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Day #7
Much time passed in the lives of Kyle Waters, Jim Butler, and
myself after those fateful days digging. I
finished my exams, and we all lived through another stress and
relaxation-filled holiday season, and the entire time, thought about those
bottles - thought about Mr. Taylor, or Mr. Murdoch, working away bottling
the stuff in stoneware bottles in 1907. We all knew we had dug something
truly incredible – truly historical, even – and we would likely never have
the chance to do it again. It was incredible while it lasted, but we were
all sad to see it come to an end. The nostalgic reflection had begun, and
would likely continue for a long time – perhaps our entire lives, even.
What we didn’t expect was that there was, perhaps, still more to be had.
Quite a bit more!
It was sometime around early to mid December when the bulldozers rolled in
and knocked down Leo’s Bar, a pair of turn of the century to wartime homes
with plastic siding, and eventually, spread the pandemic of historical
destruction to our beloved soda works, as well as the centre lot – leaving
only the last house in the row remaining, as an office for the workers to
live out of while the construction was happening. They had left nothing
but a 2 foot deep trench, the width and length of the houses, in the spot
where each one had stood. All the areas we had dug were scooped up, and
moved away to some other land, and we were reminded what a service we were
doing for the preservation of these priceless relics.
It was Christmas day, 2007 when Kyle called me in the evening
amidst all the family happenings at my house. He wished me an enthusiastic
“Merry Christmas!” to which I responded in the same way, and then
proceeded to fill me in on some “big news” he had come to acquire. While
driving by one of the utility yards for a local dirt and fill dealer, Kyle
had spotted 6 or 7 sizable piles of dirt containing large quantities of
concrete, sand, and yellow bricks –a dead on match for the area we had
been digging in. Kyle asked what I was doing Boxing day, and I responded
nothing, being part of a family who looks forward to the end of the hectic
holiday season as much as the holidays themselves (well, not entirely the
truth, but we don’t do anything Boxing day). He said that we should meet
up, check out the yard, and then head over to the site (it being a
statutory holiday), and see if the workers had dug anything up. I agreed
it was a good idea, and after setting the time for 1 PM Boxing
day afternoon, we both went our ways to enjoy
Christmas day.
The next morning I picked Kyle up, and he showed me the spot.
Weary of trespassing charges, even on a day when no one would be around,
we quickly dashed from the parking spot, into the dirt yard, and took a
quick gander around. Certainly the dirt piles were from our site. Wooden
beams, yellow bricks, concrete chunks, and, of course, large shards from
R. Taylor quarts, siphons, etc, were to be found everywhere. Kyle
uncovered an intact Fruit Punch Reg’d Design soda bottle from the 30s or
so, but that was all we could see after about 20 minutes of walking the
dirt piles. Everything was frozen solid, as winter had well set in by now,
and, thus, we figured nothing would come from this spot. Besides, we were
eager to check out our beloved site, or what was left of it.
We walked into the site (as they still had not completely
enclosed the area in fence) with our shovels in hand, and began poking
around in the area they had dug the trench. A large backhoe was parked in
exactly the spot the soda works home had stood a week before, and adjacent
to it, on both sides, were a pair of driveways. They had knocked the homes
down, but had left the driveways located in between them standing on flat,
wide, exposed columns of dirt. Dirt that, incidentally, looked very
interesting. On the south side of the driveway located between the soda
works and the centre house, an obviously ashy layer with large iron pieces
embedded in the soil was visible. However, one second of digging indicated
that working with this layer would be not only unproductive, but
impossible, as well. The shovel would simply not penetrate the ground for
iron implements and the thick layer of coal by-product which cemented them
together. We both agreed to spend no more time there. We took a walk
around the site. The entire thing essentially consisted of 2 or 3 acres of
dirt mounds, with the occasional patch of visible grass left from one of
the yards. The crews had dug one or two footings in the far end of the
lot, and visible in the sides of the footings were a couple of brick lined
privies – dark soil very contrasting to the light, sandy stuff natural in
this area, and bricks still in place. However, we were eager to work with
the area the soda works was before coming back to the potentially
unproductive brick liners (nothing was obvious in them at the time). We
walked back to where the backhoe stood; having claimed victory over the
home it was parked upon the former space of. Immediately upon reaching the
spot, Kyle ran up to the edge of the driveway-plateau, around the area
where the front edge of the house was previously – well beyond where Kyle
had been digging while it was standing, and much closer to the road than
any of us would have expected to find anything. Regardless, as he
scratched at the side of the plateau, shards began to fall out. I began to
scratch slightly farther back from the road, and sure enough, glass showed
up here, as well. We hacked through the frost layer, as this dirt had been
exposed for at least a week and was quite frozen. The shards, just like
old times, simply poured out of the ground. We had thought it was all over,
but here it was! Just like the day we started! I spotted the base edge of
a ginger beer right near to the surface, just
under the 6” of concrete the driveway consist of. Prying at the frozen
soil, the piece fell out – an R. Taylor with just the right half of the
ink stamp missing – top and left side intact, but half of the base
missing. A good sign of things to come! We dug for another 10 minutes,
shards continuously falling onto the shovel, and us throwing them every
direction to get them out of there, and not once stopping to think about
the fact we no longer had permission to dig here – the liberation of these
fragile bottles was far too important for that. Kyle stuck his head under
the concrete, and suddenly emerged into the day
with yet another R. Taylor ginger beer with just the very top broken off!
