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January 11th
Well it was still fairly arctic outside so we decided to do some pit repair. As many privy diggers know, the filled in pits have a tendancy to settle, even when they have been packed well. The two pits we dug at the big duplex a few weeks ago had sunk about a foot. We found a place to get some topsoil and filled them in, seeded them, and put down some straw. The only bottle I found all day was the full bottle of Mike's hard lemonade that a friend, Dean, put into my hand. Mmmm gooood ! We have all three been making
some progress on getting permissions so soon the digs will commence. Perhaps as soon as
next weekend !!!
Jan. 20th
Fresh snow and cold temps are keeping me inside again this weekend. I am staying busy by tumbling some of the bottles I plan on offering for sale at the Columbus Ohio bottle show. I will be shopping and trading for Cincinnati soda's and Inks. Going through some boxes of bottles, I have discovered a few nice ones I didn't even know I had. One is a round, lockport green "E.R. Squibb". I also found three BiXby polish bottles, two of which are amber. Other bottles I will be taking to the show are; A Yellow "Mrs. Allens Hair restorer", an Olive "Dr. J. Hostetters Stomach Bitters", two early string lip flasks, and an Apple Green open pontil umbrella ink. Next month I am going to be
giving a presentation about privy digging to my townships historical society. The month
after that I will be doing the same for a neighboring township. I have never spoken in
front of a large crown before. Oh well, I've done the shpeel so many times on peoples
front porch it comes fairly easy. And if I don't choke too bad, I may get some permissions
out of it. I have nothing prepared as far as writing go's. I'm just going to wing it.
So....... here's to winging it !!!
January 27th. 2002 A Three Pit Day. This January day was forcast to be high in the 60's and sunny. The weatherman was right on the money. We met at ten and wagon trained over to the dig sight. This house was listed as 1865 on the county Auditors websight. Indiana Rod had gotten permission from the owner, but the renter had no idea we were coming. Lucky for us he was a hep cat. "Go for it", he said. The backyard was small and triangular. It was composed of about 95 % dog turds. After a short while we just completely stopped trying to avoid them. Ewwww !!! We walked around a bit. We probed here and there. Rod noticed an almost buryed sidewalk to nowhere. We see these from time to time, but what made this one different and worth more attention was that it was made of cut limestone. We tapped our way along it with the probes untill it conveniently ended in a pit. We located the walls and then started probing around it for any other pits. Another was located just up the sidewalk off to the side. This pit also had walls. After starting a test hole in the pit on the side, it became apparent that this pit was way to new. We were still finding plastic at 4 feet so we fillederin. The pit at the end of the slab walkway was also a stone liner. We dug it to its shallow bottom at 4 feet and barely got past turn of the century. The best finds were a big seaweed yellow ware bowl, a teal cone ink, a small swirl marble, and a highly dccorated handle-less cup. After filling it in we located another pit just past it. This one was a woodliner and was also shallow. It went back to about 1885 and held mostly all broken stuff. Nothing worth mentioning was pulled from this pit. Before leaving we located a deep stone liner up close to the house. According to our timeline it must be the oldest pit of the ones so far excavated. It was nearing dark and the constant smell of freshly disturbed doggy doodoo was wearing on our senses, so we packed it up and boogied. We will be going back soon if the weather holds. It was still a nice
and unexpected adventure, being the middle of January. Most Januaries see me staring into
my monitor at bottles on ebay. This winter I have my new bottle tumbling machine to keep
me busy while the wind blows and the daylight hours are few. We have several permissions
lined up and several more pending. We are gonna hit it HARD this year !!!
February 2nd 2002 A Hoosier Pit The Outhouse Pirate and I decided to go on a quest to find something to dig near the Ohio River. Indiana Rod was unable to partake in this days adventure due to a bunny slaughtering he was attending. We started our search in North Bend, Ohio. North Bend is about 15 miles downstream on the mighty Ohio River from Cincinnati. (As the crow swims) It was here that Judge John Cleves Symmes settled and built a blockhouse in 1788. It was also from here that William Henry Harrison campaigned for his 1840 election to the presidency. There were a few flasks associated with this event. One was the hard cider flask with the cider barrel pictured. Another was the reclusive, only two known, moss green cabin flask embossed Harrison/Tippecanoe. A small section of my brain was piping up and whispering into my ear that today we would find the third and only known intact version of the latter. Alas...it was not to be. We saw many great possibilities and even spoke to a couple folks but nothing of the immediate nature was composed. Up and down the river front we prowled. Cleves, North Bend, Addyston, Sailor Park, Anderson Fairy, and Riverside. We saw a great many mansions facing the river. We wandered what it must have been like to live as an aristocrat in the 1850's. These houses were owned by large corporation presidents, Railroad tycoons, Bridge Builders, etc.... We decided to move on downstream to the city of Lawrenceburg, Indiana where we already had a privy probed and waiting. We arrived there at 1:00 PM and new we would have to bust a move to get the pit dug, as we only had 5 hours of daylight left. To complicate the situation, the pit was located between a monster sized tree and a bass boat on a trailer with two flat tires.
This pit was full of cinder ash for the top three feet, and under the ash our probes felt nothing. We were taking a chance that it was a pit, but it was the only different feeling place in the back yard. After we got under the ash we used the 7 foot probe again and this time hit glass at about 8 feet from the surface. It was a woodliner so we guessed at the walls and dug down through the center. There were a few bottles in the fill and the extensive clay cap but they were abm. We held onto our hopes and kept on hacking. At 7 feet we encountered a layer that was only two inches thick and held nothing but broken pieces. A foot under that we hit a seedy use layer and started pulling up bottles. The first bottle was a faceted vapo cresoline co.
At least it was blown!!! The next few bottles were common blown examples like Dr. A. Boschee's German Syrup, Sanford's Jamaica Ginger, and an early bubbled Whittemore's / Boston. We also found a tea-set saucer, a citron fruit jar bail type closure, a painted china marble, and a doll babies leg. I was in the pit and handed up a six quart and a four quart stone ware jugs. Mike cornered a green Piso's Cure and two local Pharmacy bottles, an E.E. Ferris and Co. / Lawrenceburg, Ind., and a John C. McCollough druggist / Lawrenceburg, Ind.
Then I heard, "hey here's something weird". The weird thing was handed up and it appeared to be a painted over transfer porcelain salt shaker. Neato !!!.
The pit wend down to about 9 feet. We finished it of with a flurry of broken fruit jars, some of which were Hemingrays.
It was twi-light as we filled in the pit. We are missing the oldest pit on this property and will be returning for more probing. Meanwhile, our winter permission drive is coming along. We have a few choice places lined up. I'm CRAZY about this stuff !!!
February 9th We were scheduled to meet at our usual rendevous point at 9:00 am. Late the night before, my 5 year old boy, Edwin George Brater IV, came down with a fever and sore throat. I called my pals and told them I might be running late. As my day progressed, I realized I was not going to be able to make it at all. Hey, first things first !!! Privy digging is my passion but the wife and kids are the loves of my life. I didn't wheel in to the homestead untill after dark. I called Indiana and was mighty anxious to find out what treasures they had uncovered in my absence. I was informed that nothing at all was found. At first I thought they had just struck out with some bad luck. As it turns out, they had agreed to use the day filling in some of our previously dug pits which had settled. They also went to a new location to probe for pits. The pit we had all planned to dig was left untouched. They had decided to wait until I could join them at a later date. We had all dug three newer pits on this particular property and in consideration for my part of the effort of narrowing down the pits to the final remaining and oldest pit, decided to wait for good old yours truly to get in on the action. Camaraderie extraordinar !!!! A good dig bud is hard to find. I found two. Hats' off Boys, here's to you.
