July, 29th 2007 Privy Dig
Ok Sense my friend Ryan was going to have to go away and do a few months of military training next week we invited him down to Baltimore for one last dig. It started up with us meeting up at the Safeway on Boston street like usual. Then we met up with A couple other local diggers Named Pete and Don. Pete had told me about a site downtown where he thought we could get into some pits. We headed to the site and found the backs of two late 1850s houses had been torn down exposing the original backyards. These houses were in a very early part of town so were probably rebuilds. After about 2 minutes of probing I quickly found a pit. We started digging it down and found it to be a large barrel lined privy it was full of nice soft ash but the surrounding soil was very sandy and we had to keep digging a larger and larger hole as we went down in this one. At about 3 1/2 feet we started finding some 1880s bottles so all was hopeful that this pit would get older however we feared it mite become too deep to dig in the unstable soil. By around 4 feet we started getting 1870s artifacts including a nice amber round bottom embossed DR. Bates Trade Mark National Tonic Beer Centennial 1876. Then the pit started throwing out some 1860s historical flasks from the Baltimore and Spring garden glassworks in great colors including topaz and puce sadly all of them were broken except one just had its top knocked off. But before we knew it this pits bottom showed its ugly face and it was done this pit didn't get to the pontil age it should have. But after a bit more probing a very shallow half barrel was found on the other side of the yard that had about 6 inches of early 1830s-1850s glass sadly everything was broken.
Ryan In the pit
The finds
Broken Flask
Ryan with the Dr Bates