Another repairable example it seemed! Unfortunately broken, of course, but
by this time we were both convinced that they would not have thrown out a
perfectly functional R. Taylor ginger beer – and why would they? We would
continue to believe this – and with good rationale.
It didn’t take long for us to get into some very interesting
layers containing some very interesting shards. Each time anything of
interest came out, we would run it to the car, parked
only 40 feet away, to make sure no
  one came along and claimed it as
belonging to the developer or workers on the site. I had once again
encountered the beloved layer with such a thick concentration of shards
that no actual soil was present – only glass, and, occasionally,
porcelain. I was digging through this layer, when Kyle said he had
something that looked intact. Our excavations were a mere 1 foot or so
into the side of the plateau, so taking a peek into the hole Kyle was
digging was quite easy. I took one such peek, and it was pretty obvious
what Kyle had at least a large portion of. The characteristic rounded base
edge of an Ontario soda was visible... and the glass was obviously not
aqua, but something much more... amber. I told him I wanted to take a
photo, but he ushered me away, claiming it would jinx the piece. I didn’t
blame him, but I eventually convinced him to take a snapshot of the piece
still in the ground. We both openly indicated the top was probably knocked
off, as was the case with everything else, but we were both secretly
counting on it being intact. And, as Kyle levered the piece from beneath
with the trowel, and slid it from the ground, a plainly mint amber blob
quart was more obviously than ever what he had found. As he rotated it
from hand to hand, and no embossing was visible, his heart dropped
thinking it was unembossed. He scrubbed the sides with his gloves, hoping
and searching for that embossing and suddenly, there it was. “J. Tune” he
said plainly – too excited to even raise his voice. We were both amazed.
There were no words to describe how incredible
this dig had been so far. So many emotions about how incredible the bottle
was, how we almost hadn’t come back to find it, and how each one of us had
uncovered one intact, near mint condition amber Ontario quart blob soda,
all flooded into both of our heads, I’m sure. Kyle looked at the bottle
for several seconds, passed it to me for a gander, and then I snapped a
photo of Kyle holding the piece, cramped into that tiny space between the
backhoe, and the driveway from the former centre house. No one who had
owned that house had had any idea of what had been buried beneath that
driveway for the last 100 years. And, frankly, I was glad. We had all
found our amber quart now – anything else was just too incredible! And,
really - what else could there be?
I continued to dig in the pure shards layer, but had to open
the hole up a bit on my right side. In doing so, I was confused by the
removal of half of a ginger beer top in a straight off-white colour. Blob
style, and no hint of the regular tan shade we had found on all the Taylors. I showed it to Kyle, who didn’t know, but thought perhaps a Clark
Brothers ginger beer from Toronto or something the like. I had never seen
one of those, so I shrugged it off. The next piece to come from the edge
of that hole was the other half of the blob, and the next was, presumably,
the stopper which was attached to the top. “It’s American”, I said, as the
stopper was marked with a Buffalo soda works emblem by the name of “Lion”
soda works, with a tiny pictorial of a Lion on it. I set the top on top of
the driveway-plateau, having lost much of my interest in it. Returning to
my digging, I took another easy scoop of pure shards from that favourable
layer, and exposed in the edge of the hole was a large portion from a
ginger beer – once again, right near the surface, mere inches from the
concrete. I snapped a photo before I rolled the piece out. Yet another R.
Taylor ginger beer with just the top knocked off was in my hand! I
showed it to Kyle, who congratulated me, and ran the piece to the trunk.
There’s nothing worth complaining about in a rare, beautiful Ontario
ginger beer in easily repairable condition!
