Urban Archaeology on Pierrepont Street
This is pretty awesome. Pardon Me for Asking has a cool post up on an archeological dig in the yard of a 1852 Pierrpont Street townhouse. While the home is under renovation urban archeologists Scott Jordan and Jack Fortmeyer are being allowed to explore the outhouse pit, where common household objects were thrown in to…
This is pretty awesome. Pardon Me for Asking has a cool post up on an archeological dig in the yard of a 1852 Pierrpont Street townhouse. While the home is under renovation urban archeologists Scott Jordan and Jack Fortmeyer are being allowed to explore the outhouse pit, where common household objects were thrown in to close the pits. This practice lasted until the 1860s, when Brooklyn got sewer infrastructure. After digging a hole 15 feet deep, they pulled up broken cups and plates, pickle jars, chamber pots, pieces of glass, bottles, a pair of legs from a doll, and some glass figurines. They also uncovered an old cistern. Have any readers had an urban dig in their backyard?
Photo via PMFA
Our impression of scott is that he was very methodical and safe.
There was nothing yuckey about what was dug up.
When they dug out this pit, was that dude unearthed at the bottom?
Ok, I like urban history a lot. But whenever I think that archeology might have been a cool career for me, I see a picture of someone digging out a privy, and I think, naaaaahh. Cool some folks like to do it, but certainly not for me.
I dug out the privy of my 1843 house several years ago using a 3/8 sieve and 5 gallon laundry buckets over the course of a couple of years. I dug down to the sand of the original East River shoreline! I have thousands of artifacts from that dig including: coins, salt glazed and glass marbles, hundreds of buttons(wood, bone, mother of pearl, glass, etc.), clay pipes, bottles of course, ink wells of every sort, chamber pots, house hardware…and the list goes on and on. All artifacts were carefully cleaned and are now packed away in a dozen boxes awaiting further study…an intern project, no doubt. A three bay outdoor toilet room stucture was installed in 1903,so I have a solid 60 years of disposed and lost items from the occupants of the house.
About 10 years ago, a woman I never met called me on the phone. She asked me if it would be okay if she spent some quiet time in my back yard. I said that was fine. She spent a half hour on her knees praying. Later I found out that her brother once owned my house and that her mothers ashes, in an urn were buried in my yard.
BHO –
The date the privies were built would be the same date as when the house itself was built.
Call me crazy but broken junk preserved in 19th century excrement doesn’t thrill me.
Now if they were to find a strongbox filled with doubloons and precious stones, then count me in.
“These privy pits were built like wells with sturdy fitted stone walls”
When? Forward a pic to OSHA along with the address and start your stopwatch.
***Bid half off peak comps***
We found a roller skate and a meerschaum pipe of a colonial guy’s head. Lots of oyster shells. To pay them back, we buried the 3 story laundry pole for future excavators.