antique bottles Brooklyn Digging A Pit and Cistern Worth Waiting For! privy digging

ebay By Gary Guest nasa

Well, I guess it's time for another digging report. By now, I'm sure there are many of you out there who just don't want to hear anymore beer stories, so here's the latest from Brooklyn minus the history lesson. Once again, the weather was thought to be a factor. Heavy rain was predicted with gradual clearing, and turning colder by mid-afternoon was the general outlook that most of the local television stations were calling for. Needless to say, none of us liked what we had heard, after all, who wants to be slipping and sliding down an avalanche of mud before you even get close to anything resembling an ash or shard layer. Nevertheless, the four of us were not going to put this permission off any longer. Baring any natural catastrophes like early November snow storms or monsoon rains we were going to dig this one as long as we had permission to do so.

That is, until a series of miss-communications and re-scheduling got in the way. The owner of the house was a hard guy to get a hold of, and get a definitive answer to our original request to dig. It wasn't that Robert didn't want us to dig, or he flat out said, no. It just seemed that he was either to busy on Saturdays, the weather was to hot, or we already had a scheduled permission dig on days that might have been agreeable.

The privy at 424 Atlantic Avenue yielded a nice variety of bottles. About half were pontiled, gins, inks, pickles, and hair bottles. The remainder, squat sodas medicines, foods, and whiskies.

The first time we had made contact with Robert, a math and physics professor, was nearly two years ago on a cold winter morning in early 1995. At the time, he could only spare us about twenty minutes, so after being invited in the yard to probe we figured it wouldn't be long before we worked out a date to dig. Although the ground had a bit of frost on it at the time we knew the privy was nearby. After all, along that stretch of Atlantic Avenue there was hardly a house that hadn't been dug. Like I told Robert, just before we finalized everything, "we're working our way towards Third Avenue, and you're in the way!"

Since we had first made contact with him there has been countless phone calls, messages left, and by chance meetings in the neighborhood, so I figured nothing could be lost with a final plea, hoping to set something up. To our amazement, after all that time and work, we got an "in" set for the next weekend---we were digging! In the words of the homeowner himself; you guys wore me down, I'm going to let you dig!

The following Saturday we were ready alright. In Brooklyn by seven, with buckets, rope, and the usual stuff for a day's dig. Once the van was unloaded in front of the house I proceeded to find a parking spot on one of the nearby side streets. Once parked I was eager to walk around the corner to help get the stuff in backyard. At least that's what we all wanted. Bottom line, our friendly professor forgot he told us we could dig that Saturday! A more bummed out bunch of guys you couldn't find if you tried. After apologizing for not remembering our agreement Robert felt bad, and said "definitely the following weekend at eight in the morning."

Some of the nicer bottles that came out of the cistern. All totaled, eighty-five bottles were dug. Aside from a few with cracks a small dings in the lip, all were in good shape and ready to be cleaned. Luckily, all the Drakes Plantations were undamaged.

So, here we go again, I guess after waiting nearly two years, one more week couldn't have been easier. By the time I once again parked the diggin' mobile", Jack, Don and Mitch had already located the pit, and had begun to open her up. Digging was pretty easy, but with the treat of early rain we were taking no chances--tarps were definitely in order. We started hitting bottles three feet down---Spauldings Glue, a Dr. Potters, some black glass---so things looked promising. Add to this several Ellenville Glass Works cylinder whiskies, and Robert's pit was looking better all the time. A lot of neat looking shards and colored buttons were also making their way to the surface, so Mitch went to work using the sifter whenever we hit small pockets of seam dirt. At about the five foot mark things were flying along nicely, a milk-glass New York City perfume bottle, several more whiskies, a pontil hair bottle; their was no telling what could be next. I'd say within two and a half hours of opening up the privy we already had about forty-five bottles. By now, even our professor friend and his son, were out back with us marveling at t stuff we were finding. "See, I told you that we would be good entertainment for a Saturday afternoon", Jack told them, as they watched our every move.