  Funny enough, almost as I was removing the ginger beer, Kyle
indicated he had something unusual in his hole. I took a look, and saw
what he was talking about. A particularly wide, stoneware base was
protruding from the trashy soil. White glaze was visible on the sides, and
all we could imagine it being was some variety of master ink. “A quart R.
Taylor ginger beer.” I suggested, jokingly. Kyle spent a hefty amount of
time digging the piece out. When it finally saw daylight, it was obviously
some kind of stoneware bottle, broken off at the neck, and off white in
colour. Kyle brushed the dirt off the side and reported; “It’s a Glass
Brothers!” The local London, Ontario pottery maker was well known in our
vocabulary – we had even found a shard of stoneware with their marking
upon it earlier in one of the digs. We had never seen a stoneware ginger
beer bottle of their make, though. I was looking at the neck breakage, and
thought about that top I had just dug out, 3’ farther back from the road,
and right near the surface. I grabbed the shards, and passed them to Kyle.
He brushed them off, and rotated them until... perfect! The shards fit
perfectly onto the broken shoulder! Kyle had himself a complete Glass
Brothers ginger beer bottle, possibly bottled by some Buffalo soda works –
the shards from it buried 3’ apart under a driveway for the past 100
years!
We both continued, so well enthralled by the finds that time
passed like some kind of non-renewable resource. Kyle threw more shovels
full of dirt from his hole and uncovered an intact hutch soda, lying on
its side in the bottom of his excavation. He gently pulled it from the
dirt, and had in his hand a “CLARK BROs / TORONTO” hutch – a common piece
for some, but not for a bunch of amateur diggers like ourselves. I hadn’t
even dug a broken Clark Brothers before! Kyle offered the piece to me, as
he already had the one from Brent’s yard, and placed it on top of the
plateau. Ironically, rolling the Clark Brothers thought over my brain, one
of the next shards to emerge from my hole was the first shard from a Clark
Brothers hutch I had ever dug – a large portion of the base. But this
shard was no normal one – this one was from an amazing screaming yellow
olive green coloured Clark Bros hutch. But so small a
shard, and no more pieces in sight! Oh well – at least I had my
intact aqua one.
Unfortunately, the dig didn’t last much longer than that. We began to get
a little too far under the concrete for us to comfortably dig. We decided
we would come back on the weekend with a 12 lb sledge hammer and remove
some of the concrete. We had rescued one more incredible bottle from the
dirty depths, and in a spot we would have deemed both impossible and
unlikely as of the last time we had dug.
We packed up our shards, brought them to the car, and drove
away, nearly unable to take our eyes from the
slab of concrete covering our cache of jewels, and thinking about how many
days we would have to wait before bringing them from the soil to our
shelves. Still, they weren’t going anywhere, as the demolition crew was
not working this week, and besides, we were hungry.
Day #8
When Kyle & I got together Friday night for a movie with some
friends, I, for one, couldn’t keep my mind from what was happening the day
directly following. 6 of us headed into London to see one of the newest
blockbuster flicks, “Juno”, and the entire time, thoughts of the R. Taylors and amber J. Tunes waiting for us beneath the thick concrete of
that driveway, soon to be unearthed for all to see continued to dance
throughout my mind. So much so that, while driving us back to Kyle’s place
at around 12:30 AM, I continued to describe our digging endeavours in
detail, along with every minute detail of their historical significance,
to our unfortunate driver. We arrived home (probably thankfully by Darren,
our driver), and headed to bed around 1 AM, set on rising the next morning
at 6:30 to get an early start at digging.
When the alarm went off, and we sat and crawled about, unable
to position our heads properly on our shoulders due to lack of sleep, we
made the connection that, perhaps, 7 AM in late December wasn’t the best
time to meet up for a dig... it was dark, and would probably remain so for
quite a while. Regardless, we got our digging clothes together, and headed
out. I bought Tim Horton’s for us, and then we parked the car just a bit
south of the site, down Head street, waiting for Jim to arrive. In
passing, we noticed a large portion of the fence had blown over, probably
due to the strong winter winds the night before. We waited about 10
minutes in our parking spot, and then decided to take a quick walk by the
site and make sure no one had been there. We checked the spot, and didn’t
see any fresh dirt tossed out of the hole, and were satisfied enough to
head back to the car. As we passed the last house in the row, though, and
the only one still standing, I was mortified to see, out of my peripheral
vision, a fellow open the door, close it behind him, and then proceed to
walk over to where the fence had fallen down. He began to dismantle the
fence, while Kyle & I hid behind the house and wondered about whether he
was worker or just some passerby. The last house remaining was being used
as a temporary homestead to house the workers who came from too far away
to drive to the site each day. In all likelihood, since he had come out of
the worker’s quarters, he was no civilian dismantling the fallen fence in
an act of Good Samaritan interest. Ultimately, Kyle won me over for sure
in his argument that he clearly worked here, and was, for some reason,
working at 7 AM on a Saturday, 2 days before New Years. After taking a
moment to salute his hard workmanship, we decided to head back to the car,
and just wait a bit to see if, perhaps, he would head home to wherever he
was from, and we could slip in and dig without anyone knowing different.