March 8th. A Missfire. Indiana had to do the Kid watchin' today so he was planning on meeting us after his wife got home at 3. Mike and I met at 9 am and headed down to the dig sight. This pit was in the yard where we had already dug three pits. We were hoping this pit would be nice and old. Half an hour after removing the sod we were approaching the 4 foot deep mark. What we thought was a stoneliner turned out to be just one course of fieldstone on top of an oval brick lined pit. We had sunk the 7 foot probe into the handle and did not hit bottom. As I was in the hole prying up a big chunk of topsoil, I heard this weird noise like water splashing a long distance away. I pulled up the chunk of dirt and saw the top of a vertical pipe, about 2 inches in diameter. Hmmm. Mike and I looked at the pipe and at each other. I used my foot to scrape some dirt into the pipe. Silence. Splash. WOW !!! That sounds deep! We had a moment of deep thinking. I hypothesized,"Ok, its a dug well that was later used for a pump well. Its probably filled to the bottom with fill dirt but the water from this pipe has crept up a bit and that's the splash we're hearing". The part that didn't fit in was the bricks. No mortar or lath and the walls were straight down, so not a cistern. But who builds a well out of bricks ??? NO-ONE that's who. It makes your water all red and gritty and the bricks decompose. I have never even heard of such an oddity. We thought that no matter what it was or however weird it might be, it could still have some glass in it, and depending on how long ago it was filled in could be old glass too. The pipe did age the pit to a more recent date than we wanted to admit, but we started digging again just to see what would happen. So far there had been a little ash but no glass shards to speak of. I walked over to get a swig of my Dew and heard an official sounding announcement from over my shoulder. "Were done", Mike said. Totally matter of factly. While the explanation of the oddity of the brick well made itself clear, we were disappointed in having to start filling in our only pit without a bottle in sight. The bricks had ended on the top of a round concrete wall. I know some folks like to collect bottles from the post 1900 era, but its been our experience to just run and run hard after the "C word" has been spoken. We boogied out. For the next two hours, we cased the neighborhood. We slinked like hungry serpents through the alleys. Our stealth was not online and it was obvious. The local humanoids were eyeing us with unchecked suspicion. We ignored the un-knowing glares of the homeowners as we stared holes through their stone foundations and swept their yards with the visual precision of the well trained urban goody finders that we had become. I presented three flyers to three people on three different front porches. Each one was positively received for a date in the near future. This season we are expecting to strike out many times. The more we do, the higher our odds get for the productive, loaded open pontil pit that only come after missing a few times. Hang out with us here and feel the adventure yourself. Seeya next weekend !!! Below is a picture of the pit
(well) hole with the sod removed.
Below is a picture of the sod in
the foreground and the hole in the back.
March 16th
A Foin Mess-a Privies Indianarockhead
ditched us this weekend so he could go plunder in regions of the unknown. Nice job Rod !!! Meanwhile, BACK at the hall of justice, I became panicky on friday night and went a-fishin' on my counties Auditors websight. I clicked my way into two nice old places. I looked up the owners in the phone book and called them up. Both were receptive and granted permission. Tim, the owner of an 1880's place, had remembered seeing our story in the local paper and had actually been meaning to try to find his own privies. We corraled him into helping and he jumped into the hole and started flinging dirt. OOps, I mean SOIL. (I had a soil expert e-mail me and ask me to stop insulting the soil by calling it dirt) Anyways, this pit was a kind of dissapointment. It turned up only a couple dozen 1920ish food and perfume bottles. Plastic caps included with most. We gave all the goodies to Tim. Tim is a super nice dude with a great family. Tim also has another "Subterainian Structure" in his yard that we plan on digging. We're not sure just what it is, but its stone lined and soft. Just kinda small at 3 by 3 for a privy, but Ive seen some wierd stuff doing this so who knows ? My other permission was behind an 1865 two story. Unfortunately most of the back was gravel parking. We saw an obvious depression and figured it was the most recent hole. About 6 feet away was a different probing area. We test holed it and after spud barring through about 10 inches of gravel it softened up a bit. At two feet we had some coal ash. At three we were under the ash in a dark "SOIL" layer. In this soil we found "DIRT" !!! No just kidding. We found a few yellow ware and red ware shards. We usually find those types of shards in old holes. Good old holes. They went down to about 5 feet and stopped into undisturbed clay. The lady came out and said how there was fill brought in to level the lot back in the 1800's. Through probing we came to the conclusion we were not in a privy but in a landfill. Before leaving I spoke to Mike, an old buddy I hadn't seen in awhile, when he pulled into the parking area of a big 1860's two story that sat in-between my two permissions. He filled me in on the story and the owners name. We took the opportunity to do a little pre-permission probing and I located a walled pit in the grass beside the gravel driveway. Sweeeeet ! I called the owner later that night and we dig there next weekend.
Above, the sod. Below, the pit.
Visitors to this page may have heard me speak of how my counties Auditors websight is one of my most powerful permission getting tools. Below I have a picture from the map feature of this sight of about half of my city where we dig. The red X's show where we have been, the blue circles show my latest permissions, and where we will be digging in the near future. Rod also has 4 or 5 permissions that are on the other side of town.
Seeya next weekend.
March 24th The Outhouse Pirate was busy with his sons sporting events so Indiana and I went on the quest for bottles. We wheeled up on a big two story circa 1865 home in Downtown Harrison. I had probed a pit there last weekend. I re-probed the location of the stone walls and marked the sod. This thing was really big !!! It measured about 5 by 7 feet. We decided to do a test hole to find out the composition of the walls and to look for age in the debris. The walls were a mystery. Inside of the stone walls were brick walls. The bricks only went down about two feet, or 7 courses. They ended on top of the fill. Wierd.... The debris was fairly new but then again we only dug about three feet deep. Many times the old pits will have slowly sunk by that much over the years and various junk would have been thrown in as a means to filling it. Rain was in the forcast and it was approaching the noon hour so we decided this pit was going to be too big for just the two of us to complete in the five hour time we had in front of us so we fillderin. We went over to the other side of town to probe one of Indiana's permissions. This was an 1870's brick two story. We quickly found a stonelined pit in the corner of the lot. About that time the Pirate called and informed us his familial obligations had been met and his departure for the sake of adventure was looming. We met him at Arbies and decided we would fill in a "sinker" before we continued our quest. (Sinker ; a pit we had dug that settled below ground level) It took us a half an hour and the sinker was leveled, seeded and strawed. We then proceded over to the newly probed pit. It was also very large at about 4 by 7. We opened up one side to get a look at the walls. The walls were stone. So far so good. We removed the sod from half the pit and down we went. About a foot deep we encountered a chunk of concrete that was 10 inches thick, 16 inches wide, and 6 feet long. It must have weighed around 400 pounds. Lucky for us it was only a foot deep, and we just flipped it out of the pit. We took half of the
pit all the way to the bottom at 7 feet. I do not reccomend ever doing this unless you
have experience evaluating fill for its probability in caving in. This fill was almost all
clay. No ash layer, and no fluffy use. The undug half of the pit stuck well and stayed
put. The bottles in the top 5 feet were mostly abm. At 6 feet we were into blown bottles
and cornered a few keepers. I found a cobalt john wyeth and searched for the dose cap but
to no avail. I also found a strange ink with a place for the quill to rest. It says
sanford's on the bottom. We got matching set of matching sets; two "Zorne's
Pharmacy" / Cincinnati, and two older hinge mold "B.O. & G.C. Wilson's
Botanic Druggists / Boston". Indiana handed up a slick with "Coke Dandruff
Cure" on the bottom, and a Dr. Kilmers Kidney Sample bottle. There were some broken
Cincinnati blob top beers that were too smashed to identify, and a few green and amber
wines with the high kick-ups and string lips. At the very bottom and resting on the gravel
floor I found a broken
Below is Indiana Rod, and the "slot" where the monster chunk-o
concrete was.
After finding the flask on the bottom, we paid extra special attention do making sure we dug into the gravel base everywhere within the pit. Seems like sometimes a pit can age ten or twenty years in the verticle space of just a few inches. After digging through all of the newer stuff it would be a shame to leave the old stuff just a few inches under where the digging stopped. Our motto, (one of many) DIGGUM TO THE BOTTOM AND CHECK THE CORNERS !!! Next weekend, more digging, more bottles, more adventure.
