Scroungin' U/W Homesites

[jeffe]

Ouachita's comment about bringing up old bottles, ect., was a subject I enjoy. The wife and I often locate a old house site and look for the old trash dump first. By using some simple calculations we have been fairly successful. The main underwater search technique is thought out using a U/W Mapping program and old County Maps. Once the GPS Coords are fixed, we go back to the U/W topo map looking for likely dump locations. The criteria are as follows:
A Ravine that is steep enough that the home owner would want to fill it up and slow down errosion.
Dump location away from Home site in a direction that the wind would not bring odor through the house's open windows. Usually that means, ( on Lake Ouachita ), to the S/E Or N/E .
A U/W Metal detector is in order, since the lake filled in 1954, a lot of silt has been deposited, although we have found bottles sitting on the bottom in plain sight.
Here's a photo of a old moulded Brown Glass Snuff Bottle, the cork was missing. The wife found this in about 24' of water not far from the old Housley Home site, near Housley point, Lake Ouachita. Similar bottles bring $12 to $15 in local antique stores. We keep any we bring up.

[jeffe]

One sold by the Rawleigh Man, the other by the Watkins Man.
They usually traveled the rural areas peddling flavorings, ect..
The one with the lid still smelled like Vanila extract, even though the bottle was flooded.

[ouachita]

Nice to know there's something under there other than a million beer cans.

[jeffe]

While diving an old Homesite in about 44' of water, I came across this Old Brown Porcelain Door Knob. It was on a stump along with two door hinges. It was just like someone had gathered them up for a project, then never returned. This old homesite was near the submerged townsite of Blakely. Blakely was a Sawmill Town that was connected to other logging operations by railroad. The dive was a step back in time to 1954 when the Lake was flooded.

[jeffe]

While diving an old house place several miles North of Crystal Springs Marina, on Lake Ouachita, a buddy & I came across a old nylon rope. It was extending straight up from the bottom & ended about 15' below the surface. A closer look at the rope showed it to be attached to something deep in the silt on the bottom. I placed both feet on the bottom and pulled on the rope, it just barely broke loose with a serious tug. The water clouded up immediately with silt, so I swam out of the silt cloud and signaled to my dive buddy, msmatic on this forum, to forget it. In the few seconds before siltout msmatic saw something that caught her attention so she decided to bring it up for a closer look.
It turned out to be a home made anchor, made from the pin end of a drill pipe. Being much heavier than needed for the average Jon boat, we feel that someone else had marked the old house site. Possibly years earlier. Should this sound familiar to anyone, I have the coords for them.

[jeffe]

In an earlier post to this thread I mentioned an old Homesite with a Railroad track running nearby.
On a followup dive I explored the old Railroad track bed, finding several items of intrest. One of the items was a date head nail, used by the rail Company to course the longivity of their rail ties.
This particular nail had been put in the end of the railroad tie in 1936. Lake Ouachita was flooded in 1953/54, so the nail had been on the old railbed for 18 years before being submerged as the Lake filled up. After disapearing under the water, it was almost 50 years before it surfaced again in my BC pocket !

[jeffe]

It was common practice to put smaller items under the house, especially bottles that might be used later for canning, ect..
The idea being that containers that would hold rain water, would freeze and break in the winter.
So, any time I find old rock piers, I know there was most likely a house there, that was moved before the Lake was flooded.
The first thing I usually do is determine which side of the House was the highest up off of the ground, searching it first. That's the most productive side.
It was a situation like the one described that produced this small bottle. It is 2 3/4 inches tall and 1 1/4 inches wide. It was moulded in three peices, the bottom then the sides. The patent number on the bottom is only five digits long ! It is shaped just like the larger Vanilla extract bottle above. Could it be a sample bottle for flavorings or food colorings ? Any input appreciated.