It’s not exactly Tut’s Tomb, privy diggers are quick to admit, but they can get almost as excited about a well-turned bottle as archaeologists in Egypt feel about, say, a statue made of solid gold.
OK. That might be a stretch.
But avocational historian Charles Huff remembers well the day privy diggers from Oakland–who’d gotten his permission to excavate some local pits–came rushing to his office to say they’d found an antique Log Cabin syrup bottle, uniquely shaped like a log cabin. “These guys are experts at dating bottles. This particular bottle dated back to 1870,” Huff said.
Other bottles unearthed included an apothecary bottle produced in Pleasanton, as evidenced by the “Pleasanton, Cal.” in raised letters in the glass. One excavated treasure proved to be a chipped “salt”–a small, shallow pressed-glass container that held an individual serving of salt. In the 1800s, salts were a part of each table setting. Also found, shards of old china that, Huff said, came from the original Rose Hotel.
One of the most interesting finds, he thinks, was, “a bottle, kind of a dark blue bottle, that dated back to the end of the 1800s, something like that, and it was petroleum jelly. It had an old rusted cap on it and I opened it up and the petroleum jelly, like any oil product, just lasts forever, and it was just like you would have got it at Safeway.”
The diggers eventually moved on to a parking lot repaving project by Round Table Pizza–the original site of the Rose Hotel. Huff remembers, “They found a lot more exciting things over there. Some real fine looking china, a couple of the plates were complete, actually.” Huff said the diggers exploring Pleasanton privies have also excavated privies in San Francisco that date back to the Gold Rush era.
Entire Web sites are devoted to the craft of privy digging. After so many years, any biological content has degraded to become no worse than surrounding soil, the diggers say. Devotees say outhouses were also regular depositories of household trash–19th century landfills, if you will.
The 1869 home site on Railroad Avenue was behind the dairy, on the back part of the lot, Huff said. It later became the site of the now-closed Birthing Center, originally constructed in 1911.
As the diggers dug into the five pits, each contained progressively older refuse. While the “finds” were largely broken hotel china and old medicine bottles, elsewhere, privy diggers have unearthed perfect chamber pots (also known as “thunder mugs”). They speculate that the early, portable potties–emptied each morning in the outdoor pits–may have been accidentally dropped, and retrieving them was … not an option.
Privy digging is being pursued by professional urban archaeologists backed by government grants and university archaeology departments. For the inexperienced digger, it can be dangerous. There are reports that some privy diggers, deep in a pit, have been killed when outhouse walls–some pits were lined with brick or stone–collapse.
Most privy trash, say the experts, rarely dates back past 1840. Before that, broken glass was returned to glass factories for recycling. Today’s privy diggers admit that, after hours of hauling up five gallon buckets of muddy slush, stone, maybe brick and, they hope, bottles–they’re lucky to make 10 cents an hour. Still, some antique bottles can be worth thousands to the right collector.
Huff’s been bitten by the privy digging bug. At the Birthing Center site, the diggers located the string of 6-8 feet deep privies at what would have been the rear property line of the original house. Huff did a little digging on his own and unearthed old combs and what may be a soapstone mirror. He said a common practice was to move the outhouse over a new pit once the first pit was half full. The old pit, he said, was topped off with trash, then covered with dirt. The diggers know they’ve identified a likely site when the long metal probe comes up with charcoal attached. Fireplace ashes were also often dumped in the abandoned privy.
“I get excited when I’m doing an older project and I have access to the back part of the house,” Huff said, “even though I haven’t taken the time to do that. There are a lot of people around town who have the opportunity to have those types of treasures in the backyards of their homes.”
Stuff found by privy diggers:
* hand-painted pottery marbles
* parts of antique dolls
* hand-wrought grappling hooks (for fishing out the thunder mugs?)
* swords and knives
* a flintlock pistol
* clay smoking pipes
* bone toothbrush handles
* old whisky bottles (warming up in the outhouse on cold winter nights?)
Want to know more about antique bottles and privy digging?
Visit http://www.antiquebottles.com/digging.html
Privy digger tools:
Stainless steel probe, spade, 5-gallon bucket, trowel. Hose.
