civil war-era artifacts discovered at the site of a chicago house demolished long ago

the small chicago worker's cottage was torn down long ago, but from the smattering of objects unearthed (thus far) during excavation, i managed to gain some insight into what transpired there, beginning from the time of construction sometime during the mid-19th century.

i was notified early one morning when the first discovery was made by the excavator. before looking at sanborn insurance maps of the site, i assumed the house faced north along huron street. several brick and wood houses in the surrounding area were positioned the same way.

however, when the first artifact-- a william h. hutchinson sand-pontiled cobalt soda bottle--was discovered against the limestone foundation towards the back of the lot, i wondered whether this wood-framed house was set back, possibly moved, or facing the opposite direction. according to maps, this was a little street known as "bismarck" street. with my mind stuck on the latter, i took a walk down the street (now known as "ancona"). sure enough, there were several extant 19th century buildings facing this street, with the one in the image depicted below likely constructed between 1865-1875.

as the house was wrecked and buried, and dirt and debris removed from the back portion of the lot, more and more of the foundation became exposed. in the meantime, artifacts began appearing towards the front, facing huron street. in fact, the remains of an early wood privy pit were found right against the lot line several feet away from the rear foundation. a few bottles and several pottery shards were found in and around the rotten wood boards. one of the bottles was fabricated for a perfumery, and was likely hand-blown during the mid-1860's. this makes sense considering the william h. soda bottle (the first artifact discovered, and what brought me to the site) dates to this period. if the bottle were iron-pontiled, it would be slightly older, dating to as early as 1855, when hutchinson's cobalt sodas were first produced. the smooth base technology came later (1860's), so discovering two complete bottles that were made within the same time period suggests the house was constructed around this time. also corroborating this construction date estimate is the fact that the w.h.h. cobalt was discovered near the foundation instead of the privy, leading me to believe it was tossed there by a stonemason constructing the house's foundation.

the excavation is still in progress, so i hope to find additional pieces to the puzzle.  i hope not only to understand who the residents were by what they left behind, but also what the house or worker's cottage may have looked like, based on building materials (that are currently being cleaned for me to photodocument). gleaning information from an 1886 city directory with a house address pointing towards bismark street, i managed to find a number of different people resided here; repeatedly listed occupations of the residents include machinist, sailor, tinsmith and laborer. as of this writing, i've discovered fragments of clapboard, bricks, cut limestone and what appears to be a sill plate fragment. a few ash pits produced additional artifacts, including a partially intact and heavily irridized hayes brothers soda bottle, a charred boxspring, three west side company milk bottles and medicinal bottles, which stretches the timeline of occupant activity well into the 20th century.

a small sampling and/or assemblage of artifacts discovered at the site during its 2-day excavation. 

additional images of several malformed cluster specimens - likely a combination of coal, coke and other industrial by-products were found in abundance around the ash pits or dumps nestled above a layer of clay.