Even though we didn’t find anything of value as we had hoped, there were a few items found during the dig that are worth mentioning. There were basically three categories of crawlspace dirt that was removed: topsoil, hard-pack clay, and the “trash pit”. Both the topsoil layer and the hard-pack clay are pretty self-explanatory. The top soil layer was on the surface as well as around the foundation and footings where it had been dug out to lay the brick originally. The hard pack clay was what filled most of space under the house and had not been disturbed even when the house was being built. The trash pit is about a 5 foot diameter area under the original kitchen which contains mostly broken glass and some animal bones. Dad started pulling out pieces of bottles, jars, and kitchen ware from the pit when he first started going under the house as a boy. Unfortunately nothing whole or all that interesting has come out of there yet, but we also haven’t dug to the bottom of it. As to why it’s there, the best I can figure is either they wanted to get any broken glass out of the way and so tossed it into the crawlspace from the cellar which was easily accessible, or possibly that it was there before that wing of the house had been built. We’ve always assumed the wing of the house was built some time later after the main house was built and there had been an outdoor kitchen prior to that. So to have a trash-pit in that area which was then built over would not have been unusual. In the few pictures below there are a few glass items from the trash pit, a couple random lost objects from the topsoil, and then some very round stones found in the clay (there were actually about half a dozen of them total) which my daughter is convinced are dinosaur bones. There was also a piece of melted glass located a couple feet below the surface for which we have no explaination.
The most notable item we found was a Native American celt, which is a stone fashioned into a blade used to remove the skin of an animal. It is in very good condition and was found not too deep in the hard pack clay. Dad has found several Native American items around on the farm, but this is definitely the best quality item of anything he’s found.
Renovate Mee 