unearthing forgotten 1890's "night scavenger" dumping site during north chicago residential excavation

a recently discovered cache of 1890's refuse, in the form of everyday household bottles, jars, shoes, stoneware (i.e. impermeable and partly vitrified pottery), flint glass, ink wells, etc., was unearthed the other day during excavation of a residential lot where a house built around 1890 was demolished months earlier.

late 19th century chicago beer bottle fragment with stunning benicia iridescence .

the dense layer of trash, found nearly 5 feet below grade, was either used as a "makeshift" dumping site by city night scavengers (i.e., residential privy vault cleaners) or possibly as "fill" for the non-extant house (without basement and/or crawlspace) constructed at the time the street it faced was being raised to accommodate the installation of a sewer line.

discovering the buried trash, not only offers an approximate date it was dumped there, but based on the scope of objects recovered, provides a glimpse at the various household items used/consumed by chicagoans living during that time. the majority of the identifiable bottles (e.g., deeply embossed manufacturer markings/advertising) point towards the late 1890's, which coincides with the build date of the "four-square" style wood-framed house formerly residing there before it was taken down earlier this year.

when time permits, i will begin researching city ordinances pertaining to scavenger "dump sites," and/or the use of refuse as fill for grading, etc. this information will proof useful to better understand and identify the nature of these seemingly random repositories of rubbish frequently discovered (to most excavator's determinant) in neighborhoods across the city. across the city. .   additional fragments recovered from the dig site are currently being cleaned and extensively recorded for inclusion in the unearthing chicago database.