We moved the car across the street from where he was dismantling the
fence, and parked beside some other stationary automobiles in the parking
lot of the Food Basics store there, and waited. Our first covert ops
mission!
However, after 20 minutes of waiting, we were growing impatient, as light
was beginning to show on the horizon, and he was still ripping that fence
apart. “Maybe when Jim comes down here, he’ll have the initiative to go
ask him if we can dig.” Kyle noted. That got me thinking of what the
fellow would say if I asked him myself. The worst he could do would be to
tell me I couldn’t, and we could just slip back on Sunday or New Year’s
day and do a bit of digging when he wasn’t around, if that were the case.
“I’ll go ask him.” I responded.
I gathered my gloves, my plaid jacket, and all the initiative
I had, and with good wishes from Kyle, headed off to where he was now
picking up segments of high-durability construction fencing and stacking
them in piles. I walked up casually, and asked if he needed a hand.
Surprisingly, he didn’t seem taken aback at all, and said he certainly
could! After a quick explanation about the fence being blown over, and the
company who installs it coming out that afternoon to fix it, we set to
work, and within about 20 minutes had all the fence segments neatly
stacked. While we worked, we conversed. He told me where he was from, and
why he was staying in the house (it turns out he hailed from quite a
distance, and was staying in the house out of necessity, as travel time
from his home would be too inconvenient). I told him I was a university
student at UWO taking geology, which prompted us to talk about working out
west in British Columbia, which prompted us to talk about vacationing out
there and other places. I discovered that this man, Greg, let’s say, was
actually an incredibly nice fellow, and conversation with him flowed so
well, I was tempted to just keep talking. At about this moment, however,
it occurred to me that it might appear strange to such a man that a 19
year old university student would be up at 7 AM in work clothes, offering
to help a construction worker pile fence into neat stacks, 2 days before
New Years, and so, I decided to tell him why I was there. I mentioned that
myself and two friends were bottle collectors, and amateur historians of a
sort, and we were interested in retrieving some bottles we believed were
buried next to where one of the houses once stood. I explained the
previous application for that particular house around the turn of the
century, and that we had already found quite a few bottles of immense
historical significance. He seemed a tad confused, like he was thinking
about something. He then mentioned that when he had first arrived at the
site, him, and everyone else, had noticed a large amount of excavation at
the rear of the building, including the removal of a large portion of the
floor in the rear addition. I explained that it was us whom had moved most
of the dirt, and removed the floor he had seen, in pursuit of relics from
“the old soda works”. He laughed, and expressed that it was an impressive
amount of digging. “Show me where you want to dig.” He said, and we set
off towards where the house was. I pointed to the slab of concrete, still
raised above the ground on a plateau of ashy, dark soil, now clearly
illuminated by the early morning sun. It was obvious we had already been
there, as shards of bottle, and piles of dirt lay everywhere, having
already been dug out from beneath the concrete. “Sure,” he said “you guys
can dig here all you want, we’re not going to be working in this area for
a long while, anyways. Just make sure you don’t undermine that concrete –
I don’t want anyone getting hurt!” I thanked him profusely, and explained
that we had a sledge hammer we intended to use to clear the concrete away
so undermining wouldn’t be necessary. He said he had some work to do, but
would be around the property if we needed anything. I thanked him again,
and quickly asked him which of the demolition or building crew he was
from, just out of curiosity. “Neither,” he said with a smile “I’m the
contractor.” I don’t believe he knew just how much that meant to me. I had
succeeded in making friends with none other than the building contractor
himself. This day was already going well!
I ran back to the car, retrieved the sledgehammer, shovels, backpack,
camera, and told Kyle we were on, and had permission from the contractor
himself to dig all we wanted. He was impressed, though we were both too
eager to dwell on it, so we ran clear across the parking lot to the dig
site to begin the day.
