Digging up Pottery Shards and Old Bricks in Backyard "Excavation"
Good morning! I have been digging a pit in my Stuyvesant East backyard to install a dry well. I went through a lot of clayey dirt the first 5 or so feet – which was what I expected – the water in my yard was draining VERY slowly after every rain. But then – at about 5 1/2 feet down – I hit a rich black loam (which was what I was hoping to hit). In that second layer of dirt, though, I started to find old bricks and shards of pottery. I wondered if I had hit one of two things: 1) landfill for the yard from the period? When builders dug out the basements, did they deposit the dirt in the back yard or cart it away? Or a combination of both? I assume it had to be a lot of dirt and the majority of it had to go somewhere other than on-site. 2) the construction crew’s long filled-in outhouse for the construction site? These crews building houses back then probably did not have a place to “go” back then, so I am assuming they did the logical things – they dug pits and did their business that way. Along the way, “trash” was tossed into the pit, eventually getting covered over when the house was complete. Any historians with specialized knowledge? Geologists? Builders? Want to take a crack at this? Thanks, SWR
SewardWasRight
in General Discussion 11 years and 10 months ago
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greenmountain | 11 years and 10 months ago
Ask at the Weeksville museum.
Townie | 11 years and 10 months ago
Most of Brooklyn’s farmland had to be filled and graded. Some streams and swamps had to be filled which left behind a layer of organic peat material. Most of the untouched earth consists of glacial till- sand and gravel which you find in our area from just a few feet below the surface up to 60 +feet. If you can find a disruption in the natural striations it might help you identify the structure.
catboot | 11 years and 10 months ago
I was told is that when the sewer was put in, people had to remove the outhouses. The easiest way to do that was to fill it with trash, so it is till common to find broken dishes, bottles and miscellaneous stuff – if you happen to dig up the old privy.
thetinkerswagon | 11 years and 10 months ago
when I grew up on long island, we had a lot of 1880’s estates in the area and we used to locate the garbage dumps and dig up the bottles. often we would find animal bones, batteries for telephone systems, I once found a tiffany silver spoon with the once famous (and later bankrupt) banker’s initials on it (pity the servant who got blamed for that). we were usually digging in a lot of coal ash as well. I have never dug in the city but there were some older fellows who I had met who used to travel to Brooklyn to dig. now when I work down there, I wonder what nabes they were working in. I do recall them telling me that they were sometimes digging outhouse pits. I suspect that in the past, people back filled any open area with refuse before tossing soil on it. Keep in mind, there was no organized sanitation in the city early on, so I imagine one had to pay for private carting. back filling with refuse became a form of recycling. the wealthier the residents (we were digging in dumps in Islip belonging to associates of JP Morgan and WK Vanderbilt), the better the trash; the rarest bottles are some medicines and poisons which only the professional classes could afford. Good luck and it will be great to get a follow up if you find anything good. Steve
SewardWasRight | 11 years and 10 months ago
Thanks, momac and catboot. These are fascinating stories. bobjbkln, my house was built in 1892\. I think Stuy East had sewers before the first owners moved in in ’92\. I am not 100% on that, though.
shahnandersen
in General Discussion 11 years and 10 months ago
How old is you house? When did the sewers come in on your block? It’s very likely that the outhouse was for the residents, not for the builders.
catboot | 11 years and 10 months ago
That is so cool! Thus far we dug up a piece of a bayonet and the original bathtub from the house, plus miscellaneous junk. Digging a hole in our backyard is never simple because you never know what we’ll dig up. There is a guy whose specialty is to dig up people’s back yards in New York. He wrote a book about it, this is his website: http://www.newyorkartifactart.com/digging.html
momac | 11 years and 10 months ago
Google “Fireman Jack” Fortmeyer. He is the historian you are looking for.