April 23rd 2008 Privy Dig
Phil called me last night wanting to know if I could dig today I said sure. We met about 11:00 and drove around Baltimore looking for something to dig. We ended up in North east Baltimore behind a large 3 story brick house that was probably built about 1865. Many of these type of houses have a round brickliner that can be upwards of 25 feet deep. So we don't usually dig them because they tend to not have many bottles in them. However some of these houses will have a small Barrel lined or wood lined pit that tend to have a few things in them. So if the pits wood we dig them. The pit behind this house probed as wood and felt very ashy and easy to dig. We opened up the pit and started going down the ash was light and easy to dig through. we started finding some 1910ish crown top beers in the first barrel. this gave way to blown whiskeys and one nice embossed local strap sided flask. Then about a foot of clay over an earlier 1870s layer we got a few local blobs and a nice marked silver spoon and a brass bell. Along with many unembossed bottles. And a lone pontil puff on the very bottom that was smashed. Not a great pit but it was a quick easy dig.
