The Marysville Chamber Pot

[Potlidboy]

Downtown Marysville several years ago: Huntindog, Bob & I had secured permission to dig on main street. The owner of the business had a severely sunken concrete slab in the rear corner of his brick building. He was retrofitting the structure for a new business and gave us permission to tear up the concrete, find out what was causing the slump and ready it for a new construction. Slumping concrete in the rear of an old brick building ~ sounds like heaven to me. Because of close walls & a nearby cement sink, the job started out slow. We powered through the cracked old concrete with sledge hammers & found a void beneath. We began shoveling dirt & sand from a five foot diameter depression. We dropped down layer by layer wondering when we'd find a seed layer, ash and /or glass. Nothing.....the fill was pretty clean. It had obviously been dipped. We started to bucket dirt to the top as we could no longer throw it from the hole with a shovel. Still deeper we dug. We knew we had an undug hole simply by it's location ~ that is unless someone had tunneled in from outside the building. Marysville was like that. Scores of diggers dug this town leaving empty pits & treacherous traps. More than one property owner had fallen into an unfilled bottle hole. Permission was hard to come by & who could blame the property owners? Once more bottle diggers were their own worst enemy. But we were in the ground & dropping down through time. It was a twelve foot hole ~ nada ~ until the last two feet. At the very bottom we uncovered two gold rush period sodas : a Taylor Eureka Soda Works in cobalt blue & a light green blob top embossed “mineral water”. It was a pretty light hole in terms of bottles ~ but then there were two other surprises. Two chamber pots lay in the very bottom of the pit. In the split I chose this chamber pot. Now as I write this little story, I find it a tad strange I'm sharing a lowly chamber pot on this forum. Still as chamber pots go, it's a doozy. This giant mug is decorated in cobalt Victorian characters. The date stamp on the base tells this mug was made in August of 1849 ~ California Pearl Stone Ware ~ Wedgwood. measures 8” across & stands 7” tall. The picture on both sides of the mug is an idyllic harbor scene in Greece ~ gondolas, statues and beautiful buildings set in the shadow of towering mountains. The same scene has been reduced in size and has become the: ummmmm, drop zone, so to speak. Imagine, it is 1849. The rush is on. James Marshall found gold in the mill race at Coloma the preceding year. The travel from Boston to California took six grueling months. You are now living in a tent along the Yuba River waiting for your chance to strike it rich in the Sierra Mountains. Winters are cold & wet. The prospect of gold & riches propels you on. It won't be too long and you & your partner will have a grubstake. And you will need one ~ shovels alone are a whopping $36.00 each. Just a few more weeks and you can leave Marysville behind. Yowzer ~ people here are still talking about the Donner tragedy back in “46”. Those poor souls. A little sip of red eye & a trip to the local bordello to soothe the pain ~ heck, the ladies won't miss this fancy thunder mug ~ it won't be long before I'll leave this stinking tent and travel the far shores of Europe with all of the gold I'll find.

 

[Potlidboy]

picture two

 

[Potlidboy]

picture three

 

[sandchip]

Wow, that prize made it all the while, huh? What a beauty.

 

[digger dun]

great story, great pot! do you have pictures of the sodas? I found a lip less green IP soda embossed plainly with "Mineral waters" a while back, and I wonder if the two are similar.

 

[cannibalfromhannibal]

Great story and what a Cadillac of thundermugs! Love those graphics and looks like it made it to the bottom unscathed! I too would love to see pics of the sodas....

 

[surfaceone]

Hey Mike. Thanks for another great digging yarn. I always enjoy your stories. That is a gorgeous pot. I'm sure the miner missed such a delightful convenience. Thanks for showing us.

http://ancientpoint.com/inf/37426-antique_c1849_wedgwood_blue_and_white_transferware_cup__saucer_ca_pattern.html

 

[cacarpetbagger]

Geez Mike that's a good one. Show that to me next time I get by.

 

[reach44]

I'd dig 20 feet for one of those.

 

[Dugout]

Great works of art there Mike!