With things going so well it was time to look forward in the yard and locate the cistern. If the cistern was in line with the other dug along the block it should be right where our probe was hitting. Sometimes cisterns can be a real challenge to locate, but not this time. Within ten minutes or so, probing paid off, and the four foot probe disappeared clear down to the handle. A wiggle back and forth confirmed there were some empty spots and a lot of ash beginning at about the three foot level. "Now we have something for next week," Don jokingly told Robert's son.

Now, back to the privy. By early afternoon we had taken out another four feet. Down deep enough we were past the layers of old building rubble and bricks that had spelled the end for some real heartbreaker bottles. Among the casualties were a great looking fancy cobalt cone ink; and a Hohenthal Brothers & Co. Indelible Writing Ink in a nicely whittled olive-green. The master ink was a real killer because it did not have the usual pour spout. Instead this one looked more like a squat whiskey complete with a double-banded ring for a lip. By mid-afternoon, the temperature had dropped considerably, at least the weather report got that right, and we were making good time. Down some twelve feet now, another seam layer was visible just below what had been leveled off. Who knows, maybe a few more interesting looking inks managed to escape the hundreds of bricks that already had been pulled out. Toward the bottom there were just piles of stuff--an amber open pontil square snuff, a flared lip green utility, a few lattice pickles, and even a Washington DC squat soda. In addition, our shard garbage pale was also getting a workout---broken sided Dearborn sodas, giant cathedral pickles, and numerous smashed mocha bowls helped fill it up quickly. All things considered, an easy pit to dig, about fourteen feet deep containing about sixty bottles. After a short break we began the long fill, and our sights were already set on the cistern for the following weekend.

Another photo of some of the cistern's bottles. This one shows a nice New York City torpedo soda, a candlestick holder, and a closer look at some of the Drake Plantation Bitters.

Although we were tentatively scheduled to dig the cistern the following Saturday; I was taking no chances. A quick phone call during the week confirmed we could get in by eight-thirty, and open her up. Once enough cistern brick had been removed, the ash layer we had probed the previous week was now clearly visible. Shortly thereafter, bottles of all sorts also became visible, many lying horizontally and close together, in between the clumps of ash and loose brick. It was still easy to maneuver the long handled shovel, so dirt was moving at a steady pace. At times, it seemed whoever was digging was handing up bottles were hardest to spot--dirt was flying, and so were umbrella inks, utilities, and the good old stand by, Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrups. My first stint below yielded a nicely colored green open pontil umbrella ink that I unknowingly tossed up in a shovel full of dirt. It had miraculously survived being buried in a mixed layer of debris only to be flung up by an over zealous bottle digger who wasn't paying attention to what he was doing! A quick throw and down the side of the dirt pile it rolled towards our rock pile. "Hey, watch what you're throwing, there's bottles mixed in", the guys yelled down.

Don followed me down and quickly picked up where I had left off. It wasn't long before he was also into bottles---Udolphos, black glass ales, Hostetter's, and the beginnings of a bunch of Drake's Plantation Bitters. "Don't look at them, hand them up you dirt bag, and keep digging," Jack said. I have to confess, after all my years of digging I never dug a whole Drakes, so needless to say, I was excited. As it turned out whoever lived in the house during the 1850's was a bit of a drinker. Besides the Udolpho's cordials and assorted Bitters there were several yellow whiskies from the Dyottville and Whitney Glass Works, as well as, several black glass ales and stoneware bottles. Although we had a mountain of dirt to put back down the cistern, things went pretty quick, and we were done in about an hour and a half. Looking back at all the time we put into setting this dig up it was definitely worth the wait. We had our usual fun and joking around, got to know another local resident, and even made contact with a curious neighbor. Just before leaving Robert's house we all thanked him for allowing us to finally dig, left our business cards, (in any problems develop as a result of our digging), and home we went. By the time we hit the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway it was twilight, and the five boxes of bottles we had dug were on their way to being cleaned and inspected for the next bottle "pick" at Mitch's house.

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