40acre1870
Forum Supporter
My house was built in mid 1850's and being that it is a 40 acre farm, I would guess there is a bottle dump somewhere. How do you guys locate your bottles, do you just stumble across them?
How to locate the bottle dumps?
- Thread starter 40acre1870
- Start date
MisterSilver
Full Member
I have a few tips. Look around the woods which is obvious. Look for large mounds that may have trash in the and dig a few test holes about 2ft deep. Or you may see bottles or trash on the surface just laying there this is the most obvious and one of the more common ones. Mounds are usually better because they're all in one spot. You may also find a "privy" or an area where an outhouse used to be. These usually have a depression where they were and dig down about a foot and can find intact bottles. Hope you find something!
-MSS
-MSS
i normally look around the property line in the woods, as mentioned look for either depressions or mounds, any broken glass etc... also if there is any type of embankment those were also popular dumping spots they would dump over.
searcher64
Elite Member
Do you have any water run off areas that go toward a creek, river, on the land? If so, most people in the country, would take their trash and dump it in a ravine, creek bottom or drop off. The good stuff would be on the very bottom. If not any then they would throw the trash down the out house. The way to find them is to use a long steel rod. By pushing the rod down into the ground, where the out house had been, it will go down into the dug out area. When you find it, start digging. Good stuff on the very bottom. Good luck.
mcateercustom
Full Member
I live on a 160 acre farm and I was Mding out in the middle of it just for the heck of it. Found some old barb wire and all the sudden I got a great signal! Dug down 6 inches, nothin. Dug down 12 inches nothing! But when I got to 16 inches I found a dump lol! I plan on taking pics tomorrow. I really didn't think I would find anything out in the middle of the field! I'm sure you will find something great!
IMShooter
Elite Member
Some people (out of all the forums I go to, this one especially) just find dumps while MDing/fishing/hiking etc.. I've been all over the creeks, streams, rivers, ravines, woods in this area fishing/hunting/hiking/biking and have yet to come across any bottles. I need to be out walking the woods with about 30 people on this forum for real.
dumps can be hard to find. Mister gave some great advice. If you're out there md'ing pay attention for bits of "junk" lying around. Broken glass pieces, cans, metal hunks etc... You might be right on top of one or close to it. look for ravines or old creek beds. Follow them downhill. Often where they end or pool up you'll find stuff that floated down or rolled down.
At wife's family farm (there are 8 dumps that I know of to dig, but I find more to dig everytime I'm there) most of the ones I've found/been told about so far are within 30yards of the house. When winter comes up here, nobody wants to be too far from the house to dump trash. Usually downwind.
Finding the privy could be easier..and the privy would be the first place I'd check. Look for a footpath/path of rocks or stones. google or bing maps are great for this. You can often see a faded line where the path was (used this method to find the walkway to the beach of an 1800's pavillion and found some nice stuff).
check 50' or so downwind from the house especially. Look for depressions in the ground or "soft" spots. Look for boards/nails/roofing materials/bricks etc...anything used for construction that shouldn't be there. Most privies had wood or brick liners back then.
If you dont have a piece of spring steel to use as a probe, find a broom handle, whittle down one end of it til it's a point (not sharp though)and put a nail/screw 1/2 into it. cut a deep notch in it a few inches up to collect soil. slowly push it into the dirt. if you hear a ping noise, you're hitting bottles or at least glass hunks. Stop and commence digging. If you don't hit anything and pull it out and see different colored layers of soil, you may be onto something.
dumps can be hard to find. Mister gave some great advice. If you're out there md'ing pay attention for bits of "junk" lying around. Broken glass pieces, cans, metal hunks etc... You might be right on top of one or close to it. look for ravines or old creek beds. Follow them downhill. Often where they end or pool up you'll find stuff that floated down or rolled down.
At wife's family farm (there are 8 dumps that I know of to dig, but I find more to dig everytime I'm there) most of the ones I've found/been told about so far are within 30yards of the house. When winter comes up here, nobody wants to be too far from the house to dump trash. Usually downwind.
Finding the privy could be easier..and the privy would be the first place I'd check. Look for a footpath/path of rocks or stones. google or bing maps are great for this. You can often see a faded line where the path was (used this method to find the walkway to the beach of an 1800's pavillion and found some nice stuff).
check 50' or so downwind from the house especially. Look for depressions in the ground or "soft" spots. Look for boards/nails/roofing materials/bricks etc...anything used for construction that shouldn't be there. Most privies had wood or brick liners back then.
If you dont have a piece of spring steel to use as a probe, find a broom handle, whittle down one end of it til it's a point (not sharp though)and put a nail/screw 1/2 into it. cut a deep notch in it a few inches up to collect soil. slowly push it into the dirt. if you hear a ping noise, you're hitting bottles or at least glass hunks. Stop and commence digging. If you don't hit anything and pull it out and see different colored layers of soil, you may be onto something.
40acre1870
Forum Supporter
IMShooter... Thank you, and thank you everone else. I know exactly where I am going to dig now. The place is exactly how you described, low depression, alot of junk. I passed on it because of the refuse I was getting. I am doing a full on excavataion now.
emfederin
Elite Member
The value of using a "rod" that Searcher and Imshooter mentioned can NOT be overestimated.
You can buy 1/4" steel rods at home depot and the like. The one I used years ago was about 3 ft long, and I had a section of pipe welded on the end at a local garage to form a T-handle. Sharpen the end on a grinder (doesn't have to be needle sharp, just "pointy"), and "voila"!
Home dumps were just holes in the ground a few feet deep. They'd toss their trash in them and periodically cover them with a layer of dirt, especially if they were used to dispose of organic material. When the dump got full, they topped it with a final layer of dirt. Then they'd start another one right next to or close to the last one.
