Sunday March 18th

Today we went to check out an 1840's place that was reportedly used as a hotel and stage-coach stop. It was architecturally ornate and did not fit in too well with the other houses nearby. This was another of Steve's permissions that we had been trying to get into for a few weeks. Steve had learned from talking to the homeowner on the phone that he had dug about 7 foot deep into a stone liner himself about ten years ago. He said he found whiskey's and beers, and a few medicines. The homeowner had stopped digging as he did not have a helper and couldn't effectively toss the dirt out after it got too deep. Hmmm, me thinks. Very interesting.

We had it in our heads that we were going to probe up an older woody from the stage-coach days, and leave the half dug stony for another time. Once we got there, it was apparent that the yard, even though fairly small and city-like, was not going to lend itself too well to probing. There was a heavy growth of saplings and wild blackberries covering the rear third of the lot. We found the half dug stony with no problem. It stuck out like a sore thumb, and resembled a place where a hibernating bear might feel right at home.

This pit was cleaned out down to about 3 feet lower than what shows in the picture above. There was a solid 7 feet of air inside the evil looking lair. Mike hopped in and sank his 7 foot probe to the handle and never felt the bottom. We jabbed at the yard some more, and then decided to see what turned up in the next couple feet of the stony.

We took it rapidly down another 4 feet and then hit water. The age of the shards were enough to keep us going, being blown aqua and a couple amber beer blob tops. We found a few intact clear slick blown meds and household bottles tossed into the fill as well. We dug our bailer hole and started bailing out the juice. Seeds were'a floatin' in our bailer hole and after just another foot we hit tons of broken glass and ironstone. From this layer came out two broken hock wines, one in teal and one in electric peacock blue. Those would have been sweet window bottles. Some broken amber and yellows came out next, and a couple broken aqua's to boot. We were also finding lots of crystal stemwear. Not the cheap kind made form bottle glass, but mostly all crystal. This guy was a connoisseur of the grape vine !!! Hoping for more, down we went.

As we were digging, the homeowner came out to greet us and see how we were doing. He was in his 70's and was very jolly and full of smiles. He was British, and his accent was thick and perfectly English, as it should have been in a perfect world. It was nice, and I couldn't stop my own mouth from smiling largely as we talked. His personallity was young and cheeky and wide-eyed, and hearing him you would never have thought he was any more than 20 years old. He liked to end most sentences as questions, as Brits are accustomed to doing, with many "Idn't it's" and Wouldn't it's" and "Dudn't it's". He really hit the spike on the noggin when he exclaimed, "It's rather a neat thing to do though, really, diggin up treasure, idn't it" ? Yes, I had to agree that, really, it was, wutn't it. He said he was going inside to watch the telly and to have a wink, and he would pop out later to check on us. He said we were free to come and go as we pleased, all summer long if necessary, and to consider his yard our own. Wow ! The stereotype of "The accommodating Englishman" turned out to be SPOT ON in this instance, din't it ? He was one of the most fun homeowners we've had.

We repeated the bailer hole thing about 5 times, gaining a foot to 18 inches of depth each time. After we dropped the water level each time, more of the goody layer could be fluffed and removed without becoming mucky. Of course, the stuff we dug OUT OF the bailer hole wasn't pretty. It was black... and methany... and oh so "Pepe Le-Pew" !!!

 At 14 feet we hit bottom. We had halved the pit and had a 6 foot shelf over half the pit, and a now-dry 18 inch glass filled pocket on the bottom. We took turns scratching through the glass and tossing up bottles. It was apparent that the pit would not go much past about 1880 or so, and although almost everything in the pit was smashed, it was a fairly loaded city pit, and we were feeding the Monster inside us.

The grand tally was not by any means large. A few Cincinnati embossed druggists, a local hutch "Peter Sorg" / Cumminsville, a deep aqua globby and crude 2 lb. honey jar with the hive embossed on it, and a big necked local medicine that looks like it should be common, but is one none of us have dug before, "A. Fennel and Son / Extract of Malt / Cincinnati".

We probably had 40 bottles, give or take, after we were finished. The Homeowner popped out and chose a few he thought his wife may like. He mentioned she would like the Lydia Pinkums Blood Purifier bottle, so we made sure he got that one first off. Steve took home our bottles to wash up and hold till big pick cagematch smackdown day.

We will return to this place to do almost as much "clearing of the land" as the pioneers had to do to build the house in the first place, and will try to find us some more and maybe older pits to empty outa their

BOUNTIFUL BOO-TAY