The ground was still somewhat frozen, so we worked to remove
some of the dirt we had shoveled on top of the concrete the previous day
of digging, and then set to work breaking up the slab. “SLAM!” went the
sledge hammer, as Kyle looked about, still wondering where Jim was “SLAM!”
“Man, this stuff is thick.” I thought to myself. “SLAM! “THUD!” the third
slam had sent a 2 foot by 3 foot piece of the concrete falling into the
hole, and tiny fragments of concrete clinked against each other as it fell
with a soft thud on the dirt beneath. Digging would be a little easier
today. I paused again to reflect how much more aggressive this digging was
than anything else we had ever done. Ripping floor boards out, breaking up
a 6” thick concrete slab with a sledgehammer – it was a lot of work in the
name of an unusual, but just, cause.
After ripping the concrete apart further, and throwing the
chunks far, far away from our digging spot, we set to work digging. I
aimed to get an intact bottle this day, as I had not previously when Kyle
pulled out his amber blob. I continued to dig in my thick layer of pure
shards, which happened to run away from the road, to beneath where the
driveway would have been, and, incidentally, continued past the point
where the crew had already ripped the concrete away for us. We each
removed a few additional R. Taylor ginger beer shards, and quite soon
after starting, I pulled yet another Glass Brothers ginger beer top out of
the ground, also split into two. Hopefully I’d get one of these large &
majestic quart ginger beers for my own collection! “R.T.” and “M” marked
quart bases continued to pour out of the hole, and both of us removed at
least one more R. Taylor crown top pint with just the neck broken off, and
set it aside for someone who might appreciate a bit of local history.
However, for the first 45 minutes or hour of digging, we didn’t turn up
anything really worth fretting about. Of course, even a shard of that
black ink stamped R. Taylor marking on stoneware looks great, but by now
we had found shards from at least a dozen R. Taylor ginger beers broken,
and not one intact. Where were they? The thought occurred to me that none
of us had found any Strathroy bottles intact thus far – at least none in
the sort of condition that would have been considered useable – that is,
all the bottles here were either from out of town, or had obviously been
discarded due to lack of practicality by whichever soda maker it was whom
owned this house. We removed a few shards from T.H.Hutchison ginger beer
bottles, with awful, crude ink markings, and were pleased to see a few
more shards from bottles we had never found any parts of previously.
I was digging away from the road, and Kyle was digging beneath
the concrete slab. We were both finding lots of shards, but none of us had
turned up anything intact yet. I had been following the pure shards layer,
and decided to take advantage of one theorem I had developed previously –
that everything we had turned up intact had been in layers other than that
of the “pure shards” layer. They had all been quite isolated in sandy,
unproductive soil, all by themselves. I decided to open up the hole more
in a direction where it didn’t seem as likely anything would come out, as
no glass was really visible in the dirt. After just a few shovelfuls of
dirt being tossed out of the hole, I felt that distinctive “thunk!” of the
shovel tapping against an intact bottle – a hollow feeling. As I scratched
the dirt away from my new found find with the trowel, I was looking at
obviously yellow green glass, in the form of a quart sized soda bottle.
“I’ve got a York Springs here!” I shouted at Kyle, and continued to
scratch. I wondered if it was intact, or if the top was broken off like
the one York Springs we had found in the basement. The top came into
sight, and that thought was dismissed. I wondered if the bottom was
perhaps broken out or something the like. It seemed too good to be true
that we had found easily 30 of these York Springs, all broken, and there
would suddenly be one intact one. It seemed as though they had been broken
on purpose – why would this one not have been? I snapped a photo, and
gently pried the bottle loose. I was holding a very much intact York
Springs bottle. The glass crude, covered in straw marks and folds, and
filled with tiny bubbles and swirls of all sorts. It felt so good to
finally pull one of these from the ground intact – the yellow olive green
glass sparkling in the hazy early-morning sunlight. I had been aspiring to
find one of these intact for all of a month – ever since I discovered they
exist.
Almost immediately after pulling the York Springs out, I was shoveling more dirt from within the hole out onto the ground surrounding
the excavation, when at a depth of about 2 ½” feet, a hutch soda came into
view. I had pried it from the ground with the shovel head, and the dirt
and ash just fell off the glass as it was pried upright. I picked the
bottle up, and gave it a quick once over. I looked as though it was
unembossed at first glance, when I noticed what appeared to be a beaver. I
wiped the dirt from the front face. A Vernor’s! I shouted to Kyle. We had,
once again, found broken examples, but this one was the most intact, short
of a lip chip, and a rather hefty base flake from some impact. I rolled
the bottle about in my palms and looked at it. Case wear, chips, mineral
damage. The life this bottle must have lived since it was manufactured 120
years ago. The places it had been to wind up in Strathroy, Ontario at the
bottom of a trash pit. Who had given it those chips? We’d never know the
answers, but it was interesting to think about. Now to think about finding
an intact R. Taylor ginger beer!