March 30th Easter Eve. This fine
spring Saturday brings the three Privy digging amigo's to another We unloaded and threw down onit. At three feet deep we were into a mixed fill. Indiana Rod popped in about that time. He was renting out Easter bunnies all morning. (you get half your money back if you return the bunny after Easter when you realize you can't take care of it and your little darling ignores it and maybe plays with it a little too hard, or if it BITES the CRAP out of you) Indiana opened the back door of his truck cap and WHIPPED out his most important digging tool, his lawn chair.
Rod helped dig and then took over most of the bucket duty. At around 5 feet we hit some seeds and a change in SOIL. I was in the pit and scratched out the base of a fruit jar along the wall. It was an aqua Mason's pat 1858 hgc quart with a weird offcenter star on the base. Soon another jar rolled out and it was a "Hamilton" clear quart. The use layer was slim at about 10 inches thick and a little deeper along the back wall. The pit was choked to death with round cobble rocks and bricks. Yes I know what you're thinking....Lovely. Step on the shovel, it twists sideways taking your foot with it. Start all over, same thing. Get frustrated and start doing the power side scrape. Shovel now bounces along top of rocks..... Big Fun !!! The stone wall turned out to be just mass gobs of cobbles stuck to the side of the previously wood lined walls. As usual, it ended before we wanted it to at about 1880. Other bottles we found were, a smooth base aqua "George Deffren" Cincinnati squat soda, a couple more Mason's, an unembossed aqua wax sealer with a hemi base mold. a "Louis W. Sauer Chemist / Cincinnati", a "mellon" food sample, a super tiny play type infant feeder bottle about an inch tall, a porcelain baby dolls head, and a cobalt syringe plunger.
We wrapped it up and had the sod back on by 3 PM. We decided to hop the fence and dig the stonelined "thing" on the neighbors property where we had dug a few weeks ago. We removed the sod and dug down about two feet where Rod stomped his shovel in about two more feet and almost fell into the hole. There was a large air pocket in what turned out to be a round well. No age indicators had us poking the long probe into it time after time just to see if we could at least hit some glass, giving us a small ray of something to shoot for. It felt totally sterile so we filled it in. We had to deal with putting the air space back into the hole, which aint easy. Lucky for us the homeowner had a recently deposited pile of waste SOIL piled in the corner of his yard, so we liberated it for the cause. Our dues are
up to date but our luck is running late. Next weekend...same privy time....same privy channel.
Saturday April 6th 2002
Yum Yum !!! Dry Pea Beans !!! Thanks Uncle Sam !!! Yea. Here is what digging in the country gets you.....and this was out of the older of the two pits we dug. These two pits were on the property of an 1840's place. The yard is huge. If we really want the old pits we will have to grid probe for hours, maybe days. There is no sewer in the small one horse town where we were digging. Privies were used right up to present times. It adds about a hundred years worth of pits to the yard. Tip-O-The-Week is.......Dig in a town that has a sewer system. Country places CAN pay off, and they are
mostly worth at least a quick look, Next weekend, we will be digging in
town. The open pontiled bottles are calling my name.
May 4th A Northside Dig The Pirate secured this permission. The now empty lot was located in the north side of Cincinnati, in a neighborhood called, Northside. The house had been torn down recently by the city. It dated to the 1850's and had a rather largish yard by inner city standards. We decided to meet at Mikes place and then follow him over to the sight. Rod called me about 60 seconds before he was due to show up at my place and said his alarm clock didn't go off and he would be running late. Mike and I arrived at the sight and hacked in to a pit he had probed a few days before. This was a new one on us. The pit, originally thought to be a wood liner, had walls that started about two feet down. They were made of lathed over brick, like a cistern, but these walls were square and went straight down. Vedy intedesting !!! At four feet we were into tons of cinder ash. At five feet I hit what I thought was a brick. Then I noticed there was a laid floor to this pit. It was also made of lathed over brick. This pit measured about 7' by 7' square, and being lathed it left no doubt in our minds that it was meant to hold water. I am thinking it was a "fire cistern", as this house was the largest and earliest in a group of many. Mike had three more suspicious spots probed so we "bailed" on the fire cistern and hopped three feet down the side property line to the next one. This pit was also and correctly geussed to have no walls. That is not to say that it was a woody, as we were unable to dig or probe to the perimeter. This must have been a dumping area. More cinder ash was found in this hole (I'm not calling it a pit anymore). We opened up two other holes a few feet further down the line and had about the same results. There was some glass mixed in with the fill, and lots of terra-cotta flower pots. The age of the fill was mixed in its own context. We were finding mostly the newer type of flower pots with the squared edges, a few metal screw cap amber ABM bottles, and even some plastic, mixed in with chards of smooth base blob soda's, flow blue ceramics, and a broken aqua hinge-mold base Pikes peak traveler / eagle flask. It went something like, "I wanna quit, I wanna keep goin, I wanna quit, I wanna keep goin." Rod had arrived around eleven ocklock and started pulling buckets. He dissapeared into some high weeds on the edge of the property and in a loud voice, from within the weeds, anounced that he "had a large woody". Mike and I looked at each other with a raised eyebrow. "This thing must be at least 14 inches long", said Rod. He came out of the weeds and sure enough, he DID have a large woody. He had found a Woody doll from the Toy Story movie. We hit the bottom of hole #2 at about 5 feet and Mike started following the bottom foot outward toward the unknown. A foot or so into his mole hole he found the top of a stone ware jug. It was intact and was located inside of a big metal can. Talk about mixed age, here was an 1870's salt glazed jug INSIDE of a 1940's galvanized steel garbage can. Mike handed it up to me without too much of a second glance and I read the stencil on the side. "Jas. Benjamin Stoneware Depot. Cincinnati, Ohio." "Yea right", Mike said. He thought I was joking as he had the stenciling turned away from him as he handed it up. I slowly revolved the jug with a big smile on my face untill he could see the stenciling. Then it was Mike who was wearing the big smile. I got into the hole and began hacking at the wall in a different location. I was pretty high up, only about three feet down from ground level, when my shovel SMACKED into a bottle. I removed a nice Warners Safe Liver Kidney Cure from the wall of the hole. Beside it was a Lydia Pinkums Vegetable Compound. That was the last bottle found for the day. It was a wierd day of digging. I don't think we were ever in an actuall privy. We probed some more but came up empty. An old friend of mine who I went to high school with lives a few houses up the street and he said he could get us boocoo permissions around the neighborhood. Northside, we shall return.
Next weekend we have our choice of two 1860 places in Harrison. Maybe we will dig them both. Until we dig again, Bottleviking, Outhousepirate, and Indiana-Rod.
Sunday May 19th. Alllllrightythen. This fine spring Sunday brings us to another Harrison, Ohio privy dig. Mr. Outhouse Pirate was feeling a little under the weather today. My brother and I spent the morning metal detecting in the yards of some of my past privy digging permissions. Our hopes were high, but by the end of the day, our pockets were filled with matchbox cars, memorial cents, and other crapola. Around 11:30 the pirate called me on my digital phone and said his day-quill was kicking in and he was ready to dig. He had a low fever and a bad cough but as long as he could draw oxygen through at least one nostril he was game. (See "Hard Core" in the banner above) I ran my brother home and met mike at about 12:30. We wheeled down to check out the two permissions I had in town. While I was talking to the apprehensive but super nice 95 year old home owner, Mike probed up a pit on the side property line. "That's not where I remember the outhouse being", said the homeowner. "Great", I said, "As we don't want to dig into anything that ANYONE can remember. We opened up the
pit and away we went. At four feet we found a large blown rectangular amber whiskey. At
six feet we were into a two foot thick layer packed with 1880's glass. The Bromo-Seltzer's
were thick as flies, as were the stove polishes. A few local druggists bottles popped out.
