- #1
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I recently acquired permission to look for privies behind an early 1860s house. This is not a rare occurrence in itself, however finding early complete glass absolutely is. I have dug behind at least 10 early homes over the last couple of years, which typically result in a lot of turn of the century glass and occasionally a killer bottle in small shards under a pile of bricks. Anyone who digs bottles understands this phenomenon. Usually all of the slick meds and crown tops are in mint condition and the one early embossed bottle is smashed beneath a discarded tea pot. Anyway, after securing permission we began probing the backline of the lot. Typically an early 1860s dwelling has between 3 and 5 privies, however finding the earliest hole is always top priority. A dark ash layer at 4 feet indicated something worth exploring. As we opened up the hole, square nails and an occasional crock shard appeared, however no bottles. At 4 feet we hit a foot of thick mud above the hard pan. Reaching bare handed to the elbow in this mud revealed bottles stacked like cord wood. With no time, space or energy to bucket out all the mud, each vessel was extracted by feeling around blindly in the depths. With gloves its difficult to discern what your feeling, whether its complete or what’s around it which may get in the way of the recovery, so this was done very gingerly with bare hands, which resulted in countless small cuts. After pulling out 10 small 3 piece mold cylinder meds I felt something rectangular on the back wall. The most crude Hostetters I have ever seen appeared with a rare base embossing in a beautiful light amber color. Next I felt a cylinder protruding from a side wall. After several minutes of scraping the mud aside and gently wiggling it blindly, It came loose. I figured it would be a black glass whiskey and was confused when an aqua sixth broke the muddy surface complete with a perfume stopper in the top. I handed the bottle to my partner who was also confused as these early 1860s 3 piece whiskeys are typically dark olive. He yelled down that it was a Dyottville Glassworks, Philadelphia which are often found in Civil War Camps (always in Olive Green or Yellowish Green). We put the bottle aside to research later and finished the privy, which also gave up 2 nice Jamaica Gingers including a beautiful early western blown Dr. Barnes variant 2 early 1860s spice bottles, 2 12 sided medicines, a beautiful western soda, a Dr. Thompsons Eye Water and several more slick cylinder meds and a gutta percha syringe. The majority of the glass was early 1860s, however a couple of broken open pontiled 1850s meds came out as well. Later when researching the 6[SUP]th[/SUP] neither of us could come up with an aqua example in any books or on the internet. We consulted with multiple diggers and bottle experts with similar results. Apparently it is a very rare bottle with likely 1 other known at this point. Although considerable offers were made, it will remain in my collection. I have been digging relics and bottles seriously for 8 years, moving ridiculous amounts of dirt, and this stands out as my best bottle find so far and one of my most memorable digs. Thanks for looking and sharing in one of my greatest finds. Would love to know of other examples found, always nice to share finds with other bottle diggers.
-Evan
-Evan
