Found brick pit? Need help please

[Rock22]

Hello,
I recently found a brick lined pit in the woods on my property. The pit was hidden under a lot of dirt and leaves but after clearing it I have a 3 foot deep pit that is lined with larger bricks that form 4 sides. It is pretty much 4 foot by 4 foot square. It was dug about 10 feet away from a very old cattle trail that once ran from the old barn on my land back to the grazing area along a ridge. The land was 1st settled in 1835. I currently do not have a metal detector to search around it but will soon have my new Tesoro Tejon once I pay it off. I am more interested in finding out what it may have been. The bricks are not hand made so I don't know how old they really are. It shows no sign of burning so I don't think it was a fire pit. Maybe a water trough? If anyone has any ideas please let me know. All I do know is whoever dug this really killed themselves. It took me days and a lot of sweat trying to dig this thing up.

Thanks, Bill

 

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[Rock22]

The dirt in it was hard packed so it was there for a long time. It was not dark so it shows no burning. I am sifting all of the dirt now and have found one large spike so far and nothing else yet. No bottles or any other large trash items were in it. The only reason I found it was because I saw a small part of a brick sticking up out of the dirt. I removed about 30 bricks from it and I now realize that they were all across the top of the pit and not the sides. My guess as to the time period is the 1930s. I will be sifting it more today so I will update.

 

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[Rock22]

Found 2 very rusty crumbling nails today,nothing else. Will keep sifting tomorrow.

 

[Rock22]

My new metal detector arrives today so once I get to understanding how to use it I will go over the brick pit and surrounding area.

 

[rochwitt]

Could the clay bottom be the start of where they capped an out house off? Have you dug deeper?

 

[Rock22]

That is a thought. I have not dug any deeper,kind of stopped at the end of the bricks. I would say it is atleast 120 feet from the farm house. That is quite a walk. We get alot of snow up here in Erie so it would have been a summer toilet if thats what it is. Still been sifting it and not finding any clues.

 

[Rock22]

Have been around the brick pit with my new metal detector and have found nothing at all. This brick pit may remain a mystery.

 

[Rock22]

Still trying to figure out what this may have been used for so please help if you can.

 

[HuntinDog]

You say no burn layers
It may not have been used for one, BUT It will make a real nice fire pit for roasting pigs and such.
Wish I had it in my backyard...

 

[Rock22]

If anyone looks at this post again please let me know if you have any new thoughts as to what this was.

Thanks!

 

[Sodabob]

Rock22

I think one of the major clues is the distance from the house. I'd say that eliminates a lot of possibilities such as an outhouse, cistern, etc. And no evidence of charcoal would seem to eliminate a fire pit. I'm thinking there was a specific reason to locate it so far from the house, such as to lessen the odor that might have come from it like in the soaking of hides to soften them and/or for making tallow and/or something along those lines.

 

[Deftone]

After reading that you found a spike, this suddenly turned into a remake of Oak Island. Hope you get it figured out.

 

[A2coins]

Be fun to investigate

 

[namxat]

Well that could be the shitter (excuse my french) or it could be a mount for a wellhead, imho. In the latter case you would find a pipe rather soon.

In either case it is not very old since I think I see hollow cinder blocks.

On second thought: dig from the ouside not standing in, just in case its a real well only overed with some sheet metal or rotten wood and earth above it.

Greets

Namxat

 

[Sodabob]

namxat

Nice catch on the hollow bricks/blocks. I thought for a minute that would narrow down a date. However, I did a little research and it appears that various forms of hollow bricks/blocks go as far back as the 1700s. This pdf link is to an article that covers the history of building blocks with chapters nine through eleven (pages 274-357) focusing specifically on hollow bricks/blocks. The attached image is from one of those chapters and shows hollow bricks from 1849. Of course the ones in the mystery pit are a little different, but with a little more research someone might be able to date them more accurately.

http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/4248/1/DX094368.pdf

 

[Oddjob]

not too deep, small ledge to lay boards on, good distance from a structure.

Shine hide would be my guess.

 

[huntsman53]

Well even though the Thread is nearly 4 years old, I will chime in and say that it was likely a rainwater catch basin to water the cattle. I hope you have placed a cover over it or a fence around it to keep anyone from falling into the hole. Sure, it is not deep but stepping into it, a person could be seriously injured or killed if they hit their' head on the bricks.

 

[Rock22]

This thing has been driving me nuts as to what it was. The 2 main clues are that it was directly next to the cow trail far from the barn and house. It was dry stacked so does that mean that it didn't need strength to support something?

 

[huntsman53]

This thing has been driving me nuts as to what it was. The 2 main clues are that it was directly next to the cow trail far from the barn and house. It was dry stacked so does that mean that it didn't need strength to support something?

That is likely the case! Most often you see wells and rainwater catch basins with dry stacked bricks or stones because folks did not want any contamination from mortar mix or concrete. Anything needed to hold the bricks or rocks in place while laying them, was usually red clay mud. Once done, they would let the red clay dry for quite some time to ensure it set well and once set, the red clay would usually stay in place for many years.

 

[Sodabob]

The dirt in it was hard packed so it was there for a long time. It was not dark so it shows no burning. I am sifting all of the dirt now and have found one large spike so far and nothing else yet. No bottles or any other large trash items were in it. The only reason I found it was because I saw a small part of a brick sticking up out of the dirt. I removed about 30 bricks from it and I now realize that they were all across the top of the pit and not the sides. My guess as to the time period is the 1930s. I will be sifting it more today so I will update.

Reminder ...

"I removed about 30 bricks from it and I now realize that they were all across the top of the pit and not the sides"

 

[Sodabob]

When I first tapped into this discussion I automatically assumed that what we were looking at was a finished project of some sort. But now I'm wondering if maybe it was a work in progress that never got completed such as the foundation for a Smokehouse, Furnace, Fireplace, etc?