MAR 28th Results
I am a little behind, so let me catch up. Dan and I have been working at this site since last summer. We have permissions to dig on four lots that are all adjacent to each other. I guess you might say, "the whole block".
We had little luck last year due to the fact of hard dry clay in this part of town making it impossible to probe. The houses were on the other hand too magnificient to give up on. (Photos will follow next week's posting for the 04-11 dig). We re-probed various yards for half a day to no avail. Finally around 3:00 we hit what we expected to be a pit. We only had time to start and do a large test hole to determine the age and identification of this spot. It turned out to be a really old brick lined privy. Dan set to work on opening up the pit since the home owner gave us permission to leave it covered up (when it got dark), until next Sunday to fnish. After about 2 hours of digging Dan had pulled out an early flat bottom druggist from Detroit and a nice aqua rocket shaped pepper sauce bottle along with some 1880's unembossed beers.
While he was digging away I set out to find another pit. I probed about 6 feet over from the bricked lined pit only to find a large cavernous hole, with no bottom! I thought "oh, probably a post 1900's well or cistern".
With that in mind I casually walked over and picked up a shovel and returned to investigate. With one easy push my shovel knocked out a clump of dirt and made a small 8 inch hole on the surface of the lawn. Ok, I thought...now I have to go get my flashlight. Upon returning I looked over at Dan still slaving away in his whole removing bricks, one by one, and thought what a bummer this whole thing was turning out to be.I turned the flashlight on and peered though the hole, I couldn't believe my eyes!
It looked like something a bottle collector, or digger would dream about in their sleep. Blown bottles just stacked on top of each other resting in various positions with decaying metal cans and debris about 6 feet down. I could see a large embossed druggist, 8 inch min size, a nice blue colored bottle, a hutch, and too many more to list. Have a look for yourself under "WHAT"S THIS"!
I called over to Dan and yelled for him to get out of his hole and look at this most rare site. The neigbors and residents must have thought we were batty, seeing both of us lying on our bellies peering into this 8 inch hole in the ground smiling and laughing.
Well we couldn't finish the other brick lined pit that night, so with all that excitement we covered the brick pit and planned on returning the next Saturday, 04-03.
