The problem was, it was 8:30 and it was getting dark. Although I had brought a head lamp and some flashlights, I knew it would be a late one. “We’ll dig a test hole and see” …as you know there is no such thing as a test hole with a broken hutch 12 inches down. Within 5 minutes it had turned into a full-fledged dig. It took a while to get into the use layer as it was a pretty tight fit, but as we headed under the fence the blob tops started flying… all busted… of course!

We pulled out about 6 beers, 3 with just the bottom popped off! One of them was a surprise; it was the big brother of the Lowentrout beer that I dug earlier this year. I didn’t even know this quart existed. We also dug a nice early applied lip Peter Heinz beer who bottled Milwaukee Shlitz beer, an M Heister who bottled Bloomington’s Gambrinus brewery (owned by Meyer and Wochner)…

I have an M Heister’s Bottling house advert from 1884-86 selling 12 quarts for $1.25 and 12 pints for 65¢… delivered to your door!

We also pulled out 2 Piso’s Cure for Consumption, a barrel mustard, a small early applied lip version of the common Indianapolis Brewing Co beer and 3 broken local hutches. A huge percent of the glass was broken and we only got about 10 undamaged bottles, all which were all no good. Groan.

I got home at 2:30 am. Urghh

Now, it’s not unusual when you dig a pit that you find something cool; sometimes it’s a doll head or marbles, or ??? I dunno, but the surprise this time was a minature Bols bottle!

Here is the picture of my take. The quart had broken wobbly… so I cut it flat on my wet saw!

It’s about time I dug a good bottle, preferably of the whole (not the hole) variety.

 It was HOT, 91% humidity (sheesh) but that was not enough to quell the desire of digging a nice key mold applied lip local bitters from 1872. Trickey turned up wearing a pink bandana… (what was he trying to do, scare the bottles out of the pit?) It was a terribly slow start to the dig with every shovel hitting brick or stone.  After we had collected a nice pile of rock we uncovered a brick structure which allowed us to concentrate our efforts squarely on the circle (hee,hee).

 Anyway, if I rambled on about how we dug NOTHING except rock for the next 8 ft you’d probably get fed up and say, ” Why didn’t he just say he dug nothing at the beginning?”. Well my friend I’ve just saved you five minutes of wasted reading time.

“Arggh, a pink bandanna. Run away!”

This was a cool looking moth which came out at 6ft.

 So, it turned out to be a well.  I probed at 8 ft and it swallowed my 8ft probe…  so we fillderin.

 I had probed out one obvious spot in the yard, which was later confirmed to be a privy by a resident who had torn it down in the 1960’s. I knew it was not even worth the effort digging but this was not just for me, it was about showing the visitors touring the manor. They would  be the ones to benefit from seeing how history, even  if recent, was interesting in it’s historical context. My friend Shawn and ‘old man’ Lyle came along for the ride. Lyle is an old time dump digger and American Indian artifact collector… Sounding like the old cartoon character Deputy Dawg he said,  ”Boy! I never dug an outhouse before.”

My son Jack came to see his daddy dig for bottles for a while, too.

When we cut the sod and pulled up the first piece Jack said, “You didn’t get a bottle, guys.” Too cute.

He was happy enough to play with the ‘claw’ and scrape through the dirt we threw onto the tarp.   

I didn’t realize I had so many bottles tucked away in my shed and was glad to have a chance to get rid of a few and make a few bucks in the process. There were about 2,500 visitors over 2 days and I sold over half of the bottles I took.  

WARNING: REAL PRIVY DIGGERS MAY BE OVERCOME WITH SADNESS IF THEY READ THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH…YES FOLKS, IT’S WORSE THAN DIGGING BROKEN BOTTLES.

The privy turned out to be pretty full too; we dug about 40 bottles, all of which did nothing more than extract involuntary ohhh’s and ahhh’s from those who saw them come out of the pit.  Each time a bottle with a half-rusted metal screw top came out, people responded like I had just performed a magic trick! Those who wanted could take away screw top beers for a buck or two. All the bottles were 1950-60’s.  We even dug some plastic bottles too! But what was cool was that hundreds of people, otherwise ignorant of old bottles in old outhouses, went home and after putting up their new window bottles, laid in bed that night and thought, “Man! What a cool day that was; would you have ever believed it?  Old bottles buried in poop!”

ROLL UP, ROLL UP!    

….me explaining how the British Codd bottle (a victorian soda) worked

This is my first effort to video a dig. From now on I will try to do this on all of my digs… 

 A huge thanks to Dianne and Bud for inviting me to share this wonderful experience with them. Jared and Rachel… thanks for helping me when the crowds got too big to handle.  And SHAWN, well, you know I could not have done this without your help. THANKS. 

I have located 2, possibly 3 other privies on this site and will dig them all this year. Watch this space…one thing is for sure: the privies can only get earlier!

