19th Century bottle Digging.Digging up the past to preserve it for the future.

Privy Locating & Digging

Privy Locating & Digging   (How we do it)

I wrote this section to help the people who are interested in finding and digging 19th century outhouse pit's aka privy's.Also for the folks that are just curious about how we go about this strange but wonderful hobby of outhouse digging for historic glass. Here it is from start to finish.......

Getting permissions is on the top of our list, for a reason,without the home owners permission there would be no privy digging,unless you had a friend with an old house or had a family member who owned a 19th century home.But after those privy's were dug  where would you be? With no where to dig thats where.
Thats why you have to be like a vacuum cleaner sales man,and sell your hobby to the home owner.Tell them about your self , how much you love bottle collecting and the (history) behind the glass you find.If the answer is NO then just move on.(you have to take the no's with the yeses) pick your self up and go to the next door.
Before we actually knock on doors we do the research on the places we want to dig.We date the homes and go from there.If the house was built in the 1850's 60's 70's 80's its a go,time to knock on doors!
Once we get a house to dig,its time to probe the yard for potential spots where a privy was first dug and used, over 100 years ago,and then filled in.We look for slight depressions in the ground where the pit has sunk over the years.The homes that we probe are mostly located in a small towns or city's. We search the (property lines) first. The outhouses were dug on the property lines because after 15 or 20 years they dug new holes and just moved the outhouse building to the new hole.The privy's that were lined with wood rotted and then it was time to dig a new hole.In our area we have mostly wood lined pits.Other towns & city's are prevalent to stone liners and brick liners.
The probe is the main tool in privy digging.We make our probes out of spring steel from the trunks of large cars.(check my site later for a link with instructions on how to make a probe).
To start the probe process, slowly stick the probe in a likely spot.If it goes down easy with out much effort,it may be a privy.The tip will have no clay and a lot of (ash)If you probe the ground around that spot  you should feel it grab and it should be hard to pull out, also there will be a lot of clay on the tip,and no ash.If you probe enough you will get the feel of what is a privy and what is not a privy.It is not rocket science it just takes practice like anything else.Stone and brick lined privy's are much easer to locate.Since there are (solid) walls all you have to do is probe the sides and find the wall,then dig in the center.
Now that the privy is found it is time for the test hole. Cut a nice sized square out of the grass,making what looks like a piece of sod.Turn it up side down and look through the dirt.see if there are signs of foreign material like coal,broken glass etc.Most times there are no signs right away, but if you dig down a bit you should start to see signs of (life) what I mean by life are things that a person put there some years ago when they were filling in the privy.
When you decide that it is a privy it is time to start taking out more fill.By this time you should be seeing ash,coal,bones,rusted metal etc not all in that order.The stuff in the pit will look a lot different than (regular ground) even a novice can see this.
We use 55 gallon drums to put fill in.Most people use big plastic tarps.The barrels are lot lot easier but not to many people can get them, so use what you have is my motto.
the next step is to concentrate on getting to the "use layer or trash layer" as some call it.The trash layer is where most of the bottles will be.But sometimes you will find bottles in the caps, a cap is a layer of clay,ash,sand or what ever was handy to use at the time.The caps purpose is to stop the smell or give the privy a little more use.
Once we get to the use layer it is time to put away shovels and brake out the small hand tools.Scrapers,trowels etc.By this time all of the main fill and caps are removed from the pit.Now the fun begins!
The digging from this point is very slow,it has to be or you will be braking glass! to get a bottle out you have to dig all around it and get in loose.Then pop it out.This process goes on until the bottom of the privy is felt.The bottom is un mistakable,it is rock hard clay with stone or shale in it.The bottom of pits will vary from state to state I am describing what it is like in the Lehigh Valley and surrounding area.
Once the bottom is felt and all the bottles and use layer are removed.Its time to fill the privy hole back in.It is a lot of work but its worth it.The filling in is an easier process then the dig it self,it goes a lot faster.
   When the pit is all filled in,we come back once a week to check and see if the fill settled,and it will settle.Bring some top soil a rake and some grass seed to top it off."ALWAYS KEEP THE HOME OWNER HAPPY" what ever it takes.You reap what you sow in this hobby and that equals more places to dig.

That is how we locate,dig and fill in a privy.