Oct/Nov Privy dig in Upstate NY

[CazDigger]

At the Scriba Bottle Show in October, my friend Barry approached me and asked about privy digging, he is an antique dealer and bottle collector who has been in the hobby, dealing & collecting since the early 70s. He had done lots of dump digging, but had never dug a privy. He had secured permission to dig from his attorney, who owned a large lot that once had four 1840s era houses, now demo-ed. He wanted to dig the privies, but didn’t know how to go about it. I enthusiastically said yes, and he also spoke with the usual gang I dig with, as well as his close friend Keon. That made 6 people, a very large crowd for a dig, especially when it comes time to split up the finds.
We made the hour drive to where the property is after meeting for a big breakfast. The site took up about half a block; the back of the property had a low retaining wall. The experienced diggers started probing right away, and before we knew it, we had 3 privies located and started. Barry and Keon got a quick lesson in probing, and found 2 more. This site was nice, since we didn’t need tarps or to worry about grass/lawn. Across the street was a Salvation Army, where several down-on-their-luck types were hanging out. A few kept coming over to watch, ask lots of questions, trying to bum cigarettes, etc. We tried to be polite and not get too annoyed, since we were very focused on the task at hand. Barry was digging a wood liner that had some promising 1870s glass & pottery shards. I was digging next to a tree, finding big roots, rocks and 1920s trash, very discouraging, Mark Jackson and John Golley were digging another wood liner and finding some 1880-90s trash, while Gary Schaap was into a stone liner and finding some 1870s and earlier pieces. Keon had recently had back surgery, and was limited to probing, even though he should not have been doing that either. Barry started finding some whole bottles and jars, although nothing exciting. John & Mark were in the same boat. Gary started finding some very good shards including a broken Old Homestead Bitters, target ball, pontiled Cathedral pickle and others. He eventually found a pontiled Sanford’s Olive Tar and a Poor Man’s Family Bitters, a tube shaped ink and a few others keepers. My hole finally jumped in age once I got down through the roots. One of the first bottles was a cracked pontiled Sanford’s Liver Invigorator. I then pulled out a stoneware beer stamped D.T. ARNOLD not known by us before. There were lots of broken black glass ales and eventually a whole one, along with some larger pontiled black glass whiskeys. We eventually called it quits for the day, filled in the holes, except for mine which we covered, not wanting to catch any hobos in our “trap†and vowed to come back the next Sunday. Gary owns a small equipment business and managed to borrow a backhoe for the next week. We had 5 more privies located and I jumped right in to finish the privy from last week. I made quick work of the small area left and found another stoneware beer, this one marked JOHN CAMPBELL and another black glass whiskey. We used the backhoe to fillerin, boy that was so much easier, why didn’t we try this approach before????? In the meantime, the others were digging 3 other privies, with only Barry finding many 80s-90s bottles, lots of locals, the others were duds. I started another new one that was just over the property line from the first one I dug. It went quite a ways down before hitting any glass, and the first thing to pop up was a quart olive green Clarke & White Saratoga mineral water. At this point, the pit was loaded with trash, mostly pottery. Gary took a turn and found a super rare local iron pontil squat JOHN MASON UTICA NY MINERAL WATER in green. There were also several broken ones in blue and green. We never find iron pontiled sodas around here, so that was quite a treat for us. He also found a citron pontiled snuff that was cracked unfortunately, and a whole o.p. olive amber blacking and an op. AYERS CHERRY PECTORAL. The other guys found some later bottles with a few keepers, but nothing too exciting. We finished the pits up and filled-em in and planned to come back one more time. The third Sunday, we pretty much struck out, it was very anti-climactic. John did find a pit that was next to the first one Gary dug, and 18†down shoveled out an E. Waters master ink in light green. He wasn’t expecting anything good so close to the top and the lip was all chipped up, some chips looked fresh. You always hate to damage what would have been the best bottle, especially when so many are broken before you can even uncover them. We dug a bunch of test holes and found a couple of dud privies, but overall it was a great time and we found lots of glass over the 3 weekends. In total, we dug 11 pits on these 4 lots, and 4 of them had some decent keepers. We definitely plan to dig this town again in the spring. Now we’ve had about 60†of snow here so far this season and the temp has been 0-15 degrees, but the thoughts of spring digging are keeping me going! We haven’t divvied up the bottles yet, I have them here and looking through them is still a lot of fun. https://i985.photobucket.com/albums/ae334/mlyates/barrydoeswork.jpg
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[CazDigger]

After reading CALDIGR2's troubles with posting multiple photos, I thought I had it licked, but somehow they didn't show up in my post without having to click on them. Any idea where I went wrong?? Thanks, Mark

 

[phil44]

Nice finds, as far as posting goes I'd write and post as you go along, makes for a better reading experience. Always check imbed pict. in post!

 

[sandchip]

That Water's is a smoker!

 

[Lordbud]

as far as posting goes I'd write and post as you go along, makes for a better reading experience.

Yeah I second that, a bunch of pictures in one post usually without comments as to what's in each picture is just a jumble. Who got which bottles in the pick? That last one from Troy, NY is a beauty, crude, color, shape...

 

[CazDigger]

Yea, I know sorry about that, especially with such a long story. My old eyes can barely read the small print. We still haven't split the bottles up yet. Its hard to get 6 people all together in one place this time of year. Maybe soon now that the holidays are over. It will be done like we usually do with the permission getter having 1st pick and drawing numbers for the order for the rest of the guys. We all had such a great time at this dig, of course it sure helps when you find stuff! It looks like our bad luck streak is pretty much over. We didn't get out much this past year, but we got some keepers when we did.

 

[surfaceone]

After reading CALDIGR2's troubles with posting multiple photos, I thought I had it licked, but somehow they didn't show up in my post without having to click on them. Any idea where I went wrong?? Thanks, Mark

Cooperative Digging Kudos to you Mark, and your Merry Band of Diggers,

On Photobucket, there is a little window, to the left and below the image, that has several codes. The one you want is IMG Code. I have to change the

, and you should be good to go. I'm gonna stick a few of your great photos up in a sec, so people can see them at a glance. Sounds like a fun time was had by all and some great glass and stoneware too. I'm having serious envy issues with your mechanized assistant...

Is there an image on the lidded chamber pot?

These are great! Is the Ink a P&J Arnold? I see "Bourne near Denby."

Inquiring minds are wondering about the milk glass?

Thanks for sharing your dig.

 

[CazDigger]

Wow, thank you so much! That sure looks better! The stoneware chamber pot does not have any markings other than the potters finger & hand prints in the Albany slip. The PJ Arnold is from the pontiled era, 1850s or older based on the context of the other bottles it was with. The milk glass bottles are diff. varieties of the Champlins Liquid Pearl. That backhoe was a brand new one he had for sale and almost lost one of the pins. I guess he was using it as a sales demo in case one of us diggers wanted to buy it, LOL. We don't normally have room on our digs in the backyards, but this was one big empty lot, without houses that used to be 4 lots.

 

[passthebottle]

Nice bottles there CazDigger, and cool story too. For me the 1st pick would have to be the D.T. Arnold stone bottle, what d'ya think??

 

[CazDigger]

Lets try this.....

WOOOHOO! it worked!