We found four different types of biXby polish bottles, three different types of Carters
cone inks, two different types of carters barrel inks, and three different types of
sanfords inks.
Mike finally got the big lid up and it was intact. He also pulled up a neat black transfer lid with a piece missing, and then the piece also.
We also got a really cool green pressed glass perfume and a cool little Sherwin Williams Paint bottle.
This was not the killer pontil pit but it was fairly loaded and felt like the real thing again. Before we left Mike probed another shallow woody behind the pit we dug. We shall return for more goodies next weekend. Pee Sout.
May 27th The Memorial day dig. I really wasn't expecting to dig this weekend. My wife, her Mother, her Sister, and our Daughter went to the Biltmore estate in North Carolina, and left me home to watch the 5 year old perpetual whirlwind known as "Little Eddie". We went fishing on Saturday and caught our limit of nice crappie, and had us a fish fry. On Sunday we walked up the street to watch the oldest continuously celebrated Memorial day service in the state of Ohio. First service 1805. Then we charred carcass on the grill in the form of two strip steaks, and then practiced T-ball, went rollerblading, and went to the fireworks store to buy some things that go "sparkle". By Monday I was mostly beat and was looking forward to relaxing and watching the Boy spin off energy on the rope swing in the back yard. The Outhouse Pirate had other plans for me. He called me at 11:00 am and asked if I was busy. Without asking I knew what he was up to. He had an un-scheduled midday privy dig in mind. I told him I would have to call him back after I checked on something. I called and by a stroke of good fortune my Mom was at home and ready and willing to ride the whirlwind. I dropped off "Me Jr." and away I went. This dig is at the same location as the last one. My source of information said the house was built in 1880. We had dug an 80's pit here already. Then there was the pit that the homeowner could remember, (which we didn't dig) and then there was this mystery pit about a foot away from the 80's pit. We were hoping my source was wrong and that the house was older. Its location on the Avenue made it prime. When I got to the dig Mike already had the top 2 feet off. As I was getting out of my van he yelled over the fence and asked me if he got to keep everything he found so-far. "Well NO". I said, and I ran over to see what he had. "There it is", he said, and on the corner of the tarp was four miniscule pieces of broken ironstone. He laughed at me, rather than with me, and I joined in. At three feet the bottles just started POPPING out of the fill. Unfortunately they were very discouraging being barely blown graduated medicines and an amber abm Lysol. Wheeee ! Mike got into the pit after I had halved it down to about 4 feet and when he said he had another bottle I wasn't too overly concerned. Here is the bottle in-situ.
He yanked it out and said, "Hey it's open pontil" !!! "Yea right" I said. "Fool me once fool me twice and all that". He smiled and WHIPPED the base of the bottle up so it was facing me. It WAS open pontil. He kept digging and found a couple more broken o.p. bases. I took a turn in the pit at about 4.5 feet and after a little fluffing came upon a nest of bottles. This is where the whole weekend took on a surreal feeling. The next two hours were a blur of excitement and glory. The pit contained quite a few open pontil embossed bottles. We bottomed out in this woodliner at about 6 feet deep. Broken bottles included a killer green-amber op snuff jar, THREE op "Wright's Premium Katharion for the hair / Philida", and THREE ten sided ip "Wilke Mineral Water" soda's. Intact bottles included; op Dr. Hooflands
German Bitters / Phila.
There was also some
killer decorated yellow ware and rockingham in the pit, but nothing intact as usual. Before we filled in the pit, Mike probed up another pit a few feet behind this one. I think I have another pit probed next door also. Like Chico used to say, "Looookiiiing Goooood !!! We finished loading the trucks just as a big thunderstorm hit. It was perfectly timed by perfect accident, and we were perfectly content.
Seeya next weekend !!!
June 2nd. Like last weekend, the Pirate called me on a day where neither of us thought we would be able to dig. Turns out...we both could. A pre-probed privy is a hard thing to ignore. Things like mowing grass and weeding vegetable gardens suddenly become way less important. Wifey gave me a look so I promised to mow before I left. Have you ever ran with a push mower through soaking wet 6 inch tall grass ? I have. We met about noon at the dig site, which is at the same location as the last two pits. Each pit we had dug got older as we moved in one direction down the side property line and the last pit was pontiled so our hopes were pretty high. We started right in and got the hole down to about three feet when we realized we were off by about half and moved the hole over. Mike plucked out a couple of clear slicks and then a minute later pulls up a big square broken base. It said "ter's" over top of "ter's". It was apparently a Hostetter's Bitter's. The thing was, it was moss green and whittled like crazy. That got the dirt flying out of the hole pretty fast. The next thing he found was the base of a Guysotts yellow dock and sarsaparilla. My turn in the pit had me finding and tossing up many BROKEN embossed op meds. There were many of them, all broken. To add to the frustration of the killer but smashed bottles, I was finding intact op puffs. Right beside the puffs were broken ip sided Cinci soda's. Weird how the thick stuff was smashed and the paper thin puffs were mostly all whole without so much as a chip on their flared lips. I had just unearthed a nice puff when I caught the gleam of green in my eye. I told Mike, "Hey I got something green down here". He said, "well lets have something green up here". I fished the green glass out of the fluff to discover a GW Merchant bottle....busted. Ouch !!! Right below it I saw the tell tale ripples of a scroll flask. It came out in two pieces with a third one missing.
"Time for a change of Mojo", I announced. "Mine is off today". Mike hopped into the pit and within a minute handed up an op Louisville flask....Broken in three. "Hey leave off my Mojo", I said. Mike did not laugh."Maybe you and your Mojo are still too close to the pit", he said. Then he laughed.
He de-fluffed the
hole and said,"Hey I got something yellow down here". "Well lets have
something yellow up here", I said.
The Bowls, Jugs, Crocks, Plates, (and bottles to a lesser degree), are always broken on the side that is away from the digger. For some reason it always seems this way in a privy dig. The cool stuff never has a hole in it on the side that you dig out first. We were not counting our chickens on this yellow ware potty yet. Mike kept saying how he knew it would be broken as most stuff in this pit was smashed up pretty good. He finally pulled the potty free from the pits grasp and......SUWEEET !!!!!
It was near perfect with only a teensy chip in the glazing on the base. It seems smaller than a regular chamber pot but bigger than a childs whimsey pot. Kind of in-between. Mike finished off the shallow 5 foot woody with 4 more perfectly intact puffs and a broken op med. base that said ****sdale / surgeon / Cincinnati. The sea weed yellow ware potty alone was worth the effort of the dig. It was hard to look down at all the killer broken stuff but at the same time it was hard to be bitter after the intact potty. We have dug several sea-weed and mocha worm decorated yellow ware items but they have always been broken, even beyond the tacky glue. This piece will certainly sweeten the pick pile. On the last dig we left the kind homeowner a few of the cobalt blue Bromo-seltzer bottles we found. She was delighted as she said that both she and her daughter inlaw collected blue glass. On this dig I had brought a couple of the larger sized blue Bromo's with me to give to her. If you've never heard a ninety five year old lady squeel like a ten year old girl, your really missing something. She was overcome with excitement when I handed them to her. I could see the little girl that she used to be shining out of her bright blue eyes. Even without the potty the dig was worthy and successfull for that moment alone. Priceless !!! Before we left we hopped the fence into a yard where we dug last year. This place was listed as an 1875 home and the pit we dug last year was an 1875 pit. We probed adjacent to today's op pit and found two pits, a woody and a stony. We will be sure to head back over there in a few short days, or as soon as the grass needs mowing again, whichever comes first. Tune in again soon
for more...
