Cellar Holes - Advice Needed

[TrpnBils]

I recently came across two house locations on an 1864 map of my area that are actually on family property (why my grandfather never thought to mention them to me, I have no idea, because he definitely knew they were there and has had me over to his place before looking for stuff at another old home site). From what I've gathered, I believe they were abandoned and/or torn down prior to 1900. One of them has its now-unrecognizable footprint filled with water and not too many foundation stones around. The cellar hole for the other (which is about 6 feet deep and probably ~800sqft in area) is plainly visible but is very grown in. I nosed around with my Etrac at the second site and found an 1867 IHP pretty quickly along with some livestock tags, pieces of what looks like it used to be a crock (lying on the surface....going to collect what I can and see how much of it I can piece together), and some other miscellaneous stuff. I definitely found the trash dump for that second house too...bottles everywhere. The houses are about 200-300 feet apart with an old well that is filled in roughly halfway between. Not sure if they shared it or what, but I can only find evidence of the one and my grandfather said they only filled one in when the houses were torn down (he actually used the foundation stones to build his childhood home which is right down the road).

My question is what kind of strategy to take here. This place is located behind my parents' house 3 hours from where I live, and so I only get to detect it for maybe 1-2 hours at a shot if we go up there for a weekend, but I might make a day trip of it sometime this summer to get some extended time there.

It seems to me I'd have better luck AROUND the perimeter of the foundation than actually IN the cellar hole. On the other hand, I'm sure this place didn't have any concrete or anything on the floor, so maybe it would hold something down in the hole itself. What about the well and/or the dump area? I'll be honest, I have no interest in the bottles...some people go nuts for stuff like that, but I don't see the draw to it, sorry.

 

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[relicmeister]

I understand your dilemma, Trpnbils- but I must say I'd love to have your problem! I would leave the wells and/or trash pits
for later. Personally, I would wait until Fall to do the inside or at least wait till I thoroughly detected the perimeter and grounds.
I also like to dig about a foot down around the perimeter( a little at a time, and backfill when I'm done.
I would also dig pretty much everything so I can gradually reduce the masking from iron and junk. Good luck, besure you post
your results.

 

[Red James Cash]

Watch for open well holes in tall grass,i almost got it once.

 

[TrpnBils]

I understand your dilemma, Trpnbils- but I must say I'd love to have your problem! I would leave the wells and/or trash pits
for later. Personally, I would wait until Fall to do the inside or at least wait till I thoroughly detected the perimeter and grounds.
I also like to dig about a foot down around the perimeter( a little at a time, and backfill when I'm done.
I would also dig pretty much everything so I can gradually reduce the masking from iron and junk. Good luck, besure you post
your results.

Yeah I'm curious to see what I find and how deep it is. That IHP was more or less on the surface. My grandfather and his family took the foundation stones (most of them, anyway) when he was a kid to build their own house, but there are still some stones in some kind of formation there so I have a general idea of the orientation of the house, and the road that was there at that time according to the map is still there. One place of interest is in one back corner. There's no hole beneath this one area, but there is a defined area of rocks maybe about 20 square feet in size. Within this area is a bunch of melted slag glass.... much like there still is under the back porch of the farmhouse that my grandfather grew up in (the one that was built on the foundation stones of this house). I think we might have a porch area there, and it's only a few feet from where I found the penny and the remains of at least two broken crocks which I might try to piece together just for the heck of it next time I'm back that way.

 

[sailoffwithme]

I did a cellar hole yesterday and winter time would be the time to go back it is so over grown with weeds and vines and ticks all over the place.

 

[CASPER-2]

Watch for open well holes in tall grass,i almost got it once.

I STARTED DETECTING IN THE 70s AS A KID - WE HAD A STORY OF A TH'ER FOUND DEAD CAUSE HE FELL IN A WELL - BACK BEFORE CELL PHONES - HE WAS OUT IN THE WOODS IN THE MIDDLE OF NO WHERE - HE WAS FOUND LIKE A MONTH LATER
SO BE CAREFUL

 

[Msbeepbeep]

You may want to take pics of the bottles and post them, you never know maybe some rare and valuable ones there.

 

[TrpnBils]

Watch for open well holes in tall grass,i almost got it once.

The worst part is the climb out of the well hole