Privvy digging tips

[Mukurogirl]

Well I'm a Pennsylvania digger and live in an old township call Shadegap which is two hours away from Philadelphia. I'm 15 years old and I fell in love with bottle digging just at the beginning of this past summer. It's sort of like a family tradition on my father's side. My father's father took my dad bottle digging. I'm told it was easier back then. You just walked into an abondoned building and came out with boxes of corkers.

Not so now. We have alittle over one hundred fifty bottles in our collection. Most of which we dug out of old dumps. It's usually just my father and me. Which is good father daughter time since we don't have many shared interests. Anyways I already know I don't have any expensive bottles in my collection. We are going after the illusive Burnt Cabins Bottling Company bottle....a blob top. We live less then a few miles from the town of Burnt Cabins and you'd tihnk when you're digging in the area you'd find a burnt cabins bottle? Noooooo

It's a farm area all around here so no fancy stuff to pull up. Now after doing some research and checking around the internet. I discussed Privvy digging with my father and after a few months of not gathering any really old bottles...heh he kinda caved in. I'm saying that the -really- old bottles are in the privvies. My father and my father's father..hell great uncle Short have dug up damn near every inch of Shadegap which makes it hard for us to find good dumps. -No- one has every privvy dug around my areas. Wellll you'd have to agree we have a better chance of pulling up atleast a few bottles out of an old privvy rather then searching for dumps and discovering the broken bottles from people having shot at them.

Sooo we just had our probe made by a family friend and I'd appreciate any tips you can give us. We're curious as to how privvy digging is done. Most of the privies around our area are no more then 5ft deep,but they moved the privies often. I know this because my father's father...my grandpa ran the shit truck(septic truck) and my father used to help.

 

[cb0023]

hi and welcome. glad to see the younger generations getting involved. i am a bit older but i am still relatively new to digging the privies and i think the hardest thing about it is finding them. in the city it is somewhat easier because of small back yards but out in the country they could be all over the place. try to look for depressions in the ground where the dirt may have settled. look for lilac bushes which were used to mask the smell. also if you have a good metal detector use it. often the outhouse holes contained many things and will set your detector off. i think the key is using the probe and being able to tell what you are hitting. read through the past posts. these guys really know what they are doing and have given some great pointers.
if your grandfather used to drive the septic truck maybe he can tell you where they were, or if hes not around maybe your dad still remembers his route. what a crappy job..lol sorry hadda say it.
also try looking for sanborn fire insurance maps. usually you can find them at the library. they listed every structure on the map including outhouses. however being a farm setting they might not have them for your town. they dont have them for mine which was all farms in the early days. good luck let us know how you make out..

 

[S.C. Warner]

Howdy Mukurogirl, as you know, and a lot of people cringe at the thought of digging in old out house holes. It's all organic and 'time' recycles it right back into good old earth. It's pretty easy to tell when you are in a newer outhouse foundation. Though there aren't many left anymore that are actually in use. Some though here stateside anyway. You are correct in depth usually five foot is about right. I guess I was lucky in that I was brought up way out in the country, (I still live in country today and wouldn't trade it for city any day.) Back then it was a one room brick school house, converted to a four room house. Two bedrooms, kitchen and living room. (My grandmother taught school there years before I came along. Really.) We had an outside well, that we hand pumped water from and brought in a galvanized bucket and used a long handled dipper we all shared to drink from. We washed up in the same sink the bucket was at. the water went down the drain and into a 5 gallon bucket under the sink itself. That was the extent of our plumbing [] Grandmother had a large crock 20 gal. pickle jar outside at one corner of the house to catch rain water. This is what she used to bring rain water in to wash her long braided hair, that she brushed daily 100 strokes. We had a pot belly coal stove that sat in middle of the floor, between kitchen and living room. It was one of my jobs to take the cinders and ash outside to pour into the driveway. The Outhouse sat maybe 100 feet away from the front door. A cold trek in the winter, so usually a chamber pot was used. (Some of those chairs ,Thrones they were called, were very fancy.) Normally in the outhouse, it was just a sitting bench, with two holes cut into the top. Maybe a magazine for reading pleasure. Sometimes a page or two doubled as Charmin. (Thinking of a Bevis joke yet?) It really wasn't a place where daily household trash was dumped in altho in other parts of the country or some households that may have been an acceptable practice. But with a hole that is only five foot deep (sometimes 30-50 gallon barrels sank into the ground, with holes punched in bottom so liquids would drain out) they would fill up to fast. Ours had a burn pile pretty near it (so, maybe in searching for the privy, hints of an old burn pile would be a clue?)
Grandmother had seven kids. They were my Aunts and Uncles. Most of them all collected bottles later in their lives (only two left now.) But this is what they told me, and so, I'll pass it along to you, since you asked. The old bottles...wheter the contents were used to warm up the bones or nipped in privacy (Grand Dad or Great Grand Dad, can't forget about the abolitionist's right)[] were dropped into the holes. The great thing about this? They fell into a soft cushion and a great organic preservative. Most of your privy bottles might well be liqueur bottles. I've read of many historical flasks and other old whiskey's being dug from privy's for this reason. Of course, the older the outhouse, the older your finds. As a kid I do remember dropping items down into that mysterious hole just because it was there, so, a person could find just about anything? Sorry this is so long. As cb0023 said, it's good to see the younger generation getting involved. I hope this post gives you a little more insight to what the living conditions were like. (Much different in some ways) And help you in your endeavors. I think schools should give extra credit to young people that pick up on historical hobbies such as you have. maybe it would encourage more to get involved in the better things in life. Hope all is well in Shadegap and that you keep us filled in on your finds.
sc

 

[S.C. Warner]

Some really great tips cb, especially about the lilac bushes. I hadn't thought of that. They would also add to the inconspicuousness. Out-houses weren't usually a show off item, and were typically concealed. Thanks for the maps tip. too! That's one I'll check out myself!
best,
sc.