Dug a barrel privy

Well, went out yesterday to dig where I probed a few "possible" holes day before. Was about 50-50 on them as the yard seems to have been a long trash ravine fill-in from what was dug a week or so ago. Got to digging and found a burn layer followed by an ash layer with few shards of anything. A smattering of pottery and very little bottle glass was telling me to fill it in and go to the next suspect. But noooooo! I just had to keep digging, even with the nag on my shoulder laughing at me for being the stubborn fool that I am! Then I hit glass. A whole slick med, 1890's! Crap! A little further and up came a slick shoo-fly flask, maybe late 70's. Finally, I hit a soft spot that started me heading almost straight down head first as I attempted to scratch out a test hole. Plenty of old rusted metal, some finally appearing as old barrel hoops. A barrel privy I thought! Only other two I have dug were last year and both pontil aged! The pottery was turning large and yellow with a smattering of red ware. I was getting happier. Still, only bottle pieces were far and too few to get a good handle on date. Then a bitters looking base frag, looking 60's-ish and not far from it a Cochrane Cantrell green round bottom soda in 3 pieces arrived. Decided to get to widening out the hole and discovered this hole was only as wide as my shoulders! Chipping away at the hard pack clay was not in my plan! As I continued the dig standing on my head, I cursed the bottle goddess for just ONE good bottle, just to show I was not greedy! She didn't laugh, she SNICKERED! I could hear the HeHeHe in my head as I continued to the inevitable bottom, always much too soon. This one at 6' was to leave me with nothing to take home at all! A top of a Drakes appeared just to taunt me and add injury! I was even prepping this post as example of a skunking in my mind while chipping away at the sides and filling in the hole when WHAM! My shovel just smacked into a piece of glass that didn't move! I got down to take a closer look and recognized (so I thought) what I just tried to eliminate. I could see the embossing in an arch "Quincy, Ill." with a smooth base. Cool! I have several pontiled ones but only one smooth base of this soda, and it has some chipping on the lip. I was partially holding my breath as I pulled it out, as lately the good ones have been headless, but this one was perfect! Yay! Bottle goddess was generous to my pleas (sniveling more like it!) It wasn't until I got it home that I realized it was a variant I didn't have at all, just slightly newer, minus the partner in the concern and earliest variant with the A&DHC embossing dating it to the mid-late 60's! Has some pretty crude and funky mold imperfections I thought might have been shovel damage but on close inspection it came out undamaged! Have some good in situ shots for you junkies like me!

More in situ pics.....

Lol, interesting story and nice finds.

a few more.....

And a little cleaner. (The toc mug base was found near the surface during the fill-in.) Needless to say, after 4 1/2 hours of digging I was happy with the one soda! (Next hole needs to be stacked like cordwood with them!) Jack

Excellent. Will you return to the hole and dig away the sides some more? Steve

The hole is done and filled in, but I did scratch out another possible hole next to it just over the property line where there appears to be a buried stone wall, not uncommon around here. As I related in the story, the yard probes out like a dump with plenty of false reads. Short of digging the entire yard (and I have made a good start at it!), I have had to fine tune my probing feel. Jack

"Dug a barrel privy"I've got a privy in Maine made from a 5 gallon plastic pail sunk in the ground. It that the same? []

cowseatmaize said:

"Dug a barrel privy"I've got a privy in Maine made from a 5 gallon plastic pail sunk in the ground. It that the same? []

Click to expand...

Are there bottles in it? []

Great story hannibal. Amazing that when our blood gets to pumping and we get excited we know we must be careful to not let the adrenaline rush dictate our dig. I've been there and can understand how crazy we get when we're digging and trying to find that first bottle in the hole. Fortunately you didn't break anything. I love the way that drakes showed itself just to let you know what you could have had. Yep, there's another pit close by, i can smell it! Great story and thanks for the photos.