# Help finding old farm dump in PA



## ShottaPoison (Jun 23, 2020)

Looking for some advice from more experienced bottle diggers here,  I’m trying to find the source of a pre 1900 farm dump on my property, I know which hill it was on but the hill is huge, has a few different  slightly flat spots, also has ravines but I don’t think they are natural, I think they have something to do with the area being underground mined back in the 1900-1920s.  I live in an old mining ghost town so There is no maps or any info to help me.  I’ve found a few bottles and lots of shards, horse shoes and other metal objects not deep under the ground throughout the hill but can’t seem to figure out where it’s coming from.  I’ve been told to look for depressions in the ground and there is a few but I would think those were from mines. The ground is really rocky and hard to probe. I haven’t bothered to look for a privy being I have no idea where the farmhouse was. Any help or tips is appreciated! Thank you


----------



## planeguy2 (Jun 23, 2020)

Do you know if the farmhouse was there at the time of the town? If not try looking on the surface for shards of glass and metal.


----------



## ShottaPoison (Jun 23, 2020)

planeguy2 said:


> Do you know if the farmhouse was there at the time of the town? If not try looking on the surface for shards of glass and metal.



I think the farmhouse would have been before the town, it was one of those pop up mining towns and that only lasted a decade or so. I’m not even sure what the property would have been considered as at that time because where it sits now it’s literally inbetween two tiny villages. The only thing that’s helped me is the PA mining atlas which shows property lines and names but doesn’t show where houses were.  I assume it had to be on the flat part of the field beside the forest I’m digging in.


----------



## planeguy2 (Jun 23, 2020)

The miners might have dumped in the same spot as the farmers. If you know any dumps look there. Also the farm dump may have been destroyed in the mining or making of the town.


----------



## mytauntaunsbeat (Sep 12, 2020)

I use the Beers Atlas from 1876 from my area, it has all the townships and towns with the roads, properties and shows where the houses were with family names.  I compare them to aerial photography from this site https://datacommons.maps.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=10af5f75f9f94f01866359ba398cb6a9, which has aerial photos from the 30s-present, and also Google maps satellite view.  I live in a pretty rural area, and its made figuring out the old properties and roads that dont exist anymore alot easier.


----------