June 22nd Are you ready for some exciting news ???? ME TOO !!! We did manage to sneak a dig in a couple of weeks ago. It was at the same place where we just dug the last three pits with the op meds and the sea-weed potty. Actually it was next door. This is the pit we found just over the fence from one of the op pits. We thought we had two pits, a stony and a woody. The woody turned out to be a FLUKE. Our probes were fooled. Our probes are very proud (for probes) and they do not like being fooled. They were very angry and avenged themselves by verifying that the stone liner was indeed a pit. We forgave their transgression and over confidence, and poked them into the ground nearby to bob in the breeze and watch the dig, as they are so fond of doing. The stony was right across from the neighbors op pit so we were hoping they were back to back outhouses of the same period. (there we go trying to utilize logic in a field that has room for none.) Not to be. This outhouse stood long after its over-the-fence counterpart had been termite food. It was a nineties pit full of nineties stuff. Lots of ketchup's and polish bottles. We did manage to pull out a few interesting items. One was a BIG doll baby head, intact, and debossed as a "Heubach Koppelsdorf 250.4". We also got a very desirable local pint milk bottle that says "Roll Loos / West End Dairy / Harrison, Ohio". We also got a nice clay reed pipe and a teensy little German stein, about the size of my big toe. I'm thinking this is what the German baby doll used to drink her beer out of. They were rusty and dirty but I dumped the works liquid toilet cleaner to the dolls head and tumbled the milk. Now they shine !!!
This weekend was a different story. I had a permission at an 1865 place in town. The backyard bordered a factory and there was a ten foot high chain link fence around the factory. We located a single pit in the back corner. It was a stone liner. We dug a test hole that went about 5 feet deep looking for age. The bottom probed at 6 foot deep and at 5 feet we found a bunch of plastic so we fillderin. For some reason, all the other backyards on this street went about ten feet farther back than this one. The fence around the factory took a big jog into what used to be the backyard of this property. We stuck our long probe through the fence and found a pit on the other side. The factory had encroached our pit !!! I know the factory owner and have done work for him in the past. Reckon I will be talking to him soon. From this disappointment we decided to go back to the lot where the op stuff had come from. After digging two op pits we figured that was it and didn't probe anymore. We decided to probe just to make sure we were not missing anything. We found yet another pit way in the back. I asked the 95 year old homeowner if this was where the outhouse she remembered used to stand. She assured me it was not so we cracked it open. Mike shoved his shovel into the top and right away dropped about a foot through an air space. We started pulling our prizes right off the top. First was a nice orange hotwheel track with a hot pink track splicer still attached to one end, longing, I am sure, for the day where once again another piece of track could be slid onto it to join with the first. We also found some rare bread baggies and loads of other plastic in great colors, but with very little whittle. We "test holed" till we were holding our long shovels by the last four inches of handle wood. We were still pulling up 1950 in big ugly piles. And that is the sad
song this update ends with. More dues paid, closer again to the killer pit. Next weekend
we follow up with
June 29th. Today Mike and I decided to go investigate a permission that Mike had from awhile back. He had done a test hole on this spot and hit water at only 2 feet a few months ago. We probed it and hit no glass but felt some layers. We opened it up and for the first four feet found coal and brick mixed in with a clayish fill. At four feet the clay stiffened up considerably. Further probing told us this was the end of whatever it was we were digging. Most likely it was a cleanly dipped pit. I had my digital camera all ready to take pictures of the magnificent horde we were going to find today, but since there was no horde, magnificent or otherwise, I just took some picture of our expert sod restoration.
And below is Mike.
I'm still
working on the factory dig, and we have others lined up as well, Is anyone else
digging in this heat ? Seeya Next Weekend !!!
July 13th, 14th, and 15th. Friday night, an expected knock at my front door brought a wide eyed reaction to my wife and kids. All motion ceased and faces froze like a foursome of deer caught in the beams of xenon headlights. We were expecting the "film guy", and he was here. The "film guy's" name is Mike. I wasn't sure what to expect. I had been talking with him through e-mail and on the phone for months, and he seemed to be a normal person. After meeting him in person and talking it was clear he wasn't one of those Hollywood types. I would like to give more information about Mike and his accomplishments in film, and I probably will later, but since sensitive negotiations and planning are still underway, I will leave that for a later time. What I can say is Mike and his camera man Johnny are super nice dudes. Very polite and professional yet personable and funny also. During the three hours we talked that night I learned much about the project outline and goals, direction, market options, camera angles, and what to expect in general. I filled Mike in on the digging process, site layout, time frames, obstacles, and also, what to expect in general. Since they had brought the gear to the initial interview, and since we had places to dig and people to see, they were planning to start shooting the next morning. Saturday We met at Arbys and after introductions were made we were quickly off to the dig site. I had finally managed to get ahold of the very busy factory owner and got the go-ahead. No Problemo. The 8 foot high chain link fence completely surrounded the factory. The owner said he could get a key if I needed one but he did not think that I would. I did. He was unavailable and there we stood. Instead, we set up two 8 foot step ladders, one on each side of the fence, and had us an impromptu hillbilly staircase. The pirate questioned what this may appear as to the neighbors but we remembered that we have the local police force well in our control. This town loves their local privy digging, bottle displaying, historical presentation giving, general good cheer spreading citizens, and we are their only ones !!! After stabbing the depression that first drew us to the greener grass of the other side of the fence, I kind of wished I HAD been arrested before I got started. There was simply nothing there. I actually caught myself looking back through the fence eyeballing the yard where we came from. I stabbed that yard a gazillion times already !!! Fences, especially see through ones, mess with peoples minds. Little Voice,-"I gotta get on the other side of this fence. It looks the same as it does on this side but it must be better because there is a fence up to prevent me from getting there. THATS where all the privies are !!!" So we came to our senses and to the conclusion that nothing was on either side of the fence. We accessed the hillbilly escalator, gathering it up behind us, and had us a pow-wow out on the sidewalk. We had a huge 1830's place to probe out in Shandon Ohio, est. 1804, and home of the never-old-privies. It was decided that before we make the drive we would re-check on a hard to nail permission just a few houses down. Luck must have momentarily switched back in our direction as the elusive homeowner was at home. Permission was quickly obtained and we headed into the backyard to start probing. We located a pit on the side property line. This pit was directly adjacent to a pit we had dug on the neighboring property a few months ago. After probing out three stone walls we determined that this was actually the 2nd half of that same pit, as yet undug. We knew that the first half of the pit only dated back into the late 80's but figured we would go for it anyway. The pit was easy diggin'. No roots, rocks, or bricks. ABM ketchup's and crown top beers was the stock of the pit. As we neared the bottom at about 7 feet our efforts were briefly rewarded with a single good piece, a J.J. Butler / Cincinnati dome ink.
It was about 3:30 PM when we finished restoring the yard, and we decided to boogy out to Shandon to check out the 1830's place. 20 minutes later we pulled into the driveway of the big brick federal style ell. The owner had shown me where a concrete pit liner was poking its head above the ground along the side property line. Within a few minutes I located another walled pit about ten feet away. More probing revealed nothing else in the immediate area so we opened it up. This pit was two feet away from the largest silver maple tree I've ever seen. It was HUGE !!! Our fears were well justified by a quarrelsome tangle of roots that tormented us all the way to the bottom of this pit. It took us about three hours to dig 6 feet deep through the roots and our grand prize of the pit was a huge assortment of diddly-squat. After restoring another skunker we decided that we would make this weekend a two-dayer and meet in the morning to go check out a stony that the Pirate already had probed on the lot of an 1865 in St. Bernard. Sunday. I met Rod and the film crew at arbys at 8:00 and we headed out to Mikes. The dig site was just around the corner from his house. There was going to be at least one known complication to this dig; the pit was 3/4ths under a concrete slab/sidewalk. This was a stony and there was an obvious depression. We started right in by removing mucho modern day tossings such as chunks-o concrete, bottles and cans of recent origin, plastic bags, etc.... After an hour or so we got enough cleared out to actually get under the slab and started pulling buckets. Another hour later we were able to stand under the slab. Another complication arose as the pit was choked to death with rocks, concrete chunks, and bricks. Several buckets were hand loaded with this bain of the privy digger. AT about 7 feet deep I stuck the 7 foot probe through the floor without hitting the bottom, or even a layer of glass. Gonna be a deep one. It took much of the day to get down to the 13 foot level. We had halved the pit at 8 feet and had a substantial shelf going. Again I tried the 7 foot probe through the floor of the deep side and again hit no bottom and no layer of glass. We had been finding stray bottles here and there but they were within the fill context and were mostly ketchup's and crown top beers. It was approaching late evening and we had to decide to either fill it in or cover it up and return the next day to try to finish it up. We decided to return on Monday.
