Digging an 1860s Army Fort...Then this Happened

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:01]Sound some glass here. What do we have going on?

[00:00:06]That's pretty early there. That's got a key mold bottom.

[00:00:11]Look at that.

[00:00:14]Got some embossing.

[00:00:16]Whoa.

[00:00:20]That's one of the coolest bottles I've ever dug.

[00:00:23]Welcome to the channel. Today I'm at the site of a frontier era military fort.

[00:00:26]This place has all kinds of activity in the post civil war years. I've got permission to excavate the grounds in search of artifacts. This could get really good.

[00:00:36]I took a couple scoops down. They had some glass and there's a couple bottles in the bucket. Get those pulled out.

[00:00:46]It's like a round bottom soda.

[00:00:54]Okay. It's a I've dug these before.

[00:00:56]Cantrell and Cochran from Dublin and Belfast. That's Ireland.

[00:01:01]It's uh Dublin and Belfast on the bottom.

[00:01:04]It's hard to see, but around the base says Cantrell and Cochran. Uh see that every cork is branded. It's a solid early 1880s bottle.

[00:01:16]And just down here, it's like a doll arm that shows uh their families living here. I guess that was known to some degree. They were definitely living in the building that was using this pit.

[00:01:40]Go.

[00:01:42]It is so windy today. The dust is blowing around. It's a something.

[00:01:57]got this dumped out.

[00:02:02]So, I jumped down, noticed, see the specks? Those are undigested seeds. This is an outhouse pit. Been looking for one of these out here.

[00:02:12]Decided to slow down, dig by hand.

[00:02:14]There's a couple more pieces sticking out.

[00:02:20]JL Brown and Sun Boston. Looks like some kind of a toiletry.

[00:02:26]Maybe a skin cream.

[00:02:31]There we go.

[00:02:34]Yeah, this is probably an army medical bottle. There's no embossing on it. Uh, it is a toolled top. Could be late 1880s.

[00:02:45]That's a spot for the label. There you can see the mark.

[00:02:51]What else do we have in here?

[00:02:57]Got a fragment of a dish. It's likely European made.

[00:03:06]You can see that seed layer.

[00:03:11]Some chicken bones.

[00:03:13]Let's see.

[00:03:15]Got this bottle here.

[00:03:23]Analine dyes.

[00:03:28]Huh.

[00:03:32]Lemon's analene dyes.

[00:03:35]Looks to be a 1880s, maybe early 1890s bottle.

[00:03:41]tool top.

[00:03:44]What else do we have in here?

[00:03:50]There's a Oh, unspent 4570 casing.

[00:03:56]That could have been an enlisted man and his family that was living here.

[00:04:05]Some iron stone china.

[00:04:08]There's a bottle.

[00:04:10]bottom of a bottle. A and DHC. So that's uh the Chambers Glass Company. That was from back east.

[00:04:18]Looks like a a beer bottle. Export beer of some kind.

[00:04:23]It's cold out today. The wind's blowing.

[00:04:30]We got something down here.

[00:04:35]Looks like an oldie aqua. some kind of a little pharmaceutical bottle toolled top.

[00:04:45]But yeah, this is probably the windiest, dustiest day I've ever dug on. This is uh next level. When I get up under the wind, my eyes are actually uh getting filled with dust.

[00:05:05]Here's one. What do we have there?

[00:05:11]Got a couple.

[00:05:13]It's another round bottom soda.

[00:05:16]Maybe a beer.

[00:05:23]Oh, Ross's round bottom soda. Ross's. That's Belfast. So, this guy started out working for Cantrell and Cochrit, then went off in his own. And uh these are some of the most popular bottles you'll find on these frontier sites.

[00:05:45]I haven't said this in a while, but this pit is loaded.

[00:05:50]What do we have here?

[00:05:53]Some livestock bones. It looks like find a lot of these on these sites.

[00:06:05]I don't know. A champagne bottle.

[00:06:08]That's a big one.

