# I have finally dug what I expected to dig in the building.



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 28, 2015)

But, dang! It took a long time just to find a single porcelain one! It's the same building where I dug 'my first blob' and oldest dug coin, and I have finally dug my first porcelain stopper! []Sadly, it is severely damaged. []Nonetheless, I come with another story to offer to you all: Leaving the house around noon (no college today,) I hit the road on my mom's bike (as mine is still ruined) and run into trouble 1/3rd of the way to my dig-site: My handlebars break. []So what do I do as they are still attached but fall down and point at the ground? Well, I keep riding-- as long as the bike is rideable, it'll be ridden. Still, it's not fun as they move with the contours and bumps on the road and sidewalk, and they move more than my arms. Eventually, I make it to the building, pull into teh gravel lot, walk it into the trees and vines, and lock my bike up where I always do. Instead of taking the long, oftentimes pitch-black route through the building of bricked-up/boarded-up windows and cavernous rooms flooded in mud and covered in debris, I go around to where the last time I came out: A collapsed wall facing the modern bakery that covers the site of Muskegon Brewing Co. I quietly walk along the fence-and-barbed-wire (who needs barbed wire at a bakery) gravel drive with its usually-open electric gates 8 feet high (was it the bakery that put in such security measures?) and spot a semi-truck sitting in idle. I walk close to the 1800s building that is overgrown with vines and trees and am glad to see that the semi may be on but is not occupied. So I walk through some trees and vines, around a 10-foot drop, and into hole where once a wall stood.  Within a minute, I'm in the room that I need and start digging, but an hour later.... I hear something that I REALLY don't want to hear in there: Footsteps crunching on debris very close to the thankfully-obscured doorway that gives entrance into a dark graveyard of a room (there seem to be more dead animals in there every time I show up.) I stop digging, turn my flashlight off as the slobber from holding it in my mouth drips off of it, and I hide behind a column I'd later dig around.Staring at my pack, I wonder if the light from the brightly-lit room outside of the dark hole I'm in would somehow reveal it to anyone looking? Would they come down the short, rickety, debris-strewn stairwell into what must look like the epitome of an uninviting place? Would they for some reason inadvertently lock me in the brick room with its 2-inch-thick oak door and heavy lock? What are the person's intentions as their shoes crunch on broken brick and shattered glass strewn across the building's cracked cement floor? Is he homeless? Police? Urban explorer?I sit there, staring at the doorway, in darkness with my shovel leaning against the column holding up the second-floor of the tri-level building. I hear what sounds like _intentionally quiet_ footsteps leaving-- likely the near stairway that goes down to the basement-level which has the main entrance-- and I sit there a few more minutes, later getting a thick wire laying in the dirt and quietly probe the ground around me for glass as I listen intently for any return or anyone else up there.  I then begin to quietly dig as the only sounds are of semi-trucks entering/leaving the bakery and the sounds of a wrecked building slowly deteriorating after standing the tests of time in Michigan for over a century. I dig two trenches following along my first trench, overlapping just a little bit in search of items. I find much, but all is broken. I even spot what looks like a nickle, but it is not.  Nearly giving up on one part of a trench, my mind shouts "Woah, woah, woah, woah, wait a minute!" as my shovel's decent into the hard-packed dirt halts abruptly. Why halt so excitedly? Well, a bright white circle greets the shine of my powerful mini-light held in my mouth. My eyes behold my first porcelain stopper! I pull it out from about a foot down and am happy to see that it is a two-tone Muskegon Brewing Co. stopper but am sad to see that it is damaged! 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





"MUSKEGON BREWING CO. / PURE / AND / WITHOUT DRUGS / OR / POISONS / MUSKEGON, MICH." The 'Pure and Without...' tells me that it is post-1898 albeit the bottom says 1895 patent date. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




"DREYFUSS BOTTLE & STOPPER CO" is what part of it says, but going around the circle like it does, the next part of "N.Y." is technically upside down.It also says "PAT'D / OCT 15 / 1895" on it.It can stand on either end and is very broad and very flat all over save for the sides.  I keep digging my way to the wall facing the former Muskegon Brewery when suddenly out pops the shard to the mouth of a stoneware beer. I dig down a bit more and find another shard! But wait, is it actually debossed? Well I'll be darned, it's even local. I've seen this one in a very prominent collection. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




I dig all around, down into the clay and mud, and scrape the wall but find nothing more of it. [:'(]Where are the rest of the pieces to everything? [>:]Like, seriously: Around the stopper for like a foot, it was clear of any shards of size greater than a quarter. Where's the bottle that went with it?
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


