antique bottlesBottle Digging - Saving Some Privies From Certain Destruction bottle digging

ebay by Mark Churchill nasa

The other day, I stopped over to the store, owed by my good friend Al Holden, to talk shop and trade information. You see, Al owns and operates a metal detector and treasure hunters supply store. Thus, if anyone has found any great coins or bottles, Al will probably know. This time however, I was invited to dig a place where several old houses were scheduled to be razed.

"Boy am I glad to see you" Al said. "A friend of mine called and he wants some help finding the privies at an early site. Time is of essence because the spot is slated to be paved over and used as a parking lot. We can't let those privies be covered over for good!" "Hum" I thought. "This is a job for Ace Ven Churchill-Privy Detective"!" "Of course I'll assist" I informed Al. "A privy is a terrible thing to waste!"

The Greek revival house just before being burned.

Anyway, Al scheduled the dig for next Sunday, where Al, Chip Manion (the man who found the spot) and I would converge. Unfortunately, Al couldn't get there until 1:30 p.m. In addition, I had some errands to do in the am. Still, I planned to get there by 1 p.m. to probe out the pits in advance. I asked if Chip would mind if I brought two experienced digging friends of mine, Bill and Glen, to help probe the lots. "No problem" Al told me.

Next Sunday dawned bright and cool. I finished my errands and off Glen, Bill and I went on our privy saving mission! Before long we arrived at the specified spot. The houses were located in the middle of the block, each one facing a different street. The home on the east side was very new, perhaps 1940's. Debree from the demolished garage and tree limbs littered the narrow back yard.

The house on the west side appeared to be of Greek revival architecture and had a molded concrete block foundation. Sections of a large tree were scattered about immediately behind the house, but otherwise the backyard was wide open.

Lacking our early map of the town, we couldn't verify the age of the sites. However, I recalled my attempt years earlier to gain permission to dig the old Greek home. I'd been turned down but if the house hadn't been on my early map, I would not have bothered with it. That fact, plus the open back yard and series of depressions along the side property line convinced me this was where we would start first.

Sure enough, right away Bill and I hit three privies in a row. Soon after, Glen found a fourth pit a few feet over from the other three privies. We had difficulty marking out the privy vault dimensions but did the best we could. It seemed the pits blended into each other, making it hard to discern each individual honey hole. We marked out the three pits that were in a direct row with each other and probed until Chip arrived.

Soon a man came up and introduced himself as Chip Manion. He'd brought his wife Delane and his four year old daughter Harmony along too. A few minutes later Chip's eldest daughter Heather and her husband Travis showed up. I was only expecting Chip and Al. Here I had a whole crew on my hands!

After the introductions we got the team to work on the first three privies. When Bill, Glen or I weren't digging we would probe for more sites. Actually, we three experienced privy diggers did more probing than digging as Chips team dug like crazy. Delane and Heather did more digging than any of us men! Although little Harmony was only four, she kept busy finding night crawlers, scraping through the middle and jumping into the deepening holes!

Luckily, Chip brought his early map for me to study. Without actually pacing off the block, I estimated that indeed, there had been at least one house on each side of the lot in 1860. This was good to know for sure, because as any privy digger knows, probing is a lot of work. I would have hated to do so much probing without knowing whether or not I was in an old spot.

With this knowledge, Bill and I went to the west side of the lot to probe behind the 1940's house. Glen stayed on the east side with Chip's gang to help dig.

Chip rooting around for more bottles.

Before long, Glen came over and told Bill and I we ought to come see what Heather was in the process of uncovering. We hurried over to find that the women had displaced the men in the holes! "Well doesn't this beat all" I thought. Nearby Heather had exposed the side of an early looking Hostetters Stomach Bitters! Not only was it old, it looked intact and yellow! Within minutes the bottle was freed from the earth. It was prefect with a squat neck, applied lip, and L&W makers mark embossed on the base. And while it wasn't true yellow, it had a nice yellow olive tone!

At this point Bill and I put the probing on hold to "get a taste" of these privies. With three pits being excavated at once, there was lots of digging for everyone. Even Harmony had lots of work showing off all those night crawlers, inspecting the deepening outhouse pits, and generally getting under foot!

Within an hour or so, it was apparent to me these privies had been dug into each other over the years. Not only had newer privies been dug over the older privies, but the sides of each pit overlapped into the neighboring privy. Most of the items recovered dated 1900 or newer. One of the privies was probably used into the 1930's. We had a fourth privy to dig that was covered up by tarp piled high with dirt, but I had my suspicions it was newer also. I decided it would be wise if Bill and I resumed probing for something older on the west side of the lot.

As Bill probed randomly in the middle of the yard, I probed the southern property line. Wood from the demolished garage littered the site, hindering our efforts. Probing between the debree was tricky. All I had found was a dry well when Bill called out "I've got one over here and it feels old!" Sure enough, the privy had that "no ash clay cap feel" which, in our neck of the woods usually indicated a pre 1870 privy. It had lots of glass in it too! We hurried over to the other side of the lot where Chip and company were hard at work, to get some digging equipment.

At about this time, Al finally shows up. "How's the digging? Did you leave anything for me?" Al asked. We responded by giving him a shovel and a pit to dig! Al is so busy with his work and family it is hard for him to find time to dig. I was sure glad he made it.