Monday Rod and the film guys met around 11:30 am and headed out to the site to meet Mike. I arrived an hour or so later after neglecting the 2nd half of my workday. When I got there, Rod was glad to see me. He put the bucket straight into my hand, wheezed, "Its a long haul up dude", and flopped into his fancy new lawn chair with the footrest and pillow. Down we went. At around 14 feet we hit water. Right under that we hit a gooey black and green substance that smelled like eggs and old farts. I wonder what that stuff was ? Ha !!! The next 3 hours was worse than mid-evil torture. It took every ounce of mind control to keep from scrambling up the ladder and running down the sidewalk screaming. Feet stuck in 6 to 10 inches of the GREENEST pit slop ever encountered by this digger. Rod was jacked up in the back pretty bad and was asking Mike and I what was wrong with us. He was ready to fillerin. Methane predominated our lung space, the tiny opening making the entry of oxygen into the pit almost non existent. Every bucket of slop that went up sent the splatter of green matter down onto head and arms and neck. We had to dig a sloppy hole into the low side of the pit, let the sediments settle, and bail the water out until the level dropped, before we could take down anymore fill without it turning into a pitwide quagmire. Finally after advancing another 4 feet or so, as we were preparing to take down the high side of the pit, mike reached into the soupy bailer hole and extracted some kind of crown top. It was his very last nerve that then imploded upon itself and he smashed the bottle into the slop bucket sending a geyser of poo-water in an arc that terminated onto his lap. He ascended the ladder with the face of a madman, and when his goo-splattered head poked out of the tiny opening into the steaming hot sunlight, engulfed with a misty cloud of pit vapor, it was truly a scary sight. After a mighty intake of un-altered atmosphere he regained just enough composure to politely state that he was all done. The pit FROM Hell, the pit TO Hell, whatever. It was misery incarnate. I was so glad to be done with it I lost interest in anything that might be at the bottom. With the way things were going I'm sure it would have been a ketchup bottle anyway. It took us 3 entire hours to fill the pit in and make restoration. A big thanks to our buddy Bruce who came to help fill the monster in. The bottles we got included several local Cincinnati pre-pro. crown top beers and one of those hyundia junos bitterquelle's. We gave all of them to the homeowner, who was delighted to have them.
Mike, the film guy, had said that it was also important to capture the uncompensated trials and tribulations that we encounter, as well as the easy digging, loaded pits. He surely got a camera full of that this weekend. We dug a total of about 32 vertical feet over the course of three days for one keeper bottle. Dedicated or just plain nuts ? I'm not so sure anymore. Bahaha**%%4# heeeheee HAHAhaha **&%# !!!! Seeya next weekend, sanity willing.
July 27th Today's adventure began at 8:30 AM when Mike and Rod, (AKA Indiana and the Outhouse Pirate), met me in my driveway. We had a few fresh permissions to choose from. It was decided that we would go investigate the backyard of yet another country place. The place had its roots in the area's history as the home of Thomas Pottenger, son of Samuel Pottenger, who purchased the 602 acre farm in 1815. The house wasn't built until 1870. This place had the typical HUGE country farm yard. It sure looked allot smaller when driving by at 55 miles an hour. Once we were standing in it, it was slightly overwhelming. There was a concrete sidewalk that led to no-where so we concentrated on the area surrounding it. Near the end of it we found a pit and test holed to get a look at the wall. The walls turned out to be made from the same material as the sidewalk. YUCK. We tromped about the yard, poking at depressions and trying to employ our feeble logic. The area around the concrete lined pit was probed for several yards in each direction. The semi-drought we have been in has made the ground as hard as rock. We were fixing to decide on where to go next when I walked over to a barely discernable depression up fairly close to the back of the addition. "Snap, pop, crack !!!" Okaydian !!! We probed up the four walls on this rectangular pit, sidled up a tarp, and threw down onit. The top foot was like armor and hard to pierce. Mike went to his truck and came back with spuddy-buddy, the spud bar. Spuddy made short work of the hard ground and within just two feet we had shards and seeds. The seeds and use on the outside of the two short walls was pushed up higher than in the middle, from the splashing action of the final capping. The shards were promising, being sick and bubbly. Bottles started coming up and were all blown. Mostly consisting of polishes, slicks, and a couple of Carter inks. At around four feet we hit solid glass and seed. This would continue down to about 6 1/2 feet where the bottom was waiting for us.
As I was taking pictures, Rod said, "Hey lets make fun of me being lazy again, I like that". So he went and stretched out in his fancy new lawn chair and struck a slothenly pose. I took the picture, but it wasn't as much fun as before, as now I know he actually LIKES it !!! Lol.
Mike was in the pit and handed up a smooth base "genuine essence". A minute later he handed up another, only open pontiled. We were finding many shards of fruit jars, typical of a country privy. Flashes of yellow amber slowed us down a bit and we collected enough chards to learn they were mostly from "lightning" quart jars. An intact un-embossed wax sealer with a hemi. base mold was found intact. More chards told their sad tale of the vessels they once were. Three brighton quart jars and a brighton lid, 2 rb# 706, Crystal jar" lids, 2 rb # 1053, "Gem jar" lids, and a rb # 1308, Independent" lid, all chipped or broken. Mike was defluffing from halving the pit to the bottom when I jumped in. Before hacking away with the scratcher, I took a close look at the 30 inch wall of glass in front of me. A small glimpse of green caught my eye and I put a dirty index finger on it and started carefully wiggling. It didn't take much and the wall slid, leaving in my hand a deep green "Staffords" master ink. Kewl !!!
The intact take was as follows; Frechtling
wholesale grocer / Hamilton, Ohio
It suuuuure felt good to rake through a nice layer again. Yes indeedy !!! We rapped it
up at around 3:30 and went just up the road to probe at another country farm, this one
built in 1802. Yes that's 1802. Next Saturday, my pardners and I will be setting up a display at the Harrison Art Festival. The following day, Sunday, we will be digging at a fresh permission I got in Newport KY. Land of the DEEP and home of the RARE. I got this permission over the phone after cruising through the local "for sale by owner" home adds. Ooops, I've given away another tip, supposed to be exclusive to the soon to be completed book, "Advanced Privy Digging". Huhwhaa ??!!?? Seeya soon Bottleheads.
