Dug on the 4th of July.....(There otta be a movie!)

[cannibalfromhannibal]

Well, decided to take advantage of a break in the monsoonal rains and open up a hole I probed out a week before. Opened it up and soon discovered a layer of burnt looking ashy junk from the 30's. I have long ago learned the importance of ignoring whatever comes from the top 3 feet of a hole around these parts. So I persevered, and at about 3 feet found a shard with Hannibal embossed on it. Another foot and I was into a definite use layer, though some of it was early machined, so I wasn't feeling all that excited. Add the heat & humidity, which was killer that day, and I was ready to quit! Not like me! (musta needed a Snickers bar!) After a short break, I got back to it and CLUNK! Smacked into what looked like a large pottery something........large & clay it was! A damned old unused sewer line! Crap! (Pun intended) Running right through my dig! Great! Well, I poked around one edge of the pipe and up popped a really ancient piece of glass. Wiping it off I realized it was the top panels to a cathedral pepper sauce! Now THAT got my attention. Next to it was a base to a Safe Cure. Then up popped an early applied top hinge mold Cocoaine. So now I'm confused. I start thinking maybe they dug the older stuff deeper for the sewer pipe to be laid. Having started late in the afternoon, I decided to knock down the sides a bit to make it less of a hazard. While doing this, I hit a toc use layer only a foot or so under the surface near one wall. Suddenly, among the rather newer looking stuff rolls into my lap a crude square embossed medicine about 4" and looks so crude I look for a pontil scar before anything else. But NO! It is smooth, so I check the lip and it looks tooled! Checking out the embossing, I expected it to be an early Husband's or Henry's Calcined Magnesia. (I dug a badly melted Husband's back in the 1960's and always wanted to dig a good one) But even this one is different, embossed Reynold's/Gout/Specific/London. The embossing and the crudeness of the sides look like they used the same old mold forever! If not for the lip finish and smooth base, it would look 1850's all day long! But I was happy with this one as I never heard of it before. So I tarped and boarded up the pit and tucked it in for the night. I slept a fitful sleep that night wondering about the pepper sauce and his little friends. I returned early the next morning knowing it was 'do or die', as rain was forecast for the following morning and rest of the week, and I refuse to sling drippy mud! So in the hole I go and get to work. Half a foot or so under the pipe I hit a crusty hard layer of clay with bits of brick and coal, so I keep digging. About 2 foot deeper, it gets softer, but no glass! No china, pottery, nuthin' I'm looking for. So I break out the 4 foot probe and gently see how deep it goes. (I'm at the 7 foot level, digging solo, as all help is enjoying the holiday as normal people ought to. So huffing up the bucket loads and dumping by myself and up & down the ladder is taking its toll on my ancient bones.) So my probe sails in to the handle with relative ease! 11 foot deep and still no evidence of hitting the bottom! Crap again! There are times when my thought processes are actually more normal than even I expect! Usually I am hoping the hole goes on forever. Not this one! Dilemma! I decided to get the spud bar out and remove the center piece of the sewer pipe as it was creating an obstacle. Once out of the way the digging got easier but the results were lacking. Under one end of the remaining pipe was a broken but complete Harter's Iron Tonic with a crude applied lip and hinge mold. Not far from it was also a complete but also broken A. Kiefer/Indianapolis//Taraxine, also with applied lip and hinge mold. Another unknown to me! I kept digging deeper but found only ashy coal void of any trash. Reluctantly, I decided to dig the sides out and call it good. If it were cooler weather with no rain in the near future, I would like to think I would have made it to the bottom. It's pits like this that wake me in the dead of winter in the middle of the night taunting me! Might have to get the newby helper to reopen this one in drier weather! We'll see......there is another hole on the opposite side of the lot I probed out right where the Sanborn map says there is one, as it was a duplex in its day.......Jack

 

[cannibalfromhannibal]

Previous pics insitu, on right a Florida water style bottle from Larkin Co and to the left a common St. Louis Eddy & Eddy pharmacy. Last pic was the haul.....not much to brag on for 6 hours of torture, but got me off the couch and away from the BBQ! These are pics of the funky Reynolds Gout Specific.

 

[botlguy]

Thank you for another interesting story regardless of the finds. It's all in the story well told and you do it as well as anybody, and better than most. Jim

 

[Bass Assassin]

I know how you feel Jack about being haunted by unfinished holes. I have 2 of them side by side I quit digging at about 12 ft on both. It's just too much work for one man. I think of them at night while I'm trying to fall asleep and it eats away at me. Enough of that. That gout specific is a very old looking bottle like you said. Great post and finds and thanks for the photos.

 

[digginthedog]

Hey Jack, though I mostly lurk when I stop by ABN , like the others, always enjoy your posts/digs & pic's (they even make My old back hurt a bit ). I dug a REYNOLDS yrs ago from a toc dump in central NY, except it read ENFIELD rather than LONDON.. I think it was forum member DEEP BLUE DIGGER that said the pontil variants were pretty scarce, always fun to dig something different though.. Thanks for taking the time to post and good luck.. JB

 

[andy volkerts]

Good story Jack, I wish more members here would share their digging stories, You and Rick do more than your share! best of luck to you, and keep on digging.....Andy

 

[2find4me]

Great finds, that Reynold's is really cool. I also went digging on the 4th of July and found some stuff. In the dump I was digging at 1960's bottles are mixed in with 1890's bottles so you never know what you might pull out. I think they put bottles in barrels in a trench and bulldozed them to make it flat. Unfortunately, 90% of the stuff is broken.

 

[adshepard]

Thanks for the story. I love that gout bottle. Alan