That's right, excavating abandoned outhouses (active latrines are avoided). A lot of people are doing it. And they're not sick or anything like that, either.
In fact, they're simply bottle collectors with uncommon imaginations. After all, it takes a rare mind to contemplate the mysteries of crap - and find a silver lining.
Knowing the shelf life of buried feces is relatively short - it doesn't take more than a couple years for bacteria to recycle it to pure soil again - they consider digging abandoned potties no dirtier than gardening. Still, most wear gloves and refrain from biting their nails.
Going down into old holes, they eagerly soil their fingers looking primarily for old bottles and pottery lovingly called "potty treasures" and "potty nuggets." Other items commonly unearthed include clay pipes, toys, buttons, jewelry, false teeth (lost when someone was vomiting?) and coins (from the pockets of someone who forgot to drop his pants?).
Pepe' Dumas, a bottle collector from Montreal, Canada, claims to have found a silver device that looks like a leg-hold trap, of the kind used by mountain men to harvest fur bearing animals. However, he suspects it's actually a chastity belt, arguing, in a heavy French accent, "Whoever heard of using a trap made of sterling silver to catch a beaver, ay?"
Unlike current toilets, yesterdays weren't simply the final resting place of their owner's intestinal products. They made convenient dumping grounds for small imperishables that couldn't be burned; and even served as vaults for storing small valuables like cash and unmentionables: grandma's whisky, the kid's tobacco, among others. Since it was considered unwise and in bad taste to discuss "potty deposits," the owner was usually the only one who knew about the stuff and it was sometimes left in the hole when illness or senility claimed him, or if he had to get out of town in a hurry. Today, these spoils are like wild fruit, available to everyone, just for the picking.
Endangered Structures
Up until the late 1930s, America was primarily an agrarian society. Folks were spread all over the land. Many didn't have electricity, let alone indoor plumbing. Terms like sewage treatment, trash collection and resource recovery weren't household phrases yet and only a few moms - primarily rich, liberal, big city socialites - even dreamt of their sons and daughters benefiting greater society by becoming sanitary engineers.
In the meantime, folks needed to relieve themselves and wanted protection from the elements while doing it. They built outhouses - small shacks constructed over pits and furnished with built-in benches bearing butt-size holes - in the backyard. Also known as "thunderhouses" and "crappers," everybody had one.
Tall and narrow, they were usually built for one, and typically made of wood. A half moon was traditionally cut into the door so no one mistook it for the wood shed, chicken coop or pig sty. Odiferous, dark and drafty, outhouses didn't make good reading rooms, especially in the winter months.
Up until well into the 19th century, so many outhouses dotted backyards, American cities smelled to high heaven. Industrialization brought great wealth and inspired public sewage systems. By the mid-20th century, most of the country was on line or had a septic system.
Standing alone against the elements, forsaken thunderhouses - not exactly a family's pride and joy - didn't last long. In fact, about all that remains of the majority of these temples to the human appetite are the slices cut out of the benches. Allowed to fall to the bottom of the pit, the slabs were quickly buried. Those that survive are prized by diggers who varnish them, attach plaques bearing details of the find, and hang them on their living room walls.
Pit Sites
A potty prospector's greatest challenge is finding exactly where the privy stood. Mark Yates, a bottle collector from Cazenovia who digs with his friends on weekends, says the first thing he does is research old homesteads. Then he asks the current owner of the property for permission to search and dig. "People seem naturally interested in what we do and a lot of them allow us to dig, even in their back yards," says Yates.
"We try to figure out where the outhouse was, then probe the site with a T-shaped metal rod. The ground around here is pretty hard, but where the outhouse was, the soil is generally pretty soft," Yates explains.
His search isn't a total shot in the dark. Some rules of thumb were followed during construction. Outhouses had to be close enough to the house to be easy to reach in deep snow and heavy rain; and they had to be downwind of the dining room.
Glass Veins
The bowels of the earth digest just about everything that's fed to them. The only man-made items immune to decomposition are made from certain metals and earthenware.
"We never know what we'll find," claims Yates.
One thing's for certain, there will be lots of glass and pottery. In the old days, folks spent a lot of time preventing and treating illness. A vast catalogue of preparations containing everything from mineral water and alcohol to snake oil and mercury was available, and most pits look like buried medicine cabinets. Whiskey bottles are also commonly found.
Chamber pots appear frequently. Also known as "thunder mugs," they were popular with invalids, folks who feared tinkling in the dark, or the rich who were too lazy to go outside, did it in the pot and had servants dump it in the morning. Many were dropped into the hole while being emptied and sank beyond reach.
Pitts were dug to various depths. The wealthy lined theirs with bricks and had them dipped by professional "honey dippers" when full. Poor folks did their own dipping or simply abandoned the site when it was full and dug a new one.
Potty prospectors often reach depths of seven or eight feet. Cave-ins are always possible and Yates suggests having a helping hand around, especially if you're in over your head.
Yates is a purist, subscribing to the rule that a true collector finds something or trades for it, never buys it. Each item he unearths is a trophy, the details of the find firmly etched in his fondest memories.
Like all popular movements of the common man, privy digging raises the hackles of special interests. Some archeologists have expressed fear that armies of spade-armed amateurs pouring over the countryside, randomly stabbing at the earth with shovels, endanger our national heritage. Seeing outhouses as repositories of the popular culture of their day, concerned humanists contend the pits should be treated with respect like any other archeological site.
To bottle collectors, this position is a cheap shot. "We're not grave robbers disturbing holy ground," retorts Dumas. "The academics never paid any attention to outhouses until they went to bottle shows and saw the beauty and quality of some of the bottles exhumed from history's potties. What's next," he asks rhetorically, "permits to dig johns and a national registry of abandoned privies?"
Dumas suggests playing it safe and digging now while the digging is good.
His rational is simple. Most municipal dumps have all been excavated already and divers have swept clean the floors of lakes and streams. An old, undiscovered privy offers a bottle collector fame and fortune. Better hurry, though, it won't be long till they're wiped clean, too, ay.
Digging It
The Internet is full of privy digging Web sites. Yates' favorites are www.privydigger.com, www.privypages.com and www.digwisconsin.com.
Antique Bottle & Glass Collector magazine prints colorful accounts of successful privy digs in each issue.
The Finger Lakes Bottle Collectors Association discusses digs during its monthly meetings. For general information, write to: FLBCA, POB 3894, Ithaca, N.Y. 14852, or visit them online at www.hometown.aol.com/joinflbca/index.html.
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