RIBottleguy
Well-Known Member
It all started with a discontent of the ok digging sites I have been digging. Either they weren't productive or they were but needed a backhoe to make it worthwhile. I figured permissions would be a good idea. So, after remembering an old house by chance, I was off. It was an old 1760s farmhouse out in the boonies that would make any collector drool. I originally planned to go there and just ask the owner about the history of the farm. They were pretty friendly and produced a very rare book on the history of the area and the four old houses that the same Mr. Potter built. After learning some cool info, I asked the owner, Howard, if he had ever found artifacts on the site. I guess it was kind of a dumb question. He takes me over to this big hole I had somehow missed, and shows me a pile of broken glass and bottles. His son, John, was putting in a pump house and they had run into a bottle dump in the process.
I took one look in the hole and asked them if they minded if I helped them recover the bottles. They said go for it so I grabbed my clam rake and hopped in. The first bottle to come out was a Healy & Bigelow's Kickapoo Indian Cough Cure. Not a bad medicine! My eyes nearly popped out when I saw a topless green squat soda fall out of the backhoe bucket. It was a Tweddle's Celebrated Soda or Mineral Waters NY (Courtland). It was emerald green with an iron pontil. Sadly the top wasn't found. Then I spotted the base of a broken barrel bitters! It was a Greeley's Bourbon Bitters in a nice color. From then on I tore into the place. The excavator operator, Ross, was a huge help. It took me a while to figure out what was going on in the hole, but it appeared they had dug into an old foundation that had been filled with trash. The age was all over the place. I found a nice Swift's Arsenate of Lead poison jug with some lip damage, and the backhoe found an 1870s Hostetter's Stomach Bitters. I dug into another corner, and near the bottom hit a nice Lyon's Kathairon for the Hair with an open pontil.
We were getting a lot of commons (Paine's Celery Compound, Dr. Lawrence's Cough Balsam, Atwoods Bitters etc.), and decided to take out some of the foundation stones. While the backhoe was wrestling with the stones, a big square bottle popped out of the wall and rolled down the stony slope to my feet. I panicked for a second because I realized it was a nice bottle as I saw it tumble down, but fortunately it survived. It couldn't believe what I saw when I wiped the dirt off and it read Dr. Townsend's. I had called a fellow collector, David to stop by and watch, and he couldn't believe it. It was the best bottle I have ever dug (still second best glass piece next to my threadless insulator).
Since the owner's son, John was collecting all the bottles, I didn't get to keep any, but I'll try to work something out in the future if we dig more together.
The first bottle
Most of the finds
Broken Greeley's [
]
Tweddle's
Lyon's Kathairon
Me and John with the Townsends
More pics
Great pontil, it even has a piece of "open pontil" where there wasn't enough iron.
I took one look in the hole and asked them if they minded if I helped them recover the bottles. They said go for it so I grabbed my clam rake and hopped in. The first bottle to come out was a Healy & Bigelow's Kickapoo Indian Cough Cure. Not a bad medicine! My eyes nearly popped out when I saw a topless green squat soda fall out of the backhoe bucket. It was a Tweddle's Celebrated Soda or Mineral Waters NY (Courtland). It was emerald green with an iron pontil. Sadly the top wasn't found. Then I spotted the base of a broken barrel bitters! It was a Greeley's Bourbon Bitters in a nice color. From then on I tore into the place. The excavator operator, Ross, was a huge help. It took me a while to figure out what was going on in the hole, but it appeared they had dug into an old foundation that had been filled with trash. The age was all over the place. I found a nice Swift's Arsenate of Lead poison jug with some lip damage, and the backhoe found an 1870s Hostetter's Stomach Bitters. I dug into another corner, and near the bottom hit a nice Lyon's Kathairon for the Hair with an open pontil.
We were getting a lot of commons (Paine's Celery Compound, Dr. Lawrence's Cough Balsam, Atwoods Bitters etc.), and decided to take out some of the foundation stones. While the backhoe was wrestling with the stones, a big square bottle popped out of the wall and rolled down the stony slope to my feet. I panicked for a second because I realized it was a nice bottle as I saw it tumble down, but fortunately it survived. It couldn't believe what I saw when I wiped the dirt off and it read Dr. Townsend's. I had called a fellow collector, David to stop by and watch, and he couldn't believe it. It was the best bottle I have ever dug (still second best glass piece next to my threadless insulator).
Since the owner's son, John was collecting all the bottles, I didn't get to keep any, but I'll try to work something out in the future if we dig more together.
The first bottle
Most of the finds
Broken Greeley's [
]
Tweddle's
Lyon's Kathairon
Me and John with the Townsends
More pics
Great pontil, it even has a piece of "open pontil" where there wasn't enough iron.