Saturday August 3rd Today the three bottle digging junkies find themselves in the small back yard of an 1870 brick 2 story in old Newport Kentucky. This permission was secured by myself after strolling through the for-sale-by-owner picture real estate adds. This weekend we are again joined by those wacky film guys Mike and Johnny. Mike, a connoisseur of sauces , brought us all a bottle of Goya Mojo. Welcome back fellers !!! "Hi I'm calling about the house that’s for sale". "Oh yes how can I help you" ? "Well, I'm not really interested in buying it, I just want to dig a giant hole in your back yard". "Well you sound like a nice young man you just go right ahead
then". A shed sat squarely in the center of the back yard. Mike walked over to the hidden corner of the yard and stuck his probe into a pit. We checked but found no others, so we cracked it open. Here would be a good place to mention that just two days prior to this, I was in the emergency room writhing on a bed in the pangs of delivering what felt like a bowling ball sized kidney stone. My second in 7 years, thank you. After they hit me with dimeral I was able to go get scanned and the little devil showed up in my utera. I'm naming him "Jag" he's so cute. Anyway, the stone was still in me on todays dig. No passage. The pain was mostly gone, but I was under the orders of my doctor "not to sweat", as he believed the high temps and the sweat flopping nature of my work and hobby had dehydrated me. So I told Mike and Rod they would have to carry me a bit and that I might need to rest more often than usual. They agreed, then promptly worked my ass into the ground to the depth of 10 feet on a 98 degree steamer of a day. Lol. This pit was a round stone liner. It was packed with rocks and bricks down to about 6 feet. Just when it loosened up and we were beginning to be able to use the shovels once again, we hit water. The bottles so far had been pretty new, mostly slicks with a crown top beer or two. We dug a bailer hole into the floor of the pit and started bucketing out the poo-poo-soup. Finally at about 8 feet we hit a layer. Being beside and behind a garage we had nowhere to put the dirt pile except for out in front of the building. Every bit of dirt (and bricks, good lord don't forget the bricks) was hauled up and out with 5 gallon buckets a distance of about 15 feet to the tarp. We were lucky enough to find a low spot hidden in the other back corner of the lot, into which we dumped the water. A wet privy, or one that is holding water, in a pristine back yard can be a problem. Where to dump the black water and floating seeds ? I have found a way to get rid of the water even in the most well manicured lawn. Its AALLLLLLL in the book folks. Lol. Bottles recovered were; Broken Mason's Pat 1858 #5, Hack &Simon / Vincenes Ind. Crown top aqua beer, Geo. C. Ware / Cincinnati hutch., 12 sided aqua umbrella, 3 barrel mustards, Dr. Pierce's Golden Med. Disc., Feldman Dairy / Newport, KY. At 10 feet we were done. We probed through the floor and made sure the stone walls ended and then began carrying the dirt back over to the pit and dumpiner in. We also were able to clean up the area behind the shed as we fillederin, getting rid of branches and old rotting wood as we went. After filling it and raking it smooth it looked brand new back there. Seed and straw topped it off and we agreed, in light of the slim pickings of todays dig, to meet tomorrow morning for another day of fun, filth, and fatigue. Sunday August 4th With four boneless chicken breasts marinading in the Goya Mojo, I met Mike, Rod, and the film crew at arbys and…. I know we always meet at stupid arbys, and I wish it was a more poetic and historical sounding place like, "the old grist mill", or "Tanners Creek covered Bridge". But hey I'm not making this shit up so…at stupid yet convenient arbys we met, and peeled out to a place so old it had me a bit shaky. This was a place I passed by many times and looked at with a gleam in my eye. I had heard news from down the pike that the fellow who lived there was into the history of the house and not likely to let anyone look around. Rod pulled a few strings and got the come-on-over so here I was after driving by so many times pointing the nose of my van into the driveway of the ancient looking stone house. A man came out the back door and greeted us. He introduced himself as Bob and explained some of the history of the house. It was built in 1815 on the lot where the log cabin stood. The 630 acres was deeded by Thomas Jefferson in 1805. In the 1830's the house was occupied by the original family, whos headmaster acted as the stationmaster for all of the stations on the Whitewater Canal, which ran by the front of the house. It would have been this mans charge to regulate the tolls collected by the many other stations up and down the canal. Bob also mentioned that there was told to be buried money somewhere on the property. All this information was overwhelming, especially after we probed for an hour without finding a single clue. Exasperating!!! Places like that are torture. You know it has to be there somewhere but where ? We decided we would get some footage of us banging on some doors and going for the doorstep permission. Our efforts were rewarded with two in town permissions, one of which had the only pit inside the dirt floored garage (which the owner said to leave alone), and the other had a mostly gravel back lot (which the owner said to leave alone). We saddled up and moved a few blocks down just over the Indiana line to a place I had permission but had forgot about. We were quickly re-permissed and drug probe into the backyard. Ouch, there was an entire brick house in this backyard, built about a hundred years after its neighbor. Nothing worse than floundering except floundering on film. But hey floundering is a big part of the reality too and just as important to show. We moped out to the street feeling beat-up on and walked across the street to the shady lawn along side the old railroad tracks. "This is where the old depot used to be, built in 1840, burned in 1880, re-built in 1890", I chimed up. I got a couple of evil stares. "You know, I got permission to detect and dig here a couple of years ago from the big guy who owns the line now", I added. The reaction I got this time was a quick glance around for a gaping open and obvious pit, then a couple of shrugs. About 35 feet away my eye landed on a squarish depression. I stood up and grabbed the short probe and as I was walking away Rod says, "There he go's again". I planted my feet in the depression and shoved the tip through several audible pops and snaps. Wide eyeballs signaled they had heard them too. "Railroad depot privy now boarding", I laughed. We threw down plastic and ganged up onit. Oh joy, it was choked to death with cinder ash, some chunks as big as a hogs head. This continued down between the stone walls for 5 feet. Under the cinder was fairly soft fill with 1930 labeled whiskeys mixed in. At about 7 feet we hit some seeds and bottles, but not very old. Crown top beers and labeled meds were popping out. At 8 feet Mike thought he had the bottom but it turned out to be a stiff cap, about 8 inches thick. Under this we got a little more age and pulled out a Hoster Blob Beer quart and a Gambrinus Blob pint. I was in the pit and found a lantern globe with embossing on it. As I turned it to read the words my glance was captured bu the large piece that was missing. Back to the embossing I read, "CCC&StlsRy. The Chicago, Cleveland, and Cincinnati Railroad. Under it, in the same corner of the pit I found a broken Schor (with lion) picture hutch, and a dose glass marked, "M.M. Yorston Druggist / Cincinnati. A few more bottles were pulled out, mostly beers and un-embossed coffin and pumpkinseed flasks, and then we hit the true bottom at about 10 feet. Upon putting the dirt back into the hole we wound up a little shy and drove to the other side of the lot where a large pile of waste dirt, also owned by te railroad, was growing weeds in an effort to conceal itself. We borrowed some and topped off the pit, replaced the sod, and packed away our tools.
Our pile for the weekend wasn't stellar by any means, but we still had fun and got to rake through some glass. The few keepers gave us something to take home anyway and the big pick grows ever larger and nearer. Live to dig ? Nay Brothers, Dig to live !!!
August 18th Today Mike and I met and headed back over to the site of the old railroad depot. The last pit we dug here was from the 80's and we were hoping to find an older one today. Within a few minutes, Mike had another stone liner located about 8 feet away from the one we dug two weeks ago. This one also felt full of cinder and rocks. We hope its an older pit, but due to the nature of the site being a depot, this could also be the mens/womens pit from the same age.
Rod pulled in and we followed him up to a place on the avenue where he had permission. This back yard was small, and had a stone walkway to nowhere. Near the end of the walkway we located a suspicious area that warrants a test hole. We decided to go check out one more place on the Indiana side of State street before deciding what to dig.
We wheeled into Bill's place, an old friend of mine and Rods, and went into his backyard where he met us. This yard was large and bore no visible signs of privies past. We probed through the bone dry clay till we were noodle armed and couldn't find anything even the least bit different feeling. By no means did we cover the entire lot, so we decided we would put this one on the "return" list for after we get some rain. Did I say rain ? Rain came right then and there. I made the necessary communication to my headquarters where the lady in charge, (my wife) told me the foreboding outlook of my local Doppler radar screen. Not good. A big, yellow, thundering blob of precipitation was bearing down on our exact location.
We sat on Bill's front porch and gabbed for about 45 minutes. The rain only intensified so we decided to bail out. I'd like to curse the rain but we need it so bad I just couldn't. This makes TWO weekends in a row with zero bottles in hand. My pump is
primed for the finding. Next weekend we dig like the rabid bottle dogs that we are. Ah Hell Yea !!!!!