[00:06:12]It's applied top. Could be European made. Can't say for sure.

[00:06:19]Let's see here.

[00:06:31]Oh, hey. It looks like a casing from a pistol.

[00:06:37]Yeah.

[00:06:39]Possible unless his family lived here.

[00:06:48]Drops down. We haven't found bottom yet.

[00:06:51]Now, this pit hasn't been cleaned out, so that's promising. I was finding a lot of spots out here that seemed like they had been cleaned. So maybe they were just ash dumps or uh possibly to a doll maybe a doll leg or kids residing here. Got some stuff over here broken uh knife edge liquor flask. Those are popular in the uh early 1880s.

[00:07:43]Some more livestock bones.

[00:07:49]Oh, so here's a doll leg. Maybe another part to that doll. That other one was broken. It could be the doll broke and they threw it down the outhouse.

[00:08:01]And this is a sharp collared export style beer. This style became popular the early 1870s. So this has a sharp collar on it there. So that style was popular till the mid 1880s. I'd say phased out around 1883.

[00:08:21]It's got to be a late '7s, early 1880s piece.

[00:08:33]There's the wall of it.

[00:08:38]part he part of a iron stone china coffee cup on the side cave in a couple pieces got exposed here top to a patent medicine it's broken and uh what else do we have broken beer.

[00:09:17]A lot of stuff in these is broken. When they threw it down, they didn't really seem to care if it broke or not.

[00:09:24]But, uh, look at that.

[00:09:27]So, that's a master ink bottle. That's a very old one.

[00:09:31]Got some iridescence on it.

[00:09:34]This thing could be 1870s.

[00:09:38]It's like a key mold bottom.

[00:09:41]You see it has the uh pore spout on the top there.

[00:09:47]I don't see any company name.

[00:09:52]That's awesome. This may have been the windiest day I ever filmed on. I'll be narrating this because the audio got wind blasted. Here's a chunk of lime.

[00:10:01]This was thrown down outhouse pits way back when to neutralize the smell.

[00:10:05]That's a good indicator because items were often thrown down these things like this European-made ale bottle. They call these black glass because of the color.

[00:10:14]They're usually a deep amber or a deep olive green. This one's a deep olive green. I find these in 19th century sites all across the US.

[00:10:24]And to give an idea of how windy it was this day, my camera's fan stopped working. It got covered, filled with dust. It's actually at the shop right now getting repaired. They said it'll be a couple more weeks.

[00:10:40]But here's a uh patent medicine type bottle. It's a Dr. Pitcher Castoriia Chaz H. Fletcher also in the company at one point. This is another type of bottle I find all across the US. I actually found one of these in 1860s or '7s context in a stage station site in Bonum County, South Dakota. It was found with bottles marked from the Lorenzen Whiteitman glass works. They had LNW on bottom. LW was dissolved in 1874 when one of the partners retired and then the other one continued it on.

[00:11:19]But you'll see here the uh export style beer bottle I'm digging out and I'm pulling up fragments of these mason jars. So, I found pieces of these jars all over on this site.

[00:11:35]I've yet to find an intact one, though.

[00:11:39]And uh I'm hoping that I'll at least be able to find enough pieces to identify them. They were uh made made by the Hero Glass Works. I concluded, although it could have been a number of different jars that they used. I know the A on the bottom indicated a certain one, although the lids I've been finding doesn't necessarily match up with those. They've got all different kinds of patent dates on it. And uh here's an export style beer with a sharp collar, shank collar some call it that was used in this manufacturer from about the start in 1873 I believe until about 1883.

[00:12:20]And I've been finding these export beers on the site all over the place. I have pictures of these stacked up like cordwood. I'll be uh putting all those pictures into a book on this site as well. Here's a round style prescription bottle. These had been used to some degree since the mid 1800s. The uh style like I'm holding here was used alongside the Philadelphia ovals and French squares. Those were used from I suppose the 1870s until the early 1900s. I found them in machinemade context, the 1910s or 20s era. Here's a machine cut square nail. Those had been used since the mid 1800s until about 1895 when they were replaced by the uh wire nails that we still see today.