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 The privy was capped with clay at 3 feet, but once we got through it tomato seeds were plentiful. It seems that the owners were BIG tomato lovers as the pit had several solid layers of seeds. The pit was also not used much for dumping (well, you know what I mean) as there was very little broken glass mixed in with the layers. As a matter of fact we dug about 6 whole bottles (which were mostly damaged):  3 slick meds, a pumpkin seed flask, and a good for nothing medicine from Pittsburgh, Pa. There were a few broken unembossed beers, 3 broken mason jars and the usual household china. There was, however, one SUPER sweet local cryer. I have wanted this bottle for a l..o..n..g time and then I dug one!! …But it was missing the neck. POOP. I looked for ages for the rest but I couldn’t find it. Double POOP.

   Lowentrout Bro’s //St Louis Beer// Bloomington Ill 

 a spot of tea…with the girls next door! 

I was driving home from work the other day and I noticed a house which was falling apart. I quickly pulled into the driveway, whipped out my new probe and headed into the backyard. The house was vacant, and for sale too, so I figured that I’d take the liberty and probe away. It was one of those pits that screams at you and I found it in 10 seconds. Now what? The house was empty, for sale… what were the chances that I could get permission?? My fist step was to call the realtor and ask for the owners’ phone number so I could ask them if I could dig. I figured I’d take advantage of an offer from a local newspaper reporter who wanted to do an article on me as means of validating this rather unusual hobby. I called the realtor and explained my wishes, to which she replied, “Well, what historical importance is the house? I am the president of the Old House Society and would like to know of any significance.” I explained that it was simply old and would have old bottles in the outhouse. The realtor was very excited about the prospect of retrieving anything with historical context and gave me permission on the spot, saying, “Don’t worry, the owners and I are good friends… they won’t mind.” We talked for another 20 minutes on the phone and I was blown away by her enthusiasm for local history. I even got permission to dig 3 other properties, one of which is an 1872 manor that she had just purchased to restore and another early 1880s lot. I chuckled to myself that I nearly drove past the house without stopping and almost missed out on such GREAT opportunities.
 I called an old friend to come and help dig as he had showed interest in digging old glass. Here he is with his first bottle.

Tricky tagged along too…The pit was a 5 ft 1890s cruncher with a pile of clinkers. We pulled out about 150 whiskey flasks, 79 of which were undamaged, and a few ales, wines, milk, ketchup, Pepto whatever and some slick druggies.

While we were digging some old man came by and started talking to us. I figured he was a neighbor until he started talking about “his stuff in the backyard”. I asked “Are you the homeowner?” He replied, “Yes.” Yikes, I thought I’d better explain why I was digging up HIS back yard as I hadn’t ever spoken to THE homeowner, just the realtor. It turned out that I had received permission from him before (over the phone) to dig the “Are you going to use all them bottles” and ” Sorry to bother you, but child is throwing things off the roof” digs (found in October ‘07 dig stories) and thought that I was just acting upon our previous conversation, he then went on to mention that he owns 85 houses!!! (exqueeze me) “85 HOUSES?” I said, “Would you mind if I checked them out too?” “Help yourself “, he replied… yet again I learned the lesson TALK TO ANYONE AND EVERYONE…you never know what may happen!

So, as for the split, I took home nothing… except for 82 permissions that is…YEAH BABY!

It turned out that I was to get a phone call from Mrs ‘T’ weeks later requesting I also grace her kitchen with a tiled backsplash. Fast forward to three weeks ago, I finally started working on the ‘T’s backsplash and when I walked in to start I nearly  fell over when I saw about 3 boxes rammed full of dug bottles in the corner… Mr and Mrs ‘T’ had got their stash out to show me…. SWEET!!

I looked through and noticed some hutches and a blob pony, most of the others were just hammer bottles…with a few exceptions. I was informed that there had been about 3 properties dating around 1870-1880 which looked spot on with the type bottles in the boxes. I proceeded to share some general historical knowledge of local bottles and their connection with the ones I was holding. Anyway after going goo goo for 30 minutes I started work.

Fast forward 2 days… I had finished grouting and Mrs ‘T’ said “if there are any bottles you’d like, go ahead and take them” I replied “no, I can’t, they are yours” but I was urged to take some as they had taken the ones they wanted… and  after all these were just going back up in the roof!  So not being the argumentitive type I obliged and took 2  of the 7 hutches and the mug based pony, I was assured Mr ‘T’ would be okay about it.  I took them home and like every privy digger with a dirty bottle in his hand ignored every request from his wife to come and sit at the table to eat as “it won’t take long to clean”. I put them on my shelf and gave them a good admiring.

