Saying "well we found a few nice things" as I was looking for something interesting to take over for her to look at, I met her at the fence. I knew this would be a perfect time to talk to her about doing a privy dig on her lot. As soon as I started to show her some bottles she said,"didn't you dig my backyard a while ago"? I thought to myself,"ah geese". I said,"no it wasn't Dan and I". At this point, feeling a little disappointed, I thought it would be a good time to inquire on the details of her privy dig. "How long ago was it, where were they at in your yard, how many privies did they dig"? She was really nice and friendly and we talked about the details and said so long to eachother.
I went back and told Dan of the bad news. We went about our ways, Dan finnished up in his hole while I straigtened up the appearance around the other one. He climbed out and we both started shoveling dirt back into the remaining privy. As we were methodically filling in the hole, I started thinking about who might have excavated the privy next door. Then it came to me. Dan and I both knew who dug the privy next door from the way the nice lady descibed the method of operation. All of the sudden I wasn't as disappointed as I was initially. This team is not famous for an overabundance of well thought out operations, and with that in mind, out came the probes and a trip next door ensued. Upon arriving we graciously asked if it was alright to re-probe her yard. She said yes and also said the previous diggers only excavated one hole. We looked at eachother and with a crocodial smile said "THANKS".
We knew that this site should have several privies on it and started probing. We split the property in two peices, Dan took the left and I took the right. Less than five minutes later I found another privy. We marked that site with a flag and looked for more. A couple of minutes later Dan had found another spot, not as definite as the previous one, but none the less a suspecious spot. We told the home owner of the new finds and she was interested in finding out what was in the holes. It was almost dark by now so we scheduled for the following day and went home to rest.
We arrieved in the morning to start the dig. It was a bright sunny day, and very warm. Shoveling began and within minutes we were already into ash. We squared off the hole and took out about two feet of dirt then hit a packed solid trash layer. It was so loaded I didn't even want to stand in the hole because I could feel stuff giving way under my feet! Then the first bottle came out, an aqua Burdock's Blood Bitters with a globy applied top. It was damaged, but a great sign. The next foot of ground was packed with bottles, stacked one on top of eachother. Out came some nice local druggists. Then a beautiful Bitters bottle!
Four sunken panels, crooked applied top, and no embossing, "crap" oh well. What was next to come would more than make up for it. Tucked off in the side of the pit were not one but two dark green crude as all get out BIG bottles. After almost an hour of careful dirt manipulation techniques came two early Vandenbergh case gins!! We were both very surprised to see these works of art. As Dan always says, "it looks like they came over on the Mayflower". They were in perfect condition. We didn't find many more significant finds in the hole after that. The pit was unusually shallow, maybe four feet. There was another spot in the yard with ash and glass pieces in it, but after doing a test hole, it had no depth at all. So we abandoned it.
We gave the home owner almost all we had found since we got two real nice pieces, and everyone was happy. This story has a moral,and I'm sure you've heard it before so I won't say it. Until next time, Scott & Dan
Man...why couldn't this say something!
