Tuesday February 17th 2009 Privy Dig
Russ had lined up some permissions in Burlington Nj and invited us up to dig. We arrived around 7:00am and headed over to the site were we were going to dig. The ground had thawed quite a bit since digging in Wilmington a couple weeks prior. I quickly probed out a woodliner in one yard and a brickliner in another yard. Tom, George, and Doug started opening up the woodliner. While Me Russ and Matt opened up the brick liner. Meanwhile Alan started knocking on some doors to ask for permission in a couple more yards. The brickliner we were digging was about 6 feet deep and very new dating to the 1920s. The woodliner The other guys were digging turned out to be an 1870s trash pit built through a large wood rectangular privy that was filled in during the 1830s. Russ and Alan started probing the new permission and located two more woodliners. I ended up pulling buckets for Tom and Matt started sifting the pit which quickly was getting much older finally by bottom it had quite a bit of circa 1780s-90s trash George and Russ started working on a wood square in the other yard it was circa 1810-1830 and had quite a few early blackglass cylinders in it. The pit Me and Tom and Matt were digging was producing quite a few late 18th century London type mustards and lots of early slipware shards. Meanwhile Doug and Alan were working on a Barrel lined pit filled in during the late 1840s They found a nice iron pontiled Brown Stout and an 1830s blackglass cylinder and a couple buckets of early ceramic shards. Their Barrel lined privy had been built through a very early square woodliner. This woodliner had been heavily cleaned but on the bottom were a few shards of very early slipware and of an English delft plate dating to the 1750s-60s. Overall it was a fun day of digging with some cool finds for everyone.
