baltbottles
Well-Known Member
Got out with Phil and Greg yesterday to try to find a privy to dig. We Talked to a few people that had concrete covered yards and then Met Brian he said he was told some guys had dug the pits in his yard in the early 90s. So I asked him if we could probe around anyway just in case they missed something. After probing the small grass area between the back of his house and his garage with no luck I suggested that his pit is either under the back addition or under the garage. He said you can dig in the garage if you want. He let us in and there was a nice sinking in area in the concrete floor. He said sure you can break it up and dig. The pit ended up being a very shallow barrel lined pit only about 3 feet deep with a small 1890s layer in the bottom. The old pit for his house is probably under the back addition.
He then suggested we talk to his neighbor a few doors down and and he convinced Speedy to let us dig in his yard. We probed up and down the property lines and nothing felt good so I decided to probe under the back porch and of course the probe went in and it was an obvious privy under the back porch. We spent a few minutes debating if we could dig it or not and the consensus was yes but its going to be a pain in the butt. We had to talk to Speedys neighbor to find out if we could put the dirt in his yard temporally while we dug. because the privy and the porch are right on the property line.
The neighbor was cool with it so we started digging. about a foot in an air space opened up and there was about a foot and a half air void and standing water. We knew anything we dug today was going to be very wet due to all the rain we have been having. The air void surprised us but its not something we haven't encountered before. A quick probing showed about 6 inches of water then very wet dirt and ash. as we opened up the pit we found a turn of the century cast iron pipe run through the top of the privy we had to bust this out of the way along with some assoicated concrete. We finally had the whole privy defined and open up and could see it was a small oval shaped brickliner. We started bailing out the water then removing the fill material. At about 5 feet in the fill gave way to a trash layer that dated to about the 1890s ther was about a foot of this then the trash layer dropped back in age into the 1850s. We found an intact yellowware chamberpot and a redware jar a couple damaged pontiled colognes and a few perfect pontiled puffs then a perfect cologne and another with lip damage. Then two perfect green and red spatterware handless tea cups came out. Then an olive green 3 piece mold iron pontiled porter. And a really nicely decorated stoneware cake crock that was in a few pieces but well worth having restored. Then finally bottom.
Chris
He then suggested we talk to his neighbor a few doors down and and he convinced Speedy to let us dig in his yard. We probed up and down the property lines and nothing felt good so I decided to probe under the back porch and of course the probe went in and it was an obvious privy under the back porch. We spent a few minutes debating if we could dig it or not and the consensus was yes but its going to be a pain in the butt. We had to talk to Speedys neighbor to find out if we could put the dirt in his yard temporally while we dug. because the privy and the porch are right on the property line.
The neighbor was cool with it so we started digging. about a foot in an air space opened up and there was about a foot and a half air void and standing water. We knew anything we dug today was going to be very wet due to all the rain we have been having. The air void surprised us but its not something we haven't encountered before. A quick probing showed about 6 inches of water then very wet dirt and ash. as we opened up the pit we found a turn of the century cast iron pipe run through the top of the privy we had to bust this out of the way along with some assoicated concrete. We finally had the whole privy defined and open up and could see it was a small oval shaped brickliner. We started bailing out the water then removing the fill material. At about 5 feet in the fill gave way to a trash layer that dated to about the 1890s ther was about a foot of this then the trash layer dropped back in age into the 1850s. We found an intact yellowware chamberpot and a redware jar a couple damaged pontiled colognes and a few perfect pontiled puffs then a perfect cologne and another with lip damage. Then two perfect green and red spatterware handless tea cups came out. Then an olive green 3 piece mold iron pontiled porter. And a really nicely decorated stoneware cake crock that was in a few pieces but well worth having restored. Then finally bottom.
Chris
