The item was once owned by a firebrand vicar known as ''hot Coffey'', from the town.
News articles displayed with the inkstand tell of its discovery by children in a Nelson pine forest in what appears to be the 1970s, and the mystery of how it got there.
The item was returned to Milton's St John's Church and then donated to the museum.
It was made by a firm of London silversmiths about 1874, and presented to the Rev Richard Coffey in 1876.
Another story from a Wellington reporter tells more of Mr Coffey.
A cleric there said he was known as ''hot Coffey'' because he was ''outspoken, fearless and totally committed to the church''.
Because of those qualities he made some enemies, but ''was still a deeply loved man''.
It also tells of the burial register at St Mark's Church in Wellington, where Mr Coffey moved after leaving Milton in 1876.
The register's names were entered in black writing with an angular style, including Mr Coffey's own name.
''I think the old boy knew the end was close, and filled in his own name,'' the report quotes the vicar of St Mark's the Rev M.L. Calder, who was serving there in the 1970s.
