MAY 21st Results

MAY 21st Digging Results

Well here we are at the lovely home of Sara and Evan Lampe. Dan and I stopped at this house as soon as we saw it. We knew it was 150 years old by looking at the architecture and the nice old red brick foundation. We walked around to the back yard when we noticed Evan, (the homeowner) doing some work back there. We started talking to him about our unique hobby and he was interested in the idea of a privy dig. After a trip into the house to see his wife Sara about the idea, he came back and said try and find one!
About 3 minutes went by and we had found one. Then another and another. The first one was by the fence on the right side of the yard. Evan said they had to go out for a while to meet with some friends, but we could stay there and dig. That was pretty cool of him don't you think.
Jim Kalitta from Utah had been planning another dig with us this spring and came to town on the 5th of May for a dig. You might remember seeing last years story with him in it. We found a Union Clasped Hands Historical Flask last time he was here. Now this town we are in here is notorious for having "dry" pits and being a very tough town to dig in due to the rock hard clay, so we'll see how it goes.

To make a short story shorter, this first pit has no pictures. The pit was fairly new, starting off with machine stuff, then getting into blown 1895 bottles at the middle to bottom. It was only about 2 feet across, and maybe 3 feet long. It was a privy though. It had a few common bottles in it like Hostetter's and Duffy's but fizzled out quickly. On to the next one.

This is the next pit we started, smack dab in the middle of the yard. This was probably the old one due to it's placement in the yard we thought.

Probing revealed a large square privy lying below the surface here, and the large depression in the yard gave it away too! Evan said a utillity truck had to do some line work back there, and when the truck drove over that spot it was 8 inches lower all of the sudden. That makes our job of finding the pits that much easier.

This was definitely the first pit in the yard, we could tell by the pontiled SCRAPS we were pulling out, and I mean scraps.

Just like so many times before here, there was a lot of clay and dirt moved out, and only a hand full of bottles to show for it. As you know, you can't hold a lot of bottles in one hand! There where a lot of broken pontiled bottle pieces though, but only a few whole. One of the nicest inks I've ever seen was crammed in a corner of the pit though. It was an iron pontiled yellowish citron master ink. A real top of the line piece. It was in several parts however.

Look at this one! A guy walking on the back, embossed OLD RYE, PITTSBURGH, PA. and an eagle on the front.

They could have been intact. That's why we're digging!

A couple of the intact bottles: A hinge mold CURE, and Dr. KRONK'S BEER.

After that pit was finished we packed up and came back the next day. We had found one more under a large Lilac tree in the back yard. This one really felt loaded so we approached the pit with an angle, quite literally. We had to dig down the edge of it on an angle because the center was under the tree.

Let's get started.

We were really cramped on space in this one. Barely enough room to squat down and dig. We couldn't abandon it however, there were just too many bottles coming out of this one.

Jim is about 6 or more feet down on this one. "Hey Jim,..finding anything"???

Here is a good view of the tree. We were careful not to damage the roots cause this was a pretty pretty old Lilac.

We had finally found a pit with more than 10 bottles in it. This was an 1890's pit full of Duffy's malt whiskeys, about 10 or so. Also lots of other cool bottles from that time period. It was getting latter in the day and Sara and Evan where out back watching us pull relics out of thier yard in amazement. We where giving them the history and background of all the different bottles as they came out, Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Suryups baby killer ETC.

There was a cavern under this tree we could walk around in practically!

Dan is down there now, and found this very cool SKULL PIPE. It was truelly scary! This must have been pretty radical to be seen with back in 1890.

Evan and Sara Lampe holding a Duffy's Malt whiskey, a full pipe, an insulator, and a china pitcher. They got a pretty cool array of early artifacts, all which came from thier house in a time long past.

Here are a few more of the pieces we found.

Stoneware DR. CRONK'S SARSAPARILLA BEER DETROIT.

Different kind of a Carter's shoulder embossed amber cone.

Amber oil lamp.

We would like to say thanks to the Lampes for graciously opening up their back yard to us and for thier genuine interest in local history. Also to Jim for traveling 1600 miles to dig with Dan and I again. We'll see you next year Jim! Take care, Scott.