One-Room schoolhouse

[cobaltbot]

At your local courthouse they should have plat maps or tax maps that show the latest land parcels. By cross referencing numbers on the parcels they should be able to tell you the owner.

 

[canada]

In the early days, schools were used as community meeting halls,resulting in a wide variety of bottles being present. Usually though, not much will be found in the privies, as they were regularly ''dipped''. You might find some nice marbles . Most schools had separate privies for boys & girls, often at opposite ends of the yard. Good luck.

 

[beendiggin]

Wish me good luck..

Good luck!

 

[mgardziella]

Thanks for all the help. The school is in a small rural town, so I doubt it would have been dipped. When I probe for privies, (I've never dug a privy), do I look for ground that sinks, or hard stuff like trash?

 

[Michdigger]

ORIGINAL: tigue710

Id be more interested in the crawl space under the school house...

Your right Tigue...Crawl Spaces Rock..

 

[whitefish]

Yeah, they are often overlooked. I wondered when someone was going to mention crawl spaces on here. When I was about 11 I had a nice old lady from our church bring me some bottles a repairman had found in the crawlspace under her house. Two Hagan's Magnolia Balms with labels, a Buckinghams Whisker Dye with full label a Carters Extract of Smartweed, and some local druggist.
Have you ever crawled under any old railroad depots? Passengers tossed their empties under there so you could get some nice local stuff from up and down the line.

 

[Oldtimer]

ORIGINAL: mgardziella

When I probe for privies, (I've never dug a privy), do I look for ground that sinks, or hard stuff like trash?

Mark out the whole space with a 2'x2' grid using string and wood stakes. Probe each square until the rod sinks in and you hear "pop pop pop"...thats the glass..you might have to really work it at first, the privies were often "capped" with clay, or stone or concrete....if you find such a hard spot, probe from the side at an angle..
Good luck!

 

[Oldtimer]

Speaking of crawl spaces...

I own and live in a very old house....it was moved here from up on the Mt. sometime in the 1840s....
I have pit sawed boards in my roof, and a brick Bee-Hive oven/fireplace/fire box....
I have 2 "cellars" that used to be 4' crawl spaces until my dad dug them out....and now every spring we have 40" of water in them...It never occured to him WHY they were only crawl spaces..
Anyway, there are VAST sections under my house with only 10-12" of space under the floor boards..and those boards are very very old..in spots they are worn down at least half way through from use..the outside "footing" or foundation of my house is all 4-6" stones, and not mortered...just more or less stacked in a rough line and then built on..there are holes big enough for my cats to pass through hunting mice and squirrels..
The point of this whole thing is...I can remember looking in these holes as a kid and seeing glass...and I remember hearing that back in the day the people would put a flask of water behind the oven as an "over-heat" warning...when the cork popped, it was too hot...
The plaster and trim and such has never been removed from around the bricks...it's original....

What should I do here?

 

[mgardziella]

Find an excuse to get new flooring![] Thanks for the help. Now I just have to find who owns it and get permisson. And wait for all the snow to melt...

 

[tigue710]

I can remember looking in these holes as a kid and seeing glass

So what ya waiting for! I'd get in there...!