1840's privy

[baltbottles]

In the earlier period such as the age of this pit. Most dippers would have separated out the glass to be resold as cullet to a glass house and the manure would be sold to local farmers as fertilizer. The only thing that would have been dumped was all the broken ceramics which had no resale value.

I believe that it wasn't until the late 19th century that the glass had such little value and so many chemical fertilizers had become widely used that it was no longer worth wile economically to separate the glass and ceramic from the manure. At this time the dipped out contents of many privies were likely dumped in a large land fill.

Chris

 

[RICKJJ59W]

ORIGINAL: coldwater diver

Im just curious where did the dippers dump?

In lower populated ares I have found what I believe are "dippers dumps" in the woods just on the outskirts of town. There were piles of Small to medium piles of stones mounded up. When I first found one of these mounds I had no clue what it was so I started to take some rocks out.Soon old old shards from the 1850s were appearing in the stones.
I have never found a whole bottle in these dumping locations but I believe they dumped all of the semi liquid waste on these piles of stones after they took all the "whole" glass for cutlet.

I know this was talked about before on here, others have found these piles also.

 

[botlguy]

ORIGINAL: RICKJJ59W

ORIGINAL: coldwater diver

Im just curious where did the dippers dump?

In lower populated ares I have found what I believe are "dippers dumps" in the woods just on the outskirts of town. There were piles of Small to medium piles of stones mounded up. When I first found one of these mounds I had no clue what it was so I started to take some rocks out.Soon old old shards from the 1850s were appearing in the stones.
I have never found a whole bottle in these dumping locations but I believe they dumped all of the semi liquid waste on these piles of stones after they took all the "whole" glass for cutlet.

I know this was talked about before on here, others have found these piles also.

That is a very interesting question, one I have never heard asked, and an interesting answer, although perhaps speculative. This brings other questions to my mind: Why would they dump such material on rocks / stones if they wanted to retrieve whole bottles and such? Also, wouldn't there be other remnants such as china, pottery, metal, etc.?

Just asking.

 

[JGUIS]

I have been on the hunt for the dippers dump for years now, to no avail. Our city dump that everyone remembers was a couple miles out of town, in which I've never found anything older than TOC. I did find a ravine dump of decent size less than a block from our courthouse. I was able to date it to at least the 1880s before I was kicked out, but I also know that there was quite a bit of digging left to do at the top end, where it gets deep. I doubt it was a dippers dump, just because of it's proximity to the center of town, but I've been wrong before. I do know of a place downtown in the bottoms that it pretty swampy, that has some of the small mounds that Rick was talking about, but I've never found anything to lead me to believe that it was dump. I figured the piles were from the old brick plant next door, so I didn't do any digging, but maybe I'll stop by there and bust a couple holes and see what the dirt says. I do have a detector for those of you who mentioned it. I've never had any luck with it, unless you count horseshoes. I plan on digging this weekend, so hopefully the bottle gods will shine their light on my hole. [X(]

 

[JGUIS]

Hey Appliedlips, do you remember probing this hole? You told me it was new. lol