Old site, Old well...suggestions?

[Skrimpy]

I've found a site that is now an empty lot but from about 1750-1950 was a hotel. Onthe site is a well that is either the original well or at least a 19th century well. Its fieldstone and has been capped (but there is room to poke my head and maybe an arm in but I haven't yet). The questions are...how do I get the first few layers of silt and dirt out, without climbing down in there?, and is there any truth to the old tale of peple pitching small denominations into wells, and making a wish?

 

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[Skrimpy]

Oh and by the way the property has been untouched by detectors (by evidence of all the buckles, buttons, and early 20th century coins we've found). I haven't ruled out using a magnet in the well to see if there might be an antique bucket, crank, or accidentally dropped musketball mold, musket, or trade axe down there, but my thinking is that it might be full of "wishing well" coins as it was a hotel where travelers (which were the only people wealthy enough to be making "wishes" anyway) came from around the county....and was on a heavily traveled British and American troop movement road...AND NO IM NOT TELLING WHERE IT IS!

 

[Blind.In.Texas]

wouldn't it be neat if someone were brave enough to down inside that old well and find all the old coins that traveling parents' children had thrown down there as payment for wishes they would probably never recieve?

Wow you are lucky to have such a neat site to go to and I hope you find lots of great things!

forget about getting into that well unless you have an A-frame, static rope, a dead-boy, and hand clickers. It could be 25' deep or 100'. after about 5'-6' of darkenss u can't tell. get a rope, lower it with a weight, and the touchdown will slack the rope. mark it and bring it up for measurement. if that isn't enough to deter you from that hole, check this out. those wells hit moving water in the bedrock. anything that made it into the well is most likely lost in one of the layers of limestone below ground and swept along never to be seen again. also, those wells were lined with bricks/cheap handmade blocks. the ground shifts after several years with these old wells and they collapse. i think it an unsafe waste of time. However I do wish you happy hunting above ground you lucky MD'er you!

 

[Skrimpy]

We wont know till we stick our heads in there. At the moment, the well is capped with a 4" thick concrete block to keep the kiddies from falling down in it. We sure as heck aren't going to go spelunking down there unless its only shoulder deep. We are not going in over our heads and certainly not going to go climbing down the walls. We are however going to lower a magnet, and possibly use a pool skimmer or sand sifter of some sort to try to get to the silt. What I have heard is that when wells like this were constructed they would start digging and the deeper they would go, the further out they would have to dig away from the actual walls of the well to keep it from collapsing. I couldn't see it being anymore than 20 to 50 in which case I would say anything laying in the silt is fair game. Like you said, stuff swept into cracks and away from the well by moving water underneath may be gone for good, but hey...we will never know until we lower the flashlight down there. It could be bone dry clay that can't be scooped up! Who knows?

 

[Blind.In.Texas]

Skrimpy, you are seriously motivating me come on up to that well with an A-frame and some ropes and get down to business.

You know, it might well be very shallow indeed. If you can get a measurement of some sort and it is not all that deep, you could use an old bumper jack possibly to 'lift the lid'. don't really know there are all kinds of caps for those things.

Nice thing is that only a little of the bedrock needs to be cracked in order to fill the well! Good chance you could some good stuff down there! I want to see posts of your finds, cuz, I just know you'll find something around there! Good Luck!!

 

[Skrimpy]

Along with my buddy finding a Merc, and me a buff nickel here are a couple of things I've found:
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,47073.0.html
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,47071.0.html
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,46329.0.html

My friend also found a wierd kind of decorative thing that had two chains haning off from it with hoops on the end. It had a starburst on one side and the name: "C.N.Kimpland" on the other. It looked as though it was some kind of pin (two spots on either side of the top like a pin was soldered on). When we looked up the name we found that Charles N. Kimpland was a man that owned a lumber yard/dock building business in NYC and that he owned a tug named the "C.N.Kimpland" that was involved in several maritime rescues. Our best guess on the item is that it was either a personal piece of jewelry of Ol Charles or something from one of the crew on the Kimpland tug. Sorry. I don't have any pics yet. If I can convince my buddy to let me snap a shot of it, I will let you know.

 

[xdanthemanx]

hey gentleman, have you ever thought of putting the hose in there filling it and using a nice high power pump to suck up all the stuff that in there a nice 3-4 hp pool pump and 35 feet of hose, you can suckup any coins dirt etc, you might need a long pole (pool skimmer goes about 30-40 ft) to stir and loosen up stuff in the bottom

they actually dredge areas in rivers using this same concept and its a cheap setup too

dantheman

 

[Skrimpy]

hey gentleman, have you ever thought of putting the hose in there filling it and using a nice high power pump to suck up all the stuff that in there a nice 3-4 hp pool pump and 35 feet of hose, you can suckup any coins dirt etc, you might need a long pole (pool skimmer goes about 30-40 ft) to stir and loosen up stuff in the bottom

they actually dredge areas in rivers using this same concept and its a cheap setup too

dantheman

thought about many things for this. After digging around the well, I found that without doing major damage to it we really can't get into it. It is capped with a very heavy concrete block and the stone walls of the thing are still mortared pretty good in place. Plus its almost right on the highway. The property is actually for sale and/or rent so...when someone finally decides to do something with it, we may sneak in there and see if the workers if we can get at that well before they fill er in. Right now, this place is on hold.