September Digging Results

Hello, here are two quick digging trips from back in our indian summer in Michigan. Is there any better time to ask an owner for permission to dig than when their front yard looks like this, I really doubt it, so here we go!

We knocked on the door and a nice gentleman and his son answered the door. We asked them about doing a dig on their property and they said it would be fine, in fact they had already dug up some old bottles under their driveway a week ago. The owners said we could look at them and they had put them in the garden out back, and that they were "green",#@!! I couldn't wait to get back there and see what the heck kind of bottles they had uncovered. It turned out to be a couple of 1890's amber beer bottles, oh well, the suspense was worth something anyway.

Check out the roof line of the neighbors house. That tells me there is pontiled stuff close by! I was kind of surprised after about a half an hour we had only found one pit. It was not very loaded either, very few pieces could be felt or heard on the probe, a real "quiet one". We spread the tarps out and carfully removed the sod over the pit.

I told ya pontiled stuff was close by.

This is a really old PHARMACEUTICAL bottle from NEW YORK made out of FLINT GLASS. Bottles that are made in the 1860-70's are aqua in color for the most part, however, clear glass tells us it's flint glass. This was a special manufacturing process used to avoid the bluish aqua color more commonly seen.

This pit was very old. Probably nothing newer than 1860, you can tell by how compacted the soil around the bottles is. It's almost like chalk. Also, when a pit is abandoned in the 1860's or earlier, there are VERY few bottles in it. Further towards the east cost this is not so much the case, but here in the mid-west it is. Here you can see two pontiled bottles, and one of the many broken oil lamp chimneys. A common artifact we see a lot of in these old pits.

This is about as old as they get here in Michigan. This is a common thin flared lip pontiled utility bottle. These things are about as thin as finger nail, they are like little inflated glass balloons. That's why their called "puffs". Well that's it for this pit. Total bottle count: 3 pontiled utilities, 1 flint glass bottle, many broken pottery shards

September Digging Results

Here is a pit I started one day late in September. These pieces where shallow in the ground. It is always a welcome site to see bottles that are "blown" so close to the surface. The term "blown" tells diggers that the pit they are excavating is pre- turn of the century for the most part. Bottle diggers arn't too interested in bottles made after 1900. The actual term "blown" means the bottle was not manufactured in a bottle machine and must have been made prior to 1903, give or take a couple of years.

Check this once upon a time out house spot out. Just think, 100 years ago somebody would have opened the door of their out house and saw this same view, minus the cars. I think that tree might have been small enough to wack down with one swing of an ax at the time. Good thing there where no young Washington's living here!

Just getting started. I have a feeling this is a brick lined pit.

When I got this thing cleaned up, it was definitely proving to be a brick lined pit. The only problem is that it really never got older than about 1890. This is a picture of the wall about 5 feet down with a WARNER'S SAFE CURE about to be exhumed.

I could tell the people that once lived here and owned this out house had a good income. The fact that they had a brick lined out house (that means the part under ground is lined with brick) and the types of broken china says it all. That also explains why there really were no old bottles in it. The owners would have had the money to have it cleaned out on a regular basis, and did so.

This was a fun 3 hour excavation. A whole pitcher was also found in the pit. It has a crack in it, but displays fine. This spot will be covered in new grass by the time I am finished with this story. It dosn't even look too bad here.

Thanks for reading,
Scott.