[00:13:13]Here's more of that mason jar and a export style beer. You can see the color there that looks like a solid use layer.

[00:13:23]You know, the spot I was digging could have been uh two outhouse pits side by side or one that was slightly built over an older uh older outhouse pit. But now here's a really nice clean glass export beer.

[00:13:40]That's the Mark of the Chambers glass company.

[00:13:44]This type of stamping they used is a solid indicator of 1870s to 1880s.

[00:13:51]While I was cleaning some dirt out, saw this. This is the brim off of a keppy.

[00:13:57]Basically an enlisted man's service cap.

[00:14:01]That's a Indian wars, I suppose. 1870s era.

[00:14:06]This is also something that fell out of celluloid comb, I believe.

[00:14:14]Looks like a ' 80s, I suppose.

[00:14:20]A few pieces down here. You can see a solid use layer.

[00:14:26]Some kind of a shot glass or bar glass that's pressed. It's got some opaling on it from being in the ground. It's just caused from min mineralization over the years.

[00:14:39]Looks like a bit bottle. Uh I did notice it was damaged. There's some breaking on it. I'll see if I can just pull it out here.

[00:14:51]That was too bad.

[00:14:53]See the uh iridescence in the brake? It was cracked.

[00:14:59]Damaged a long time ago. That's a Reed's guilt edge tonic. I've dug a few of these out here. Early 1880s piece.

[00:15:22]A broken champagne bottle.

[00:15:33]Some kind of bottle is falling loose here. There we go.

[00:15:37]Looks like a patent medicine.

[00:15:40]A Davis Davis vegetable painkiller.

[00:15:45]There's a vegetable paint killer. This appears to be from the 1880s or 1890s.

[00:15:52]And next to it here be a drinking glass or look at that bell-shaped bottle embossing on it. That's got to be a some kind of toilet.

[00:16:13]Pretty cool. Here's the hall. I concluded this was one maybe two outhouse pits used by the laundressers quarters in the 1870s, 80s or 90s.

[00:16:28]Got a champagne bottle at left. Export beers. Some kind of European ale.

[00:16:35]Some little pharmaceuticals round style prescription. There on the right there was a broken ER squib bottle that was from the squib laboratories. He supplied medicine to the soldiers during the Civil War.

[00:16:46]Some doll parts. That master ink. It's an early piece. I believe that's some kind of toiletry. That bell-shaped bottle there. Another pharmaceutical, I believe. Some patent medicines.

[00:17:01]Couple round bottom sodas.

[00:17:04]Keepy brim.

[00:17:06]A brush.

[00:17:09]There you have it. We got to fill it back in.

[00:17:14]If you look close, you'll see I kicked some marks in the ground. I proed it out. It lost compaction, what I believe is ashes. We'll get it opened up.

[00:17:27]We're down about 3 ft. Hitting some uh wood ash.

[00:17:33]I noticed a blob top sticking out here.

[00:17:36]There we go.

[00:17:41]any embossing. Okay. Yeah. Dublin and Belfast right there. There's another uh Canrell and Cochran.

[00:17:52]Look at that. That's early 1880s.

[00:18:02]I'm finding all kinds of broken china dinner wear.

[00:18:11]Some very early blast in here.

[00:18:21]Look at that. Some kind of a piece to a cosmetic container, I believe.

[00:18:27]Brass, but it was a pocket watch at first.

[00:18:32]These next couple of clips were wind blasted as well, so I'll be narrating them. Here is an infantry booty. The style was popular in the military during the Civil War into the Indian Wars era.

[00:18:43]I found a good amount of these on Fort Pemba. Some of them actually had Civil War inspectors marks.

[00:18:51]I mentioned the wind out there that day.

[00:18:53]It was also very cold. This was some of the worst digging conditions I had ever experienced. This was dusty. I couldn't see at times when dust clouds would roll through. Sometimes the only relief I got was either sitting in my car or getting down in the pit here.

