BLOOMFIELD — Like the individual beads he strings into necklaces, Bradley Rook draws together scattered, and oftentimes broken, relics into artifacts that tell a story from Davis County’s and Iowa’s pasts.

Rook is a treasure hunter who uses both his intuition and a metal detector to gather remnants of a bygone day.

Growing up on a farm nine miles north of Bloomfield, Rook found many arrowheads in the family’s fields. Not knowing the value of his finds, “I could kick myself now, but I sold some of [the arrowheads] for 50 cents or so many years ago,” he said.

Rook married his wife, Judy, in 1978, and after a short time in Missouri, the two have lived in Bloomfield since 1981. Their daughter, Belinda, is married and lives in Ottumwa; they lost their son, Nick, in an accident in 1998.

Rook worked at BIMCO for 35 years, but still made time for what he calls hunting. “I really like hunting for relics. Once in awhile we get really lucky,” he said. Like the 1875 Seat of Liberty dime he found this past Memorial Day.

His collection comes from Davis and surrounding counties, including the Iowaville Indian Village Site situated on the borders of Van Buren and Davis Counties and a neighbor to what is now Eldon. Originally settled as a trading post for fur traders and active in the mid- to late 1800s, nothing remains of Iowaville, but what is buried in the soil. “Our country was really founded on the fur trade,” said Rook, who has coaxed to the surface a myriad of artifacts from that era.

In the course of researching what each item — or piece of each item — was, his knowledge about area history and geography grew along with his collection. He speaks fluently about the military items, the personal articles, and the Indian and trade pieces. He can easily tell the difference between dozens of coins, including a 3-cent piece “which is the smallest coin minted in the U.S.” He points out an ear bob and a child’s barrette. He recognizes a twisted piece of metal as one of several kettle lugs or section of a kettle itself; “some still have the carbon built up on them.”

Through research, he has identified several items through their touchmark, or artist’s mark, as originating in Canada and Britain, finding their way to the Midwest as traders and travelers followed the Mississippi and other routes.

Some of his most unique pieces include a Stockport, Iowa, luggage tag from the 1800s, a cross, and trade rings. He has strung together several necklaces of tiny, individual beads he’s uncovered as well as various parts of muskets and rifles. There are several buttons from the Army dragoons, a unit “who watched over the Indians to help keep peace,” he said.

Rook started using a metal detector in 1974. That has enabled him to find things not easily visible to the naked eye. He belonged to the Southeast Iowa chapter of the Iowa Archeological Society.

Sometimes he works for hire, but mostly he hunts for the enjoyment of finding the artifacts and articles that represent Davis County’s history, playing a part in keeping that history alive.