The search for artifacts at Black Jack Battlefield near Baldwin came to an end Friday without any significant findings.

“We’ve searched about all the ground we can,” said University of Nebraska battlefield archaeologist Douglas Scott.

Scott and others working with him had hoped to find items – mainly bullets – left from the 1856 battle between John Brown-led abolitionists and pro-slavery forces. The location of bullets or other artifacts would help tell the story of the ebb and flow of the battle and what type of weapons had been used, he said.

Scott, however, was contacted by Raymond Schott, of Lawrence, who said he was with a Topeka treasure hunters club that had searched the battlefield in 1979 or 1980 when about 40 bullets were found. Schott told the Journal-World he hadn’t personally found any bullets, and he didn’t know what other members had done with the ones they had found.

Based on information he received from Schott and from information on bullets taken from the battlefield and housed at the Old Castle Museum in Baldwin, a report could still be generated about the battlefield, Scott said.