Around this time, Jim showed up, and told us he just hadn’t been able to
get up that morning. Being as he works on call at probably some of the
worst times imaginable, it seemed rational that he wouldn’t want to miss
out on sleeping in on some idle Saturday. Either way, he was up now, and
began digging promptly. I recited the story of how we had come to obtain
permission to dig, all the while removing shovelfuls of dirt from the hole
which was now up to my waist. I was still hitting shards. And then –
“Clunk!” I hit something solid, but not a bottle. Scraping the dirt away,
I found a hefty sewage or drainage pipe buried at a depth of approximately
3 ½ feet. I noticed that I had only recovered shards above and around
where the pipe was, and began wondering about what the fellow who
installed it had found while digging a 3 ½’ deep trench through the side
yard of an old soda works.
We all dug for about 45 minutes, and none of us found
anything. The occasional unmarked piece of ginger beer, and one shard from
a peacock blue GEO.E.MURDOCH seltzer bottle, and the lower half from
another G.E.MURDOCH / STRATHROY pint crown top soda, but broken off right
in the middle of the embossing, so unfortunately not of much use.
Jim & I dug the spot where I had been working my way back from the road,
to more or less where we had already dug previously, and decided to call
it quits for that area. I proceeded to open up a pit closer to the road
than where Kyle was digging. Chipping through the frost layer, and
cracking the concrete apart, it took me easily 20 minutes to get just a
foot into the side of the plateau. Jim expressed that he had to get back
quite early today, and more or less just wanted to see what was going on.
Since there was a limited amount of space to dig here, he was going to get
going, and leave Kyle & I to our craft. We both decided we were hungry,
and would rather get a bite to eat, and return later, than continue right
now. We talked with Jim for a minute, and we all decided to try and meet
up the next day for some photographs of the pieces we had found, and to
try and establish more about whose soda works it was.
Kyle & I drove to KFC – our traditional digging lunch spot, only to find
it closed. We wondered why, as we had never seen it closed around lunch
time before, when we checked the time. It was still 10:20 AM – an hour
forty minutes before lunch time, and we were really hungry. We decided to
head back to Kyle’s place to use the lavatories, and then return
afterwards to see if it had opened yet.
Unfortunately, our lavatory run didn’t take as long as we had hoped
(likely the last time you’ll ever hear me say that), so we wound up eat at
A & W instead. Whilst eating, I wondered about the possible productivity
of digging where I had been – closer to the road than Kyle’s spot. It
seemed like where he was digging, very few shards were emerging – I
imagined closer to the road would only be less productive. I decided I
would stick to it for a while until I could verify that nothing else of
interest would come from that spot.
Returning to the site, our stomachs full of monosodium
glutamate-impregnated fast food, we set to work again – starting out by
removing more concrete. All along this vein, there was only a purpose to
digging up to a point beneath the driveway, before one would begin digging
into the same layer of pure coal byproduct and rusted metal as was visible
on the other side of the driveway. Perhaps this layer was part of a
blacksmith or some other trade workshop located next door at some point.
Regardless, it made removing concrete from the surface a bit easier, as we
knew we wouldn’t have to remove much more than about 2 ½’ of it before we
wouldn’t be digging any farther anyways. I sledged 2’ of concrete off the
driveway where Kyle & I were digging, and we continued working.
Where I was digging, the soil was darker than where it had
been farther back from the road where the York Springs had emerged. Here
it seemed to be almost pure ash with a lot of broken and intact bricks
mixed in. The shards were, as they had been where Kyle was digging, very
few and far between. Kyle had just recently pulled the top half of a BABY
& HANRAHAN hutch soda from Windsor out of the ground, and that spelt good
fortune for the area in which we were digging. We both continued to remove
soil, both, I’m sure, wondering what else was still here to be had.
