Question on a beginners finds

[ehk]

Hi

I went out today metal detecting on a small sloped rise and did not find much but a shotgun shell and lots of bits of old buried fence wire. Well I decided to goto a different location, specifically around a swamp which is at the bottom of this low hill because I remember I had seen a metal pail there or something.

I got there and took a "closer" look and discovered a few things. First of all the swamp at this spot is below a farm field, the edge of the farm field is 3-6 feet up in places. I went down (ive explored this area many times as i'm always around this swamp) but never really took notice of any old debris until the last few days when ive been reading about bottles, farmers dumps, privies etc.

Basically theres an area bound on 2 sides by this farm field, and in the opposit direction it goes close to the creek passing through the swamp. An area about 15 x 10 feet is well loaded with old "junk". Found the old metal pail, but found parts of some type of old rusted vehicle, possibly a motorcycle or part of a tractor. I found a 1971 ontario licence plate (i am in ontario), really rusted. Theres the remains of the metal of a old short fridge and inside it it had this grey silver box like thing that said "fridgidare" in it (pretty modernish maybe 20 years old?).

The interesting part is under all of this (including under the dirt of the slope up tot he farm field etc) theres broken bottles, alot of them. 90% seems to be broken from what I can see, and this is in a swampy area so theres all kinds of dead plant material covering it all so theres actually alot under there i just goto move the dead weed brush away.

So I take it this was a farmers dump once (no farmer here anymore).

I brought a few things home and cleaned them up a bit. 1 is a broken bottle bottom, very very pale blue and has a huge S outline on the bottom with a circle around it. 2nd piece is the "label" portion of a clear glass beer bottle with the raised lettering stamped on it "Iroquios br'G. co: Buffalo" with a indian chief face in the middle. I looked up that and i came up with the place that had been making those bottles in buffalo, ny (which is bout hour and half away from here) shut down their beermaking place in 1972.

Then the last bottle is a 6 inch amber colour bottle of CERTO "registered trade-mark" with the "for 1/2 bottle pour here" letters on the back side. I looked this up too and its possibly from 1950's? (neat)

Wondering if anyone know anything about those 3 bottle types?

I'm going back tommorrow to remove the dead plant material, gloves and im gonna see what more of the bottles (whole or broken) that i can find.



ehk

 

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[ehk]

Ok this is getting interesting

i found a 2nd bottom half of the S bottle, and it has "Sutherland's Limited Hamilton" (hamilton is a town right close to me) but couldnt find any info on the web for it.

Then i got the bottom half of a mary t. goldman's gray hair restorer amber, possibly 1925's to 1950's ?

And this last and most interesting piece is the

milk of magnesia bottle, only got the bottom 1/3rd of it, says "reg'd in us.pat.office aug.21.1906" and searching on the internet confirms it was a philips? exact same bottles as this one cept mine is a little deeper blue the the pics online.


So i'm going back tommorrow with a small rake to rake away the dead plant material lying ontop of all of this so that i can start one section at a time on the surface.

 

[Bladeii]

That milk of magnesiam bottle leads me to think that what you have is a bottle site from 1920's/30's to about the 50's. Keep up the good searching...the deeper you go, the more whole bottles you should find. How deep is the swamp? The oldest bottles will be the ones on the bottom and hopefully the muck in the bottom of the swamp kept them from being broken....good luck.

 

[mtl-huntr]

I bet the bottles were being used for target practice which explains the shotgun shells....may not be many whole bottles.........

 

[ehk]

Wow thats really interesting the swamp itself is walkable in that area but other spots you will probably sink in a foot. Last winter when we did not have much snow i was following rabbit tracks through the swamp (i normally dont go in it because youll sink right in) i went in in one spot halfway to my knee.. after that I did not walk to much in the swamp heh There is stuff a few inches down into the soil below the surface, but i have not dug at this point so i dont know how far the bottles and things may go.

I don't know about the shotgun shell, it was on a hill about 60 yards away well on a small forested swamp. Could of been shot at but no clue.

I also found a massive upper top leg bone of im guessing a cow, because of the size (it's massive) theres several other bones from it too.

Going back a bit later when the sun's not as bright.


ehk

 

[ehk]

Ok this is tough! gonna take a long time, just to go through the surface material.

Anyways i found lots of broken stuff which i havent cleaned yet to try and identify but i have 2 whole pieces.

1 is a "hamilton glass co" from "hamilton, ont" glass jar lid (looked like a coaster at first) with a raised crown in the center top. Check this link, click on "hamilton" im guessing it is from that circa they mentioned?

http://www.insulators.com/articles/fruitref.htm#HAMILTON


Then right beside the "dump" area to the left when standing on the farm field, there is an area as high as the farm field level except its overgrown but theres several "humps and bumps" throughout that area. I found a glass bottle of

listerine "lambert pharmacal company". Clear glass, the opening looks like it is for a cork. Trying to find some info on that.

Found a 2nd bottom (but not very nice condition) of the milk of magnesia also.


Man the buds of skunk cabbage are just disgusting smelling, they are popping up all around the bottle area now.

ehk