August 25th 2002
This weekend we decided to dig the 2nd pit at the 1882 railroad depot. This also was a stone liner and we were hoping for some brass railroad locks and embossed railroad lantern globes. We got neither. This pit was identical to the other as it was also filled with cinder ash, much of it in the hogs head size. About the only good thing about it is that its light weight. Thank goodness for small favors. We burned through 6 feet of it before we hit the feebly thin layer. This pit was surmised to be under the little girls room, as it was almost void of anything. Our take for the day, three matching amber crown top Cincinnati Wetterer beers. Oh the shame. And we are supposed to be GOOD at this stuff ? The Big Dig Daddies from Cincinnati ? Well Dudes and
Dudettes, rest assured, this skunking will not be the last.
While we were digging this pit, one of the three town council members wheeled importantly onto the scene. His stature was one of confidence. His stride was purposeful and stern as he approached the pit. With a look of foreboding he leaned down and said, "What-choo fellers adoin" ? Oh hey Brian !!! It was my brother inlaw Brian. (Just funnin with ya Brian) He is in fact one of the three and just stopped by to see what was up. He already knew what we were adoin. I informed brolaw that I did indeed have permission from the big cheese of the rail line. I've had it for almost two years now before even looking around much. Brian is doing a great job in West Harrison, and is currently working on a project creating a display of old photo's, maps and other history for the newly remodeled town hall (built in the 1830's) He was happy to learn that I could supply him with a circa 1880's Sanborn fire insurance map that showed locations of many of the businesses, factories, and mills of that time. I also want to mention that we had another guest with us. Ken, from not far away, who I met at a yard sale and gabbed metal detecting with for about an hour. Ken has the big bad detector and knows how to swing it. He has made some awesome finds, including lots of seated silver, some Spanish silver, about a three carat mans diamond ring which he proudly wears, and a 1900 Lafayette Commemorative Dollar. He swung coil for awhile at the site of the depot and watched us dig. Nice havinya Ken.
I am so covered up by work I haven't been beating the pavement on new permissions. I have some "under lot" permissions that have a super high chance of producing. They are so hard that they get put off for easier stuff. "Under lot" meaning they are under gravel or asphalt parking areas. I think we will make it a point to devote at least a little time in the near future to go and "pointy spud" some probe access holes through the gravel at these places. Next weekend
we will test hole the suspicious spot in downtown Bob's back yard.
September 1st Today the three crazy-for-bottles, somewhat masochistic privy diggers had a big fat blow-out. Our first order of business was to fill a sinker we dug last year. The lady heard us and came out to investigate. She was mighty pleased that we had returned as promised to make sure everything settled nicely. We topped off the three pits with fresh black top soil, seeded it, and strawed it in. After that we decided we would go see if the reclusive owner of a nice little in-town 1850 was home. As we approached the side door, a nieghbor hollered out her window that they had just left about 5 minutes before we got there. She said they probably went to the store and they might be back after just an hour or so. The homeowner is in her late 80's, and it was her daughter, whom she was with, that we wanted to speak to. We knew the daughter would be dropping her mother off and then leaving. ( Leaving us to knock on a door that never answers). So we decided to wait for them. We staked out the place from the street and watched the shadows move awhile. The hour went by and we decided to go just up the street to investigate a pit we had probed up a few weeks ago. When we probed it before, we found a springy metal obstruction at about 3 feet deep. This time we probed and probed and probed and couldn"t find anything even vaguely resembling a pit. It had dissapeared !!! We gabbed and waited some more for the afore mentioned party to arrive back home. I was looking over some 1887 Sanborn fire insurance maps and found a lot where a house had been but was no more. This lot is owned by a local company. We bailed out on the big wait and went over to this lot to check it out. Right where the Sanborn map showed a small building in the back yard was a depression. Beside it was another, and beside that, yet another very subtle depression. Poker and feeler went in and sung their sweet song of pop crunch crack. We almost decided to just go for the dig, as I am about 90 percent sure the owner would not have cared, but we decided to just wait and get the official permission before hacking them open. Two of the pits are stone lined, and the subtle one is a woody. All three took all 7 feet of feeler without hitting bottom. All three were glassy and felt free of major obstructions. I am stoked and looking forward to next weekend. We are going to attempt to dig all three pits. It will be nice to have a pre-probed pit waiting for us for a change, instead of cold calling around town and re-probing the stingy places we have been where the pits seem to have vanished. Canna-getan-amen.
Saturday September 21st We met at 8 am and headed down into the old part of town to my most recent privy digging permission. This place was built in 1852. We were anxious at the possibilities. We walked to the back of the lot and stopped where a concrete sidewalk terminated at a depression in the lawn. This surely had to be a pit. After stabbing the depression about 20 times we were surprised to learn it was NOT a pit. We surmised that maybe a tree had once been there. The ground, despite some recent rain-fall, was hard as a brick and probing was difficult. We ran our probes across the rear property line, up and down both sides of the sidewalk, and then the side property lines. Big fat nuthin'. The lady who I spoke with said there once was a giant elm tree where a different depression was up close to the back of the house. Just for giggles, I decided to probe near this spot to see if the original inhabitants might have decided that the shade of a tree would have been a good location for their brand new outhouse pit. I wasn't really expecting to fall on my face, crashing my knuckles into the ground. Mike and Rod were watching from a short distance and their grimacing smirk of doubt was replaced by wide eyes and toothy grins. Mike came over and inserted Mr. feeler (the long probe) into the hole my 4 foot probe had made. After another foot or so was easily pushed into the ground, glass was heard popping and snicking. We probed outwards at an angle for walls and found only an increase in resistance indicating where the wood walls of the pit once had been. We carefully cut and removed the sod to a tarp, and then drug the tarp into the shade. The big tarp was laid out and we started digging. The sign we got right off the top were mixed. We found tops of ABM bottles, mixed with red ware and yellow ware shards. At three feet we started pulling out blown unembossed medicines and flasks. At 5 feet we hit a cap of clay, and under it hit a rust glassy layer. Mike handed up a crown top jung beer, then a blob top Wiedaman beer, both from Cincinnati. I was in the pit and found a Rockingham glazed yellow ware pig. The large piece that was missing dampened my spirit a bit, I shook it off as best I could, and continued digging. A few 3 in 1 oils made there entrance, followed by three or four Fletchers Castorias. Rod was in the pit and found a sheered top sided ink that was about 30 years older than anything else, and also a Brazilian Balm / Indianapolis. With the age of the house, and also the fact that this pit was a wood liner, we were surprised to find the bottom before our target age was reached.
Mike go's for the deep.
Rod. Watchout for that bucket buddy.
Mike wrings debris from a blob top beer.
Yellow ware piggy.
Bottles
sided ink
Its dark down there Mike. It was around 1 PM when we got the pit refilled and resodded. We chatted with the lady for a few, then decided to go down the block to an 1865 place where I received permission to dig just yesterday after finding a yard sale in progress at this residence. (Tip # 44, chapter 7 - Getting permission, Advanced Privy Digging, soon to be in a bookstore near you !) This place had a standing outhouse on a concrete foundation. It also had an old shed over the hidden corner of the back yard. Near the center of the rear property line my short probe struck again, nosing us up a stoneliner. We went right to work. There was no sod to be removed so we started chucking shovelfulls onto the tarp. We were finding very sick fruit jar shards at two feet. Redware and yellow ware shards were likewise plentiful. We hit a clay cap at about 4 feet and under it were some more shards and a few bottles. Mike handed up an unembossed whiskey flask with an open ground pontil and tooled lip. He also found a barrel mustard, some buttons, and some doll baby parts. Rod went in and tossed an open pontil puff out with a shovel full of dirt. Then another clay cap was encountered at about 6 feet deep. Under this clay was a more concentrated amount of seeds and broken glass. I was in the pit and using the plastic scratcher when the broken top of a drakes plantation bitters popped up and scared the bejeasus out of me. The rest of the bottle was just under it. Continuing down in this same productive corner of the pit I hauled out a broken empire congress springs mineral water, and a topless squat soda embossed "P. Sorg / Cumminsville".&n |