  And then I hit something that resounded with that hollow
“Clunk!” sound. “I think I have something”, I said to Kyle. Removing
shovelfuls of ashy, dark soil from the ground, I quickly caught a glimpse
of porcelain – two tone tan and creamy, off-white. “It’s a ginger beer, I
think.”, to which Kyle responded “It sounds pretty hollow – it’s probably
one with the top broken off.” I was definitely inclined to believe that
this was what it was, and about that I was happy! Another repairable
example – perhaps one with an even better marking than the only uncracked
example I had. I moved some more dirt away with the trowel, and could see
the “R. / TRADE / STR” half of the marking. “It’s an R. Taylor.” I said,
and he peeked in the hole as I snapped a photo. I removed some more dirt
with the shovel. As I was levering some soil from the left side of the
bottle, I gently pried the soil. I noticed something different. The bottle
moved freely in the soft, loose soil, and I was able to see the outlined
form of it as it moved. The unusual part was not that it moved, but where
it moved. How long the bottle appeared to be. The soil moved where the top
of a theoretically intact ginger beer would be – if this were one. My
heart was pounding. It could simply not be calmed at this point. I really
believed strongly that this could be an intact R. Taylor ginger beer. “No,
it can’t be...” I told myself, but, just as Kyle remarked that it was
“probably an intact one”, I began to lose my own argument, as my shovel
gently pulled on the clasp of the bottle, still attached, and out it slid
from the soil. I was a hopeless emotional case now. “Don’t even joke.” I
said sternly to Kyle, completely unable to do so myself at this point. I
bent into the hole, and grasped the shape which was engrossing of my
vision. I pulled it to the daylight. I showed Kyle an intact R. Taylor
ginger beer. Very near mint condition, it was, with the original clasp and R.Taylor / STRATHROY marked stopper, still attached. The only damage was
the smallest, ¼” chip off the inside edge of the lip – barely noticeable.
I gently fell back onto the ground at the edge of the hole behind me, and
just sat there. I actually didn’t know what to think or do, as all my
senses were completely absorbed with the experience I had just, and still
was experiencing - some kind of euphoria, like some kind of drug, but much
more rewarding, and much more wholesome. Kyle grabbed the camera and
snapped a photo. I actually had to just sit there while Kyle looked it
over, and we were both aghast.
I was finally able to set the bottle down for some photos, and eventually,
off to the side, lying on its side, where it couldn’t come to any harm,
while we continued to dig. The euphoria lasted for a little while longer,
but as soon as it began to falter, I began to feel awful that I had found
the piece, and Kyle was stuck with a repairable example. We conversed, and
I expressed how I felt. Eventually, we came to an agreement, digging all
the while, that Kyle would keep two of the repairable examples all to
himself, instead of splitting them as we were planning previously. As is
always the case when one of us finds a better bottle, we also agreed that
the next major find would go to his collection.
Another
20 minutes of digging brought me to the end of the ashy soil, and back to
virgin clay soil, where Kyle had been for quite a while, and signaled the
end of the trash pits associated with this turn of the century soda works.
It was sad to see the vein end, but we had to 
think for a moment about how awful it would have been if that backhoe had
have ploughed through the house and the pits beside it, without us having
removed the bottles buried in them beforehand. Or, what’s worse, this pit
at the front, which we would have assumed wasn’t there, even after we
started digging at the rear of the house. I mean, really – who would have
thought the only intact R. Taylor bottle (ginger beer, at that) in the
entire place would have been buried beneath the neighbour’s driveway in
the front yard? If you had have told us that while we were digging in the
backyard, we would have thought you were insane. It just goes to show, as
is always the case – you can never know what to expect. When we set out to
explore this yard afresh back in late November, we never would have
expected the sort of stuff we had, by this point, found. An intact R.
Taylor ginger beer, 3 amber quart sodas in near mint condition, not to
mention all those other blobs from Ontario towns, and, of course, the near
to intact Taylor bottles. It’s safe to say Kyle & I didn’t see ourselves
where we are now, as of any time earlier than late December, 2007. Not
that that matters now, as reality is very different than what could be,
and Kyle & I are, verifiably, living the reality right now – slightly
richer in the diversity of our bottle collections that is... and still
quite hungry. That A & W didn’t quite hold me off.
Closing Notes/Epilogue
Kyle & I did return to the site several more times after that
final day digging, though nothing of the magnitude of that find was ever
again uncovered. In digging the footings for the new medical clinic and
Shoppers Drug Mart, the crew uncovered quite a number of small trash pits,
and brick lined privies. The grand total of brick liners uncovered was 3.
