need some opinions

[pyratelife4me]

I found an old town site in a book and visited its location. The last resident died in 1914. I checked the local cemetery and found her gravestone to verify that. Rumor has it she was a bit crazy and hid her money on her property before her death. I found the foundation of the old house. And under a lot of fallen tree branches and leaves i found what appears to be either a cistern or a septic tank. it's square, about 3x5, with a heavy flat stone covering most of it, there's a 3x2 gap. i didnt have a flashlight when i found it and weather hasnt permitted my return so i haven't looked in it.

questions:
did they have septic systems in late 1800's early 1900's?
Not sure of depth. is there a way to extend my whites 5900?
or should i rig up some kinda scoop? scoop the bottom and run the detector over the scoops?

any ideas would be greatly appreciated,

thank you

[pyratelife4me]

so far a 3 hr search of the surrounding area has yielded an old rusted axe head, a rusted file, a horse shoe, and an unidentifed piece of metal.

[teleprospector]

I found an old town site in a book and visited its location. The last resident died in 1914. I checked the local cemetery and found her gravestone to verify that. Rumor has it she was a bit crazy and hid her money on her property before her death. I found the foundation of the old house. And under a lot of fallen tree branches and leaves i found what appears to be either a cistern or a septic tank. it's square, about 3x5, with a heavy flat stone covering most of it, there's a 3x2 gap. i didnt have a flashlight when i found it and weather hasnt permitted my return so i haven't looked in it.

questions:
did they have septic systems in late 1800's early 1900's?
Not sure of depth. is there a way to extend my whites 5900?
or should i rig up some kinda scoop? scoop the bottom and run the detector over the scoops?

any ideas would be greatly appreciated,

thank you

You are welcome to post an aerial photo of the area w/o any identifying information in the dowsing forum. If you do, let us know which way north is in the photo.
Jon

[CWnut]

let's think on this a bit: 1.what physical condition would she be in before her death? (you didn't indicate her age). 2. last resident? what would her source of income have been? 3. what mode of transportation was available?

despite all the nagging questions, if it were me i wouldn't be satisfied with myself till i had thoroughly searched the place..
I am inclined to think you have found an old cistern because outhouses were more common in tha era.

[rwd mo]

It's more than likely a sistern as was said they had out houses at most homes untill the late 20's or 30's when electricity was brought in. Also could have been a dug well.

[uglymailman]

It's a cistern. Also called dug well. Usually lined w/ stone, brick or plastered. Until modern times water to a lot of homes came from dug well w/ spring or gathered off roofs via gutter. The volume of water used was much less than what we use. They didn't have toilet to flush and didn't do a load of laundry every other day.
I grew up in the country and we had to have water hauled 500 gallons at a time and put into our cistern. Rural water system came in late 80's.
I have sat in outhouses up until the 70's. Most farms kept them in repair and some still do.
Be careful around them, I've found several cisterns with deer in them around old farm sites.