Digging in the pouring rain
This was the other side of the fence to the “are you going to use all of them bottles” dig. It turned out that it was a shared privy which sat over the property line. The neighbor kids were so happy to see us again poking around two doors over they invited us over to have a look in their back yard, so we obliged, got permission and went to work on the other half of the previous dig!. We were not surprised to see we had emptied 90% of this one as we had tunneled over so much from next door. It was RAINING so hard for most of the dig so we had to come up with a tarp roof contraption thingy to keep us somewhat dry. I guess they call it sod’s (aka Murphy’s) law when the only dang leak was right above the hole and dripped straight onto whoever was digging, It seemed no matter how we moved the tarp and the broom (which was holding it up) the drip ALWAYS came back to the same place! it got old quickly.
It was cold and we were soaking.
None the less we did pull a broken milk which would turn out to have a super cool story and a nice crude Western Ink Co Bloomington schoolhouse ink.
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THE MILK…..After doing some research at the McLean county museum of history and looking at some micro film at Bloomington library I was able to determine that Benjamin Abbott was indeed the person who “introduced the idea of selling milk in bottles” to the city of Bloomington (Pantagraph April 13 1889)
It turned out after “he was temporarily seized with a spell of despondency” he committed suicide in the shop window of the Excelsior bottling works! (I have two of their bottles too) where his son worked was in business with another partner. The milk dates back much earlier than the article and I believe it to be late 1870’s or very early 1880’s.
So …….Abbott & Sons was Bloomington’s very first dairy! what a find, only 2 damaged ones known! one pint (with only “& Son”) and my Quart…. (with “& Sons”) which is the earlier one as Ben Jr left Bloomington and went to Harvard and stayed in New York as a teacher… cool ‘eh!