Bill D. (VA)
Silver Member
Got a call from a friend this afternoon that was working a construction job in the old downtown area, and he told me about an interesting feature behind the cement foundation of a building being torn down. I went over and we checked it out together. Initially our probing seemed to confirm that this might be a privy. But as I probed a little further out all of a sudden my probe did a freefall and I could tell I was on the edge of a large, hollow area of some sort. Thought at first it might be a cistern, but I could eventually see that nice looking circular brick pattern across the top. So it was definitely a well, and was about 6 feet in diameter. It had been partially covered with a 2-sided porcelain advertising sign along with some other immovable materials. We were able to open it up just enough to get a 12 ft stepladder into the well upside down. There was no water in the bottom, so my friend climbed down to check things out. He probed quite a bit into the soft bottom but wasn't getting any indication of debris. That was a little surprising as usually when a well is abandoned the owner fills it with trash. Based on the look of the brick I don't think it was colonial, although there were homes in this location in the 1700s. My best guess is mid-1800s, but that could be off a bit. Anyway, after completing the painstaking task of getting the ladder out of the hole we covered it up safely with some of the demolition debris. Was a lot of work for nothing, but you just never know when you might hit the mother lode.
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