cigar boxes in my bedroom, no one would see them!” he says.
Looking at all the pieces, it’s hard to believe they were found by one man. Art says his trick to finding arrowheads included locating freshly turned ground and keeping a keen eye.
“Back when I was a kid, everybody had a garden, especially during the war. I’d go through the rows and look for arrowheads,” Art says of his early collecting days. “Gardens either have big rocks or small rocks. You see a small rock, you go and look at it.”
He perused many interior and coastal areas of Guilford, North Guilford, and Madison as well as in Branford. There, in a friend’s neighborhood beside the Branford River, Art found a pretty unique type of red stone with interesting markings made by Native Americans.
“You could see where they scraped these red stones, made a powder, mixed it with grease, and made lines to paint on their faces,” he says of the Branford finds, adding, “those stones are in here somewhere!”
Lovelace and several Griswold House volunteers and docents have been working with Balestracci to locate just the right pieces for the display, shown in beautiful glass cases on the main floor of the house. The large collection currently on view also includes pieces of clay pipes, pottery, and items made from animal bone. On one shelf, three flint hand-knives lay together, for good reason.
“I found those three on top of each other in 1939,” says Art, who was hunting in a salt marsh north of Guilford Harbor. “They call that a little cache.”
Another “important find,” on display was located at Chaffinch Island, he notes.
“It’s a sinker for fishing. They carved that out of stone—can you imagine that?” asks Art, pointing out the thin neck and small, cylindrical stone ballooning out below.
Art served with the U.S. Army in the European Theater during World War II, receiving a gunshot wound to his leg from which he recovered. Back home in Connecticut, for many years, Art worked with the railroad on a territory stretching from the East River to West Haven. It was the perfect opportunity to walk the lines looking for finds. The Griswold collection includes maps that viewers can use to pinpoint many general locales where Art’s pieces came from, says Lovelace, but no specific locations are shared.
Meanwhile, Art says he’s sure there are still many more pieces to be found.
“I’ve got places in my mind now where I know I can find arrowheads, but you’ve got to get there,” says Art, with a glint in his eye.
“I’ve got that buried right here,” he says, tapping his head.
Art and his wife of 67 years, Ruth, raised their two daughters in their former home on Chaffinch Island Road. Ruth laughs when she thinks of how common it was to find Art’s collection in drawers, on shelves and tabletops around the house. Gesturing to one of the ax heads, she says, “I used that one for a door stop!”
Now that the couple has moved to a smaller residence in town, Art says he’s very glad to know that his collection has found a great new home.
“I hope people come in and enjoy it,” he says.
The Thomas Griswold House Museum, 171 Boston Street, is open in August Wednesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. For September and October hours and more information on GKS, visit www.guilfordkeepingsociety.com.