Can you all give us a hand or some info on finding the privy

[treasureguy56]

Here's the issue ,

My wife and I love most all forms of Treasure Hunting . I've been detecting for over 35 yrs. , she has been detecting over 10 yrs . We both love bottle digging but have no experience locating and hunting privies . We live in a house built in 1899 , we live next to and older house than that and have access to an 1880's circa farm . With all this around us were not quite sure how to Identify a possible privy even though we have a probe .We have tried to find softer area's by probing - even when we probe depressions in the ground most of it does not get too soft and when were digging we are not finding any ash per say .
We were preparing a garden location in our back yard a couple yrs ago and located a hexagonal shaped grouping of blocks that went down a good 6 feet or better . Has anyone ever heard of a hexagonally shaped privy hole ?
We live in a rural little burg ( use to be a town on the map ) just a ghost of a town now - mid Michigan slightly north of Lansing .
Any suggestions and idea's would be appreciated …….
Help

 

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[WannaDig3687]

I think I remember being told about 100 feet from the back of the house. I was also told that some in the country didn’t have one. They just went out side. Maybe some one smarter than I will chime in.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

We had a privy here, still used it until about '86 when I put water & sewage into my house.

Where the privy stood, there's a sunken area...

 

[trdking]

How good are your local building records? A lot of old structure permits drawings show the location of the Privy on the drawing. Other than that you can try dousing for old turds?

 

[smallfoot]

This is where research and speculation come together. You try to figure out where the house was. Which way did it face. Where was the approach to the house and the out buildings. Now, after you think you might know where all those pieces of the puzzle went, where would you put the privy? Most of the time, they're not in the front yard...look, we've already narrowed it down to the half of the world on the back side of the house. The rest is easy

 

[diggingthe1]

The ones around here are right up against the alley in either corner, although sometimes in the middle. Once in a while they are about 3/4 back or even attached to the back of the house. Maybe you can get the Sanborn maps if they are available online, they really help. If the back door on one side the privy might be on that side also. Good luck!!!!

 

[SD51]

Since the prevailing winds are almost always from the west or south-west, you wouldn't want a privy upwind from your home. With that in-mind, I would suggest you look south, north or east of the house and like was mentioned, a reasonable distance from the house.

 

[bravowhiskey]

I remember Mom telling me folks would sometimes plant Lilacs around the privy. That was rural Iowa, but they are as fragrant in the North as Honeysuckle is in the South.
After the out house is"out of business" the Lilacs may still be there.
good luck treasureguy56 and gal.