What's in a privy?

A privy, or more commonly referred to as the outhouse, seems like the farthest place anyone in their right mind would ever want to spend more time than absolutely required. My family and I would certainly argue that point. To illustrate the point, I could call upon the most extreme use of the old cliché “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”. In the 19th century, all dwellings, city or country, had a privy. In most cases the privy was a few feet across, and on average anywhere between 6 and 12 feet deep. Sometimes they were lined in stone or brick and others were simply holes clawed into the earth with a small frame hut overtop to keep you safe from the elements or the bears.

So let’s cut to the chase, why do we want to, locate, dig and physically drop down into another man’s hole? Because it was an easy place to drop the trash amongst the more common “end result” products. okay – Gross! You would think I would agree but far from it... all the original material has long composted leaving nice healthy organic earth in it’s place and scattered within this “brown gold” are the non-organic debris tossed in a hundred or more years ago. What we’re looking for is antique bottles! Jewels of the trash world! In fact collecting antique bottles is considered the third largest hobby in the world after stamps and coins.