[00:19:14]See an export style beer I'm working on.

[00:19:19]This one's from the Digger Glass Company of Lasal, Illinois. I've actually found a lot of export beers on this site from this company. Most, if not all, had the same embossing pattern on the bottom.

[00:19:32]Some with different mold letters or mold numbers.

[00:19:37]This one was completely intact. You'll see the uh ashes I'm digging through.

[00:19:43]It's wood ash. That's always good to see on these frontier sites. It's a good indicator of age.

[00:19:51]Prior to the railroad reaching an area with the railroad came coal. Coal was a lot more efficient at heating buildings, so they transitioned quickly when coal was available.

[00:20:05]In the wood ash, you'll see it's a lot lighter in both weight and color.

[00:20:12]Here's a pharmaceutical bottle, Union Opal style prescription. This could have been purchased at the fort's hospital or it could have been brought in from a traveler, someone at the laundrous quarters. It's likely brought in from riverboat or a freighter.

[00:20:32]And uh here's a round bottom soda bottle.

[00:20:39]So these were made with round bottoms.

[00:20:41]That way the uh bottle couldn't sit upright which would allow the cork to dry out which would then cause the contents to lose carbonation. Here's a Liam parents worsture sauce. These were found all across this site. The earliest ones were made in Europe and uh later in the US I believe this is one of the European examples. But um this backhoe we're digging with was a breakthrough. You'd think it it's a bit extreme to be digging these fragile glass pieces with a backhoe. Although I developed a technique. I would take the top soil off. The hard pack top soil is what creates pressure when I'm lifting up with the bucket and that's when things can break. But uh in this case, I take the top soil off. I dig down next to the feature and then pull up. You'll see here's a nurser bottle. It's got that white iridesence on it from sitting in the ground all those years. This one was not broken by the backhoe. You'll see the cracks have that haze as well.

[00:21:45]So, that's been sitting down there broken probably since it was discarded.

[00:21:53]I concluded this was an outhouse pit used by the quarters. It had been cleaned out at some point and refilled with wood ash. There were a few original layers left on bottom.

[00:22:04]On the right there, we have a lean parents worst shear sauce. An export style beer, nurser bottle, strap- sided prescription, some kind of pharmaceutical, lamp chimney top, two round bottom sodas, some dinner wear, including Iron Stone yellowware, some transfer wear, patent medicine bottle, some shoes.

[00:22:26]Look like a couple kids shoes in the mix there.

[00:22:31]There you have it. We get it filled back in.

[00:22:35]That's all cleaned up over here.

[00:22:39]See, I kicked some more marks in the ground.

[00:22:42]Push the rod through again. Hit a loss of compaction. Get it opened up.

[00:22:50]Down about 4T.

[00:22:54]Have some glass here. What do we have going on?

[00:22:59]That's pretty early there. That's got a key mold bottom.

[00:23:04]Look at that.

[00:23:06]Got some embossing.

[00:23:09]Genuine bluing. Whoa.

[00:23:15]Croft in Berky, St. Paul, Minnesota.

[00:23:19]I've never seen one of these before.

[00:23:22]Whoa.

[00:23:25]That's one of the coolest bottles I've ever dug.

[00:23:30]Let's see. There's another one next to it. Maybe it's the same one. Same gun.

[00:23:37]And another one.

[00:23:40]Look at that. This is so early.

[00:23:47]That is truly amazing.

[00:23:50]Look at that. A key mold bottom and a applied top.

[00:24:05]Got something else here too.

[00:24:13]Huh. Kind of a flavoring extract. NBNG.

[00:24:19]I've seen these before.

[00:24:22]That's something.

[00:24:28]Got a few more here. It's like a little round style prescription bottle.

[00:24:37]Jewel top.

[00:24:40]Go embossing.

[00:24:44]Hoping this is another one of those bluing bottles. Let's see.

