A surprise in a cistern

[cannibalfromhannibal]

I probed out this yard awhile back and recently returned looking for the older privy, having dug the 80's-90's privy last month. Dates before the civil war, so should be at least one, maybe 2 older privies. Went to the best feeling probe yesterday and after about 2 feet, it opened up like a sink hole, so I filled in my exploratory hole and moved to probe hole #2. Dug in some tough clay with small shards and some age to 60's, but no signs of a real hole. No walls, no use layer, nuthin! After a bitter 3 hours, I returned to the sink hole and decided to see what was up, knowing it was far enough from where I dug last month to be encroaching on my previous dig. Turned out to discover a cistern filled in about 3 feet to the top. Since I had no better prospects for the day I decided to get into it. Plus it was getting late with only a couple hours left to dig. That's about what I spent opening this 8 footer up. Covered it over and waterproofed it as it was supposed to rain....and it did. Fortunately not a lot but enough to make it a muck pit if I hadn't taken precautions.....

 

[cannibalfromhannibal]

After about 4 hours of digging, decided it was enough and didn't show any real age, but did come away with a couple surprises. Here is a pic of the meager haul.....

 

[epackage]

Time well spent...

 

[AntiqueMeds]

Around here cisterns are not good prospects so you are lucky to find anything.
Was it the buried beehive/igloo style or the cylinder type?
I have one of each at my house, one fed from a windmill and the other from roof gutters.

 

[cannibalfromhannibal]

Mostly all 90's stuff.....the crown top is only my second variant of this bottle with Hannibal misspelled with one "N", oddly enough the other one was also dug a few months ago in the only other cistern I have dug this year. Found a couple cool samples, an unembossed Vinol looking bottle and a E-Z Stove Polish. One surprise was the 7 1/2" tall Hoytt's German Cologne. Never saw any that were close to this one in size and had no clue what it was when I first pulled it out. Thought it was a fancy olive oil at first. Anyone else seen one this large before? I'm used to the 10 cent and nickel sized ones. This must have been at least a 50 center!

 

[cannibalfromhannibal]

The real surprise for me was the familiar shaped pharmacy, 3/4 round with flat embossed panel. Around here there was one pharmacy that was most popular with this style, Murray Ray with a large R embossed on the fan. That was what I first looked for and expected when I turned it over to wipe the dirt and was stunned to see the letter was a large C! Thinking it was an out-of-towner, I was again pleasantly surprised to see it was a M B Craft/Druggist/Hannibal, Mo. Never found a shard or broken one and this was undamaged and super clean! After getting home and researching it, found only one listing in the 1885-86 directory and then was gone. Explains why I haven't found any pieces before. This one made it worth my while for sure.

 

[cannibalfromhannibal]

Matt, it was the igloo style and around here the cisterns are either loaded or very sparse. This one was about in the middle with some pockets here and there but tons of digging for what you get. I gave up at about the 8 foot level. I tend to work in a circular direction along the edges as they seem to have a tendency to deposit much of the "junk" there. Usually not much I find towards the center, leading me to believe there must be some natural swirling action to the water. At any rate I hear what you say, and I usually don't walk, I run from the cisterns, but last year I dug 2 that had 1840-50 stuff in them with a few whole goodies. Usually around here, you're lucky to find any filled in before the 90's. They do tend to yield some decent early fruit jars and the larger bottles/jars tend to survive better here than the privies, in general. Also, less mineralization leaving a cleaner bottle, like my prized Craft Druggist, looking like the day it was made. I also have what I thought was a gutter fed cistern to my house until I read Digger O'Dell's Privy book and discovered it was described in his book as an early version of a flush toilet, piping in the rain gutter water and depositing it into the city sewer system at the opposite end. Mine sadly was never filled in, but at least I finally figured out where my privy was!

 

[GACDIG]

Nice Surprise, I love the embossed Pictures.

 

[sandchip]

Good stuff. Killer druggist!

 

[AntiqueMeds]

Interesting, never heard of a sewage system like that. I wonder if they used anything like that in old Frederick city here.