Examining the loot at the end of the first Sundays dig.

With Al busy, Bill, Glen and I got to work on the old privy. With a bit of probing, it's dimensions were determined to be about 3'W X 4'L X 6.5'D. At about 2.5' down we began to hit old glass and dinnerware. Feather edge plates and broken pontiled bases were in abundance. Amongst the broken scroll flasks and medicines were found an open pontil Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup with a chipped lip, a pt. crock jug cracked in half, an octagonal pottery ale in three pieces, and a McLeans American Worm Specific - open pontil and cracked! "Where is all the whole stuff!" I thought out loud.

Meanwhile, Chip and Company had finished the three pits on the east side of the lot and wanted me to make sure there weren't leaving anything in the pits. It didn't take me long to give them the go ahead to fill in the privies, for beginners they all did a thorough job. Bill, Glen and I took five on the old west side privy to help fill in the three outhouse pits. Because the lot and houses were soon to be bulldozed smooth, we didn't have to be super neat so it didn't take long before we had the holes filled in. Before heading back to the west side privy, I pinpointed the fourth and last privy. I didn't believe it to be very old, but what else did we have to dig?

Upon digging into the 1850's pit again, we soon discovered not much was left in the pit. Finally, we did find one intact non-damaged bottle - an open pontil aqua J.R. Gregory Chemist medicine bottle. That was it! The only other find of note was the base of a rare cobalt I.P. soda bottle embossed Jno. Williams Kalamazoo Mich. Manufacturer of Mineral & Soda Water. As is often the case, finding a pontiled era privy was only half of the battle. The other half is finding a pontiled privy with whole bottles in it! Since neatness wasn't an issue we filled the pit in in record time and continued to probe for more spots to dig.

Soon I had probed a narrow, long and shallow coal ash privy. We made quick work of this pit because not a single bottle or shard of glass got in the way of our shovels! I hate it when that happens!

On the other side of the lot, Chip and family were proving what I had feared, that being privy no four wasn't very old, perhaps 1920's or so. A few milk bottles from Decater came up and even a few aqua embossed tooled lip medicines in the sides, but nothing early. With so many diggers and only one privy it didn't take long before we finished the pit.

Since it was getting late we said our good-byes, vowing to return next Sunday to see if we'd missed anything.

I was still feeling sore from last weekend's dig when Sunday rolled around again. Everyone that had been digging last Sunday were here today except Al Holden and Glen Sweet. But this didn't matter because Harmony was prepared to take up the slack with her toy dump truck and front end loader! Also my friend Garl Harrold came along to help.

The lot had changed drastically. Earlier in the day the fire dept. had practiced on the old Greek revival house by burning it to the ground. A bulldozer dug an enormous trench and pushed the debris into it. In places the fire still smoldered and smoke filled the air. On the west side of the lot the 1940's bungalow had been leveled and cleared away. With the east side in such a state of disarray we concentrated our efforts on the west side of the lot. Because the area was so well cleared off, I couldn't determine where we had dug the other two pits. We would just have to rough it and probe the entire area again.

Heather uncovering her first bottle ever! A yellow olive amber Hostetters Stomach Bitters!

Luckily Bill noticed a few old bricks sticking out of the ground. These clued him in to a privy we hadn't dug yet. Within minutes we found another outhouse pit! These two pits had been under the garage floor last Sunday. Now that the cement slab was cleared away, these privy vaults were accessible. Judging from the feel, dirt and ash color I didn't think the pits were early. But there was a lot of glass in each 3' X 3' X 3' privy! Bill Riley and I started each privy for the benefit of our less experienced friends and went off to probe some more.

Soon Chip, Heather and Delane were pulling up bottle after bottle. A few were ABM but most of the bottles were hand made with tooled lips. One of the first bottles out was an applied lip aqua Buffalo Lithia Water. I've always liked these bottles with their large size and impressive embossing. I also pondered why such a new bottle had an applied lip. Perhaps the glass house that made them preferred applying the lip instead of tooling it.

While this was going on I probed out a third pit measuring about 3.5' X 3.5' X 3.5'. Tired of probing I opened up this privy only to discover the trash dated from the 1890's to 1910 period. Undaunted I continued to dig. Lots of plain prescriptions and other common bottles.

No more privies were found that day. We all spent time removing the dozens of bottles from the pits. Another Buffalo Lithia Water, a large sterling silver spoon and even a rectangular X. Bazin Tooth Powder pot lid were unearthed. At one point I dug into a nest of about five moles, and all of them were dead! Heather kept ribbing me I'd killed them and I had to wonder if it was true. Later I figured it must have been pressure from the bulldozer that had killed them. They did look a little flat!

When all was said and done we had dug about 100 bottles. The first two pits turned out to be part of the same long and narrow privy. Because Harmony brought her toy front end loader, filling in the privies was a breeze! We all parted ways with promises to team up again when opportunity knocked or whenever a privy was threatened by progress......

Did you enjoy this digging story? Every month Antique Bottle and Glass Collector magazine gives you neat digging stories like this one.

Why not subscribe today!

It's easy just click here. SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION

Return me to: HOME PAGE - Go to: OTHER DIGGING STORIES