We dug 2 of them all the way to the bottom at about 6 feet down – one
being completely devoid of anything but pure seeds, and the other having
only modern 1920s and 1930s trash (but oddly enough, one R. Taylor blob
top quart broken into about 6 pieces). The third was 3/4" covered by a
concrete slab, and by the time we got to it, it could not be dug. We
uncovered one trash pit containing 1960s garbage, and one dating from the
1890s to 1900 or so. We took turns digging the latter on a cold day in
early January while I was feeling a little ill from a case of the flu. We
pulled out a number of broken lamps, pitchers, and candy bowls – most of
them pressed glass or cut crystal – a small, crude vial, a couple small
perfume bottles, one “LIP BALM” marked ornate pot lid (our first ever pot
lid), and the best piece by far being one that Kyle pulled out – a “GEORGE
ORCHARD / MEDICAL HALL / STRATHROY” square medicinal bottle. A cistern was
also uncovered very close to the corner of Front and Head streets, but
containing nothing but modern, 1950s garbage. We dug it out just for
curiosity sake, and pulled a number of cobalt blue H.K. Wampole and
Phillips Milk of Magnesia bottles. Also of interest were a few pieces
turned up by the equipment. In one area, Kyle & I found a bit of early,
probably 1880s trash – one sheared lip food bottle, and a later Scott’s
Emulsion bottle. We uncovered a vein of older (1900 era) bottle shards and
ash beneath the driveway of a neighbouring house, however, nothing
anywhere close to intact emerged, probably due to the sheer quantity of
bricks buried there. Closer to our soda works, some bottles were also
turned up by machinery, and we were, unfortunately, unable to figure out
where from. Found lying atop the ground, not far from the cistern
mentioned above with 1950s trash contained within, were a pair of bottles
far predating everything else to be found nearby. One being a bottle with
a tooled lip, embossed nicely within a banner “PATTERSON’s DRUG STORE /
WIARTON ONT” Next to it lay a bottle I didn’t ever expect to see at this
site. A Dr. Kronk-style 12-sided pint sized ginger beer bottle –
unfortunately devoid of any markings, but interesting none the less.
When I returned from the holidays to residence here at the
University of Western Ontario, I decided, in my abundant spare time of the
first week, to explore some of the resources available in the libraries on
campus – one in particular – the archival section of the Weldon library. I
have thus far spent a none-too-impressive 8 hours roughly scrounging
around in turn of the century business directories, fire insurance maps, bradstreet’s ratings books, and general history books on Strathroy & area,
and have succeeded in turning up some interesting information relevant to
our story.
Unfortunately, the only fire insurance maps of Strathroy at my
disposal either predated, or post-dated the dig site during the era we
were aiming for. Most of Strathroy’s maps have been revised to later
dates, effectively ruining any information the earlier map may have held
useful. Quite a bit of history was available via historical recounts,
including one especially helpful recount entitled “Strathroy – It’s
Businesses and Industries – 1832-1978”, which recounts the businesses
coming and going from Strathroy right from its founding date. And, if
you’re lucky, there is the occasional location to these businesses listed.
One recount taken from the book indicates that the first store ever
erected in Strathroy, in the year 1841, was on the very block we were
digging upon – right around the area where some of the wartime houses had
been knocked down. Unfortunately, the store was only located there for one
year, according to this recount, and then moved to across the street – a
place we’ll likely never have the opportunity to dig (the food basics
parking lot). The book verifies the location of the Banghart Union hotel
as being the south-west corner of Front & Head – also our site. The fire
insurance maps indicate the hotel was gone by 1913, having been replaced
by a skating arena, which was likely the source of the 1950s trash found
in the cistern on one of the last days we dug the site.
Most interestingly, the book recounts the story of a Mr. R.G.
Taylor – at least in part. Business directories of Middlesex county,
paired with local lore, indicate that he went into business making soda
water sometime between 1893 and 1895. One paragraph in the text indicates
that in 1903, Mr. Taylor moved his soda works from his downtown Front
street location, to farther east – specifically, the corner of Front and
Head streets, where he set up shop in the lot to the south of the corner.
That is, as precisely as it can be recounted, the exact location of the
house behind and beside which we were uncovering this very large quantity
of R. Taylor bottles. The evidence seems to be overwhelmingly in favour of
this house having been the R. Taylor homestead, and, the Old Soda Works.
Other sources indicate that Taylor went out of business in 1908, after his
livery stables, and part of his shop were burnt in a fire. It is
unfortunate that, after surviving such odds for well over 100 years, and
preserving its golden treasure of hundreds of local bottles, the works was
demolished weeks before we actually found out exactly what it was. I would
seