1st Dig in Key West

[southern Maine diver]

Hey Brenda...

Super nice mixture of bottles ... these all came out of your first dig????[:-] Wow...Some of us dig for years and never come up with a Stoddard, NH Cornucopia/Urn flask...[&o] Kinda rare to dig one down the Keys...
Obi-wan-Capsoda says there isn't much for New England glass to dig that far down south. The flask is a real keeper. Great job.[]

Wayne

 

[ConchDigger]

Hi Guys,

Rich, the little green med is the Nubian Tea I forgot to take out of the photo as mentioned prior. I took everything out I did not find in this dig, but forgot that one - it's from the beach.

Wayne, as for the flask...I thought the same thing. I thought I was really specially blessed until I called my grandmother, who now lives in NC. She says she does have numerous ones (including two exactly like this) she found during her beach dump digging years here in the 60's-70's (Rest beach on south side if you are familiar). She wasn't as excited as I was, but then again I bet she was back in her day when she found her own. She thinks because so many ships wrecked here and their cargos salvaged that mabey that's how they arrived. The really strange thing was the family who's yard it was in were affluential African (literally) Americans. Many African Americans worked as salvors, sooooo...just a guess. I found alot of other not as special stuff, like the cracked "Pluto" water in the photo in the same level. My guess is that because you can't dig but so deep here, the pits were constantly dipped and items settling on the bottom are co-mingled versus the traditional northern habit of starting deep and working your way in layers until the pit was "done". Most of the best stuff was of course on the bottom. The historian at the library says if he would have gotten ahold of the records for the "Odorless Evacuation Co." (yes, the dipper's real company name back in the day) before they burned in a fire, I could have looked up who didn't get dipped regularly.

When I get a chance, I'll take some photos of the stuff I found under my house's crawl space last month. The house is 114 years old (no Sanborns for my block prior to that, so it may be older) and the floor has never been renovated. Some of the bottles were just lying on the ground or sticking out. I couldn't help myself though, so I squeezed into the 1 1/2 ft. crawl space area with a hoe, headlamp, beer, and little rake an tried to cover the whole area going down at least a foot over the whole space. I needed to clean it out so it would breath better anyway. Let me tell you, I've never seen so many giant cow bones in my life (a cow bell too - and this is downtown Key West!). I later learned there was a butcher next door in the 1800's so it now makes sense. It's not really a "dig", but imagine having your own little bottling place under your own house you can go to at anytime - permission issues be damned - and look for stuff. I found some neat stuff there.

Take care guys and hope you enjoy the holidays.

ConchDigger

 

[ConchDigger]

Hi Rich,

I'm sorry, did you mean this little green med. It's aqua, has a crooked neck, lots of little bubbles, no markings anywhere, seams on two corners, but no seams on the neck. There's a little chip out of the bottom, but seems to be some kind of circular scar. Any ideas?

ConchDigger

 

[richf]

Hi Brenda,
No, that's not the one ... it's right behind the marbles, next to the cobalt jar.
It must be nice living down there, where you never get "froze out" of digging, unlike here in the northeast. So far, this season has been more than mild, but that has to change one of these days. Oh well, spring isn't too far off!
Rich

 

[capsoda]

Hey Brenda, Very nice haul of glass. Wayne is right. New England glass is really rare in the FL untill after the Civil War period.

Key West was a Cubian/African Settelment Before it was taken over by the US.

 

[ConchDigger]

Yeah, I guess it is a digger's paradise in more ways than one. You all are welcome to come along on any future digs. I'm doing it by myself for now, so I get to keep everything the family doesn't want. I got an assistant for safety reasons at the end of the 1st dig because of the depth of the privy - yes, I'm short. I am going to give the yard's family their choice of the gold items and stuff I found, not only to contribute to their heritage, but to foster future permissions. The history of our island is a hobby of mine, so it's neat to tie things in with my research. Sometimes things just don't though. However, my granfmother also found flasks. When I visit her in NC, I'm going to try to document her collection. Except for her Beam bottles, she didn't buy or sell her bottles just like I don't intend to (for now at least). So, everything she has either came from digging or one of her many trips out to the little key's out-islands where she found many washed up into the interior from storms of years past (especially those huge boyant demijohns). The only sad note is that a vandal broke into her veranda down here in the late 70's and smashed many of her favorites, so some are lost forever. Can you imagine a worse thing happening - even stealing them would be better. Anyway, I think documenting them would be historically significant as I bet she could even remember where she found most of them.

