Out Houses

[PAPPY]

Some of the best finds I have made have been in old privy's. If you have never dug an old out house site you are really missing out on some good finds. Bottles, Coins, Tokens...Never can tell what has been thrown in the old out house hole....Get with the older folks in your community and they can tell you where they used to be. When hunting old home sites be sure to take the time to find out where the old privy was at....PAPPY

[morestuff!]

An outhouse dig sounds like a great adventure Pappy. My youngest cousin recently married a farm-girl. They live in a new house built on some of her family's property.
Her mother lives in the circa 1870 farmhouse across the road. Their family has lived on and worked the property since day one!

I was invited to detect the property when the weather clears some. While we were discussing the old (and collapsing) main barn, she mentioned that her brother was interested in bottles. Turns out he knows where the privy holes are located, but needs some motivation and help to dig them out.
Sounds like I may have more than just detecting to do later this year!

[Adam Miller]

detected and or seen, had concrete floors. Now I know they had to relocate ever so often, but how would you tell were the previous location was?

[morestuff!]

Hello Adam,

When my father was a kid, they still had to use an outhouse. (They were renting -- and the landlord had to be persuaded to bring the house up to code with indoor plumbing.)
From what my father can recall, there was a brick path that led to the outhouse. He said that the last few yards of bricks looked like they had been moved over at some point. My guess: When a new pit was dug, they must have moved part of the path, so it was aimed toward the new location. He said they did have a small concrete pad under the outhouse. But, he does not remember seeing one anywhere else in the yard.

On the same topic: My great-grandmother (on my mother's side of the family), lived in a VERY old part of town. The whole neighborhood was torn down about thirty years ago (sometimes urban renewal is justified. ) They had what was once an outhouse, still in the backyard. My grandfather told me that by 1940 when he started dating my grandmother, it was long out of use. I remember looking inside it when I was a boy. It had been raised up on concrete blocks and turned into a small chicken coop at some time in the distant past. But, underneath there were old wooden planks laid over bricks.

Anyway, that's about my extent of outhouse knowledge!
Ed

[swizzle]

Most privy's were placed in very close proximity to the last one. The dirt taken out to make way for a new privy was dumped in to the old one and the outhouse was relocated over the new hole. Some places have quite a few different privy pits while others may only have 1 or 2. It all depended on the size of the hole and how many people we're filling it. Buy yourself a good probe and check the area's and depressions around the last privy site. Jason

[Adam Miller]

Those are some good tips!

[swizzle]

My Dad just told me a funny story about moving the old outhouse when he was a kid.
They used crowbars to pry up the back of the outhouse and rolled a log underneath it to move it along. As him and his brother's and Gramps was pushing the outhouse back my Uncle leaned over to far. Yup you guessed it the ground dropped out from under him and got really mushy. Almost waste deep in waste management. Talk about getting into your work. LMAO Jason

[RingDancer]

OH MY!!! That is a funny story now!!!

[morestuff!]

Yeeeoowwwhhh!!!! I can only imagine what went through his mind while in that hole. And, the rest of your family must have had a GREAT time retelling that story!