S. C. Chumard was very prominent in his day, but I've seen only one of his stoneware bottles.  The place makes sense only if it was the site of dumping bottles from other parts of the factory, or if it had been used to store illegal alcohol during Prohibition-- and was likely caught, everything in it shattered, and the room mostly cleaned out. Had the number of pre-1906 bottles been lower, the storage idea would be more logical. So, I can only conclude that this was the dump for workers from the factory/Brewery (I believe that the Brewery owned the building early on.) To go back a bit, this was one of my first finds from today: 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




It's very small-- compared to my massive paws, its down-right tiny. Possibly a child's shoe? If so, this child likely worked in the factory or brewery before Prohibition hit. A sign of child labor? Who knows, but this shoe hold's someone's story of day-to-day life. That is why I brought it back. I find it interesting on how it was made.I've dug other shoes made of leather, cork, and rubber, but this is the oldest I've found. Before I left, I dug around the farthest-back support-column holding up the ceiling of holes and decaying materials. I found almost 1 whole bottle in several pieces, a broken cup that would have been gorgeous, and this broken hen's head:
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	










What was this milk-glass item from?  Today's "take."


----------



## Nevadabottles (Aug 28, 2015)

Some nice finds Spirit Bear.


----------



## sunrunner (Aug 28, 2015)

it looks like maybe some one got there before you . or some one just throe some stuff down there . then agene you may have to dig down three or four feet more.


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 28, 2015)

Thanks, John.  Jim, the ground shows no sign of being disturbed in decades.I cannot dig down another foot, for it is where the water table is. And there's a bunch of clay with the water. The stoneware, though, came out of that layer. It might have been sucked down-- the rest of it, that is. Still, I use something little bigger than a trowel to do the digs.


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 28, 2015)

The local expert whose collection I photographed (With the Chumard bottle) says this in response to my question on if the Chumard bottle is commonly seen:"Robert, the stoneware Chumard is not common by any means.  I would say there a less than a dozen whole examples that I have heard of."So... I have a rare bottle's remains. That's rare find number 3 from that room. I am very pleased.


----------



## hemihampton (Aug 28, 2015)

Yeah, That Chumard would of been a good one, I seen a Chumard bottle on ebay that was not a stoneware ginger beer. Dig some more, could be more there. Good luck. LEON.


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 28, 2015)

Indeed, and thanks. I have a glass Chumard bottle. He had many variations and companies. Chumard is responsible for Muskegon Brewing Co. and Muskegon Bottling Works.


----------



## andy volkerts (Aug 29, 2015)

Keep Digging Bear, there will be something good in there! great story.........Andy


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 29, 2015)

Thank you, Andy. I will dig for a few hours every Friday.


----------



## sunrunner (Aug 30, 2015)

hay , Spirit , that clay may be a cap to the trash layer , and the stuff may be in the soup under it all.


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 30, 2015)

Good thought, Jim.


----------



## deenodean (Aug 30, 2015)

S. B. , you should keep those bricks and put them on ebay... there are brick collectors out there !!


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Aug 30, 2015)

I have a man willing to buy them from me here. I have two ready to go when the M. O. arrives, but thank you for the suggestion.


----------



## Lordbud (Sep 4, 2015)

I can only imagine the bricks my digging partner and I ignored digging through 1906 Earthquake refuse back in the late 1980s that we ignored -- looking for glass only. I found an intact near mint SF hutch in the middle of a pile of dumped -- and long since buried bricks. This area is now under the downtown stadium in San Francisco. There is nothing left that hasn't been excavated and/or paved over with condos and expensive high-rise buildings. Our local history is being lost forever every day.


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Sep 4, 2015)

Sad story, LordBud. But you got at least one bottle out, at least.   The lot across from where I've been digging was a place I had really enjoyed poking around. TOC+ finds, but my time for finding was running very low.All but remains of walls are now completely buried under dirt and other fill-in materials.I left behind a number of bricks as well.


----------



## bottlerocket (Sep 4, 2015)

Great Story Bear.Thanks for sharing


----------



## Robby Raccoon (Sep 4, 2015)

Thank you for commenting, Bottle Rocket.  As for today's story, getting to the building was fine. Getting down the highway... LOLSome people don't seem to realize that loading a trailer off centre is a danger. In front of the car heading me, I notice something severely wrong with a rusting metal trailer. It's fishtailing-- at times, badly. The car decides to not stick behind it and leaves me to takes its place, but then the other lane is suddenly full of traffic not allowing me in. "Uh-oh," I think as the trailer violently swerves down the lane. "Is it gonna snap its hitch and go flying?" So I'm stuck behind this and see a new lane appear ahead from the off-ramp about half a mile down the highway. Great! right? Well, I go to pass the truck carrying the trailer, and suddenly he's fishtailing violently in between lanes as I attempt to pass. I actually had to go over the rumble strips to avoid being hit. So I just floor it and don't look back.


----------