Beyond the "well, duh!" issue here, the concept you need to take is that these areas are "disturbed dirt", and have a different "texture" than surrounding dirt.
You can cover a LOT of ground just by pushing your probe a few inches into the ground every couple of feet. This is usually sufficient to find spots for further investigation, but that can trick you if the ground has been historically soft for millennia - in which case the difference in surface texture may be difficult or impossible to sense. But even that will work to your advantage for step 2, which is:
When you find a disturbed texture (or the ground is too soft to find any particular area), you want to probe a foot or 2 deeper into the ground.
Dumps will have everything from bottles to broken dishes to broken plow blades to biodegraded organic items, and these all produce "voids" in the ground surrounding them. I have NEVER come across a dump that didn't feel what I can only describe as "crunchy" as the probe tip passes through them, hitting infinite combinations of soft to hard to hole to pushing debris aside.
These techniques aren't foolproof by any means. I've hit sites that I KNOW DAMNED WELL had to have had a dump or 2 on them and come up dry. It might "not be nice to fool mother nature", but she has no problems with fooling around with us!
But this is often balanced by finding dumps in sections I never would have suspected, so it evens out somewhat.
But of this you can be sure: going dump hunting without a probe is like going out coinshooting without a metal detector.
You can buy 1/4" steel rods at home depot and the like. The one I used years ago was about 3 ft long, and I had a section of pipe welded on the end at a local garage to form a T-handle. Sharpen the end on a grinder (doesn't have to be needle sharp, just "pointy"), and "voila"!
Home dumps were just holes in the ground a few feet deep. They'd toss their trash in them and periodically cover them with a layer of dirt, especially if they were used to dispose of organic material. When the dump got full, they topped it with a final layer of dirt. Then they'd start another one right next to or close to the last one.
Beyond the "well, duh!" issue here, the concept you need to take is that these areas are "disturbed dirt", and have a different "texture" than surrounding dirt.
You can cover a LOT of ground just by pushing your probe a few inches into the ground every couple of feet. This is usually sufficient to find spots for further investigation, but that can trick you if the ground has been historically soft for millennia - in which case the difference in surface texture may be difficult or impossible to sense. But even that will work to your advantage for step 2, which is:
When you find a disturbed texture (or the ground is too soft to find any particular area), you want to probe a foot or 2 deeper into the ground.
Dumps will have everything from bottles to broken dishes to broken plow blades to biodegraded organic items, and these all produce "voids" in the ground surrounding them. I have NEVER come across a dump that didn't feel what I can only describe as "crunchy" as the probe tip passes through them, hitting infinite combinations of soft to hard to hole to pushing debris aside.
These techniques aren't foolproof by any means. I've hit sites that I KNOW DAMNED WELL had to have had a dump or 2 on them and come up dry. It might "not be nice to fool mother nature", but she has no problems with fooling around with us!
But this is often balanced by finding dumps in sections I never would have suspected, so it evens out somewhat.
But of this you can be sure: going dump hunting without a probe is like going out coinshooting without a metal detector.
mcateercustom
Full Member
Tons of great info here! I hope you find some great stuff!!
IMShooter
Elite Member
great post emfederin! Now I'm all excited to go digging this weekend vs dump digging....
example of using Bing maps...
http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=rvvpyk7m6rbp&lvl=17&dir=0&sty=b&where1=Liminga, MI&form=LMLTCC
in the center of this map you'll see Wall St heading east/west and Little American Rd heading north. The corner is our farm (it extends further north, but I'm just trying to show usefulness of these maps).
Ok, you can see the white rectangle with the empty spot next to it at the farm. follow the path (driveway) south and to the left and that's the house.
To the east where the "LL" in Wall is, that treed area just to the left is where the original house from the 1800's sat. There's a small ravine in there with stuff everywhere to dig.
Now to the east (right of that) you can see a squiggly north/south line, that was the old driveway/path to the farming area north of the "LL". It's not visible when walking there.
I'm thinking the outhouse used to be right at the top-left of the top of the "S" shape that would have been the driveway. There are trees there, it's semi-circular shaped and looks grassy vs trees and it's NE of the house on the way to the farm (which is the area north-eastish of the S shaped path/driveway). That's where I'm probing and hopefully digging this weekend....long writeup..sorry.
example of using Bing maps...
http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=rvvpyk7m6rbp&lvl=17&dir=0&sty=b&where1=Liminga, MI&form=LMLTCC
in the center of this map you'll see Wall St heading east/west and Little American Rd heading north. The corner is our farm (it extends further north, but I'm just trying to show usefulness of these maps).
Ok, you can see the white rectangle with the empty spot next to it at the farm. follow the path (driveway) south and to the left and that's the house.
To the east where the "LL" in Wall is, that treed area just to the left is where the original house from the 1800's sat. There's a small ravine in there with stuff everywhere to dig.
Now to the east (right of that) you can see a squiggly north/south line, that was the old driveway/path to the farming area north of the "LL". It's not visible when walking there.
I'm thinking the outhouse used to be right at the top-left of the top of the "S" shape that would have been the driveway. There are trees there, it's semi-circular shaped and looks grassy vs trees and it's NE of the house on the way to the farm (which is the area north-eastish of the S shaped path/driveway). That's where I'm probing and hopefully digging this weekend....long writeup..sorry.
MisterSilver
Full Member
Hope to see pics soon!
MSS
40acre1870
Forum Supporter
Great info as always... IMshooter, good luck. If you need any help, just hollar. I would love a trip up to Iron Mountain.
IMShooter
Elite Member
i might be yelling for you soon 40acre...
I'm making a thread in a bit to show what i stumbled into...
I'm making a thread in a bit to show what i stumbled into...
lem
Senior Member
WHen searching an old homestead, be careful of old wells.