[00:24:50]There we go.

[00:24:56]A genuine bluing Croft and Berky St. Paul, Minnesota.

[00:25:04]If I look this up, they only advertised in 1878 to 1879. This is historic.

[00:25:23]And another round style prescription.

[00:25:25]Could it be? Let's see here.

[00:25:30]This is a fort. There it is. US Army Hospital Department. Look at that. is usually very faintly embossed. This one looks mint.

[00:25:55]Looks like there's layers of lime down here.

[00:26:02]Looks like a couple pieces down here.

[00:26:06]Look at that.

[00:26:09]Looks like some kind of a celluloid brush.

[00:26:15]This is absolutely historic, you guys.

[00:26:17]You're not going to see this anywhere else.

[00:26:20]This pit is phenomenal.

[00:26:26]Oh, wow. And a toothbrush with the bristles still on it.

[00:26:35]I don't see any company name on it. Look at that though.

[00:26:39]See the bristles.

[00:26:48]Looks like a used layer of some sort.

[00:26:50]Another toothbrush. So definitely household items. Don't find as much of this in the other parts of the fort.

[00:27:00]Got to be celluloid.

[00:27:07]and a wine bottle.

[00:27:12]Remnants of a paper label, but I can't say for sure what that is.

[00:27:18]It's got a some kind of oil in it, I believe. See a closeup of the label.

[00:27:28]It's like an applied top.

[00:27:35]Down below it here. It looks like some kind of aqua bottle.

[00:27:41]Maybe a beer.

[00:28:02]What is this?

[00:28:06]It's a big bottle.

[00:28:08]I don't think it's a beer.

[00:28:20]Oh, champagne.

[00:28:24]This old champagne bottle, an applied top. Believe they called these a burgundy style way back when.

[00:28:34]Looks like the bottom of maybe a toiletry bottle. Can't say for sure.

[00:28:45]Oh, wow.

[00:28:48]Not entirely sure what this is.

[00:28:53]Almost like a decorative figural type thing.

[00:28:59]No company name.

[00:29:01]Could be a sauce bottle. That's a really cool looking piece.

[00:29:10]I was widening this out. This fell.

[00:29:14]Could it be?

[00:29:16]Look at that. Another one. Genuine bluing off and Berky St. Paul, Minnesota.

[00:29:25]There's something else behind it here.

[00:29:28]Looks like a colorless bottle.

[00:29:36]Maybe a liquor flask or a prescription.

[00:29:49]Huh.

[00:29:51]What do we have here?

[00:29:55]That's unusual.

[00:29:58]Some kind of a shoefly flask. It's got a metal threaded top on it. That's got to be a ground lip.

[00:30:05]That's something else.

[00:30:10]What do we have here?

[00:30:13]a broken Dr. Price's special flavoring extract.

[00:30:17]Got the uh sides cleaned out of this.

[00:30:21]Took a couple dips of the back, huh?

[00:30:24]What do we have here?

[00:30:27]It's like a lid to a teapot.

[00:30:32]Yeah, there it is.

[00:30:35]Kind of ornate. It's got a painted band around the outside of it.

[00:30:42]Ironstone China.

[00:30:55]This pit's done.

[00:31:01]I concluded this was an outhouse pit used by the laundry quarters in the 1870s, maybe into the early 1880s. It was dipped or cleaned out sometime, likely in the early 1880s.

[00:31:13]Folks would hire out and have these cleaned usually for sanitation purposes.

[00:31:21]Got a USA hospital department bottle.

[00:31:24]Those four blueings from St. Paul.

[00:31:26]Absolutely amazing. I believe that's some kind of extract. Got a champagne, a wine.

[00:31:34]That bulb type bottle is interesting. It could be some kind of toiletry. Maybe a dressing of some sort, ironstone lid, likely from a tea kettle. And that liquor flask, it's quality, not quantity. We'll get this thing filled back in.

[00:33:33]Hey.

[00:33:37]Hey. Hey.