In the case of my digging under my own house (the only other real hunting I've done), in addition to bottles I've found a little "speakeasy" shot glass (not the one in the photo) which makes since because there was one directly behind my house in years past. I also found under the house a trumpet mouthpiece and some sort of old fraternal ceremonial badge (latin saying on it, but no order/lodge markings). These items were a foot down near the center of the house, so I would imagine they pre-date the the house. I live next to the historic cemetery in what was an open field prior to 1880. There were more secret/fraternal societies in Key West prior to the turn of the century, than the any other city at that time in Florida. The traditional Key West burial of any digitaries or members of the "societies" were always done in full ceremonial dress with the local band of the era playing and there was a parade involving all. You still see these sometimes with the older families and it is so neat. For about an hour it sounds like a New Orleans jazz festival is going on. So, is that how those items got under my house? I don't know, but to me that's part of the thrill of finding them. I'll stop blabbing and post more photos after I dig over the holidays. I'm not supposed to know it, but I'm getting a Whites metal detector for Christmas - Yeah!!

PS. Any other female diggers out there?

ConchDigger

 

[zanes_antiques]

So, what you are saying is I can tell my wife we're going on vacation to the keys while all along I know it's really just to dig. Ack ack ack. Sounds like the perfect winter get away to me.

 

[ConchDigger]

Yes, and like I said - I have some permissions lined up and ready to go. I'm very serious about the invitaion, but the tickets from Ohio aren't included! By the way Zane, I loved your "yard" dig you shared with everyone. Very coool!

I've included pics so no one gets too bored. These are the first two bottles I found under my own house, so they're special to me (I know...silly sentimental women!). I kept the fragment because, I don't have any of the bigger style squared bottles yet. I did find a big frag from a dark green Aromatic Schnapps in the privy, but wasn't desparate enough to keep that one. Granny has LOTS of them, so I'm confident I'll find whole ones of my own. The other artifacts I talked about before from under the house. The purple bottle is a Campbells & Co. Ketchup, It's cracked so I'm affraid to mess with it. The other one I like the patina because you can see the embossing. There's a little soldier in their too along with the trumpet mouthpiece and badge thingy. Any ideas on the badge let me know, but I think it was a local fraternal org.

The picture in the next post is the beginning of the first privy I talked about. It wasn't too deep yet, but I knew once I got into it I'd get caught up in the excitement and would forget to take more photos...which I did. I'm sending it up to you guys in the cold north so you can see a privy with tropical foliage[] The corner of the house you see is one of three houses moved to the property at the outset of WW I from another location in town to replace the real old ones that were torn down. We evidently moved houses all the time down here and they held up well because they were built by ships carpenters with mortise and tenon joints.

Enjoy!!!

Conchdigger

 

[ConchDigger]

Warn tropical Privy!!

 

[southern Maine diver]

Conchdigger...

Hey Brenda, you're killing me with this warmth and tropical diggin stuff![X(] Water temperature up here was at 40 degrees[&:] Oh well, least we don't have any of those dammned mosquitos this time of year and the woodsmoke from the woodstove smells kinda nice.[]

The farthest south I have gotten recently was Ft Myers. I've always wanted to visit the keys, just never put the time aside. Always have trouble finding a time share swap this time of year. I forget what its' like to be in warm water!![&o]

The digging photos are great. We look forward to seeing more of them. Be sure to get the property owner to snap a quick photo of you while you're in the pit. We like to see who we're chatting with.[]

Talk to you soon,

Wayne
It never rains underwater