 The next day I went back to seal the tile and as I was walking out Mrs ‘T’ said “you can take more bottles if you like” to which I replied again “no they are yours..I have already taken 3″ So, yet again, I was talked into taking a couple more… and being the good sport that I am I took a couple more of the duplicated hutches.

After all I didn’t want to get on Mrs ‘T’s bad side!

 Mr and Mrs ‘T’ were AWSOME customers… even before they gave me the bottles!

Here is a list;

 C J Peterson hutch

Johnson & Peterson… possibly not hutch?

C J Peterson         tombstone slug plate hutch

John Lauterbach       tombstone slug plate hutch

M A Fisher             mug based pony 

 All are Springfield, Illinois… slightly sick but with no damage. 

Take a look at the pictures and post a comment at the bottom of the page about what you think it is.

Here are a few other things I found this year.

Well, I thought this was going to be THE pit of the year. I had visions of iron-pontiled sodas jumping out of the pit and lining themselves up on the tarp, ready to be taken home. Open pontiled medicines by the score at every turn. But alas, I was dreaming… again. What a miserable waste of time; EVERYTHING was damaged. A few nice bottles but all pinged, cracked, broken, you name it! I don’t know how that jug stayed together. It had more crack than a plumbers’ convention in LA, whatever… When I was washing it, water left via the cracks quicker than the faucet filled it. One crack was so wide it could probably qualify as a secondary opening! Sorry I’m just mad. Moreover Tricky Dickey didn’t even turn up until I had done all the leg work! (He had stayed up late looking at bottles, and forgot to set his alarm.)

My visions had turned from pontiled grandeur to reality…… and now we’ve got to fill this hole in.

The keepers/crying glass were:

Pitcher…..cracked

Open Pontil umbrella ink…..cracked

very crude Davis’ vegetable pain killer……pinged

(Hmmmm… I wonder, did it ever kill the pain the vegetables had? I’m sure L. Ron Hubbard would have some interest in this nostrum… not to mention Tom Cruise and John Travolta… maybe he should have tried this one on his tomatoes!.. but then where would Scientology be?)

95% C Petterson & Bro blob soda… well 95%

I did this dig with my friend Jahleel… but you can call him Phil. (As in Philadelphia, not the city but the cream cheese). Someone once said he had a body carved out of cream cheese… and that was a guy too… yikes! Anyway, he gave me a call with a privy he had located near his home, so I figured I’d better oblige and go help him dig it. The privy probed out well and the dirt started flying. It wasn’t long before we hit brick and then more brick and… the bricks kept on coming. There was no shortage of glass but why all the bricks? As I was digging down I uncovered a crescent brick wall and then it was clear: we had, in fact, dug down over the wall of a brick liner! But there was glass on both sides! It was easy to see that there were two privies, an 1880 and 1870. The 1870s was the oval brickliner and it bottomed out at 6 ft while the 1880s was only 3 ft deep. While digging it they had broken the wall into the 1870s pit… hence all the loose brick.

The 1870s bricky was really loamy and was easy to empty out but it wasn’t until I got to the bottom that we pulled out a couple of bottles. I’m sure the pit had been dipped as most of the glass was in too terrible of a shape for just being dropped. In the pictures you can see as much as I could find of a very rare ‘Robert Strehlow German Wine Bitters Peoria Illinois’

But without doubt, the catch of the day was a snap case/key mold applied lip Brown’s Oriental Hair Renewer Walker & Taylor, Chicago Ills… check out those s’s… Boo Yaka!

Both pits produced, but obviously the 1870s stuff was more appealing. We dug a total of 24 marbles too.

I can’t remember all the keepers as I let Phil have almost everything for his new hobby!
Stone’s Extract Chicago Ill,

H K Mulford and Co philly amber druggy

Halls Catarrh cure…plus more less-interesting stuff.

The weather in Illinois is getting COLD now; this may be the end of the digging season.

This was a lousy pit! No questions asked, it bottomed out at 3 1/2 feet, hard clay all the way to the bottom and nothing but hammer bottles to show for it. Be that as it may, Tricky Dickie was happy; he got some keepers and that’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

What was interesting about this dig was that next door for about an hour, on and off, a young kid was walking about on a roof of the shed which he was able to access from his bedroom window. He spent most of his time shouting nonsensical words at us. I guess he must have got bored because he started tossing electronic stuff onto the driveway. He even pulled out the DVD player to throw it over, but was frustrated by the fact it was still attached to the cable which was still attached to the wall (inside the house). He soon gave up on that and went back through the window only to appear naked (eek). It must have been cold because he went back in and put his pants back on pretty quickly… Next to appear was a big drawer from a dresser; he had problems maneuvering it out of the window and when I shouted at him to go back inside and asked him if his mom was home he stopped… for 5 minutes… and then tried again. So I knocked on the door and spoke to an adult… who grunted at me twice. The child disappeared.

I guess Jim Morrison was right… people ARE strange.