April 10th 2008

Steve had a fresh permission, and wanted to go probe it on Wednesday evening. I met him at the house and quickly stuck my probe into what felt like a small rectangular wood liner. No walls could be felt in any direction, but a subtle yet obvious difference in resistance was felt when probing diagonally outwards, from within the pit, in all 4 directions. We planned to come and remove all the pesky dirt this weekend.

The next day, Steve wanted to go and metal detect the yard, and I was ready to go. We met and the resident was mighty curious about digging, and wanted us to show him. We decided to crack open the pit and look for some signs of age. An hour later, we were still digging. Another hour later the homeowner got bored and went inside, but we could not locate the "off" switch on our shovels.

We halved the pit down to three feet and our rectangular wood liner turned into a round brick liner. Someone had removed the top three feet of the bricks, and while I was probing, my probe was going over top of the remaining brick walls, into the surrounding dirt. This gave the impression of a wood liner. This pit ran about halfway under the fence that was the rear property line. The little old lady from the house behind us came out and said we could dig in her yard, as she had no grass at all, but her house was made of cinder block. Then again, maybe there is an older woody behind this brick liner, which is in her yard now. It was obvious that property lines had been moved at some point in time.

We just kept halving it downwards, knowing we were running short on time. Steve had things to do in the evening and so did I. We started hitting bottles at about 6 feet, and at 7 feet was into solid glass. We pulled out four early aqua blob top quart sized beers with "this bottle never sold" on the backs. This is something I have never seen on quart sized bottles. They were embossed, "Crescent Brewing Company / Aurora Indiana".

The Crescent Brewing Company was in business from 1873 to 1899. An amber blob top quart with a crescent shaped logo is known, but the aqua example with the rear embossing is probably earlier.

Below is the Crescent Brewing Company in Aurora Indiana, about two blocks from the Ohio river.

Well I was mighty pleased with the nice blob beers, but we were just getting started. Pretty soon, bottles were just falling out of the fluff. 23 Shiloh's consumption cure bottles were tallied at the end. We also found a half gallon size "Safety" jar, with the lid still resting on top of it. 6 Warner's safe cures were found, and 3 of them were cracked. A nice cobalt Carters cone ink # 100 was passed up. An aqua smooth base "H. Theilmann's Bitters" was found, and then a square amber "Brady's Family Bitters" was fluffed out of the seeds. We also got two squat sodas...a Foshag from Lawrenceburg, and a J. Born from Cincinnati. A couple babydolls heads, a bird waterer, and some teaset dishes were added to the keeper pile. Right on the bottom, two large plain amber ales were found, and a Caswell and Hazard big aqua Med.

While at the bottom, on my knees, looking up at the giant 9 foot wall of dirt clinging to the other half of the pit was an intimidating sight. I do not advise this kind of practice in digging. We had particular circumstances that allowed this to happen, namely a stiff upper fill, and a clay layer that was supported by a tangle of larger roots. Even with these circumstances present, I will still be the first to admit that this is NOT the correct way to empty a pit.

We hit the hard gravel bottom and at least had the good sense to refuse the beckoning call of the visible whole bottles that trailed off under our massive wall of dirt. Undermining a 9 foot wall, regardless of it's support, would have been just plain retarded.

We covered up the hole with two full sheets of 3/4 inch plywood, after explaining exactly what we were doing to the homeowner and receiving his consent. Our plan was to come back the day after next and finish the pit by properly removing the rest of the fill from the top down. We tossed dirt over the plywood and placed rocks all over it. I stood in the center of it and jumped up and down. We were good.

The following day, Steve and I went and checked on the condition of the pit, to see if our wall of un-removed dirt had slid. It still held tight, and we were still good. We placed yet another piece of plywood down on the neighboring lot, just so if the dirt wall slips in, there will still be no visible or accessible hole exposed.

Below is a picture of most of the stuff from Thursdays dig, minus the 23 Shiloh's Consumption cures.

Below is a close-up of the embossing on the Crescent Beer bottle

On Saturday April 12th we returned. When Mike saw we had halved the pit to the bottom, he laughed at us, then hopped in and started hacking at the wall of dirt.

We realized the brick lined pit was oval, and a very long oval at that. We took off most of the top, and then cleaned it out and started in on the use layer.

We quickly piled up another dozen or more Shiloh's Cures. A couple more Cincinnati squat sodas were found, and another J. Foshag Squaty from Lawrenceburg. We also got two Local Fenner Pharmacy bottles from Lawrenceburg. A nice J.D. Park and Sons umbrella ink was handed up, along with a couple more Carter's and another crude aqua sided ink. Painted China marbles started rolling out of the seeds and we got two or three of those, one with gilded gold circles.

The neighbor to the rear was very cool and stopped by a few times to chat. We finished the pit up and filled it in just as the rain started. We also located another brick liner on the lot next door, where we also have permission, and plan to attack it at first light next Saturday.

Here is the pile of stuff from the 2nd day of digging.

Everybody have some fun and go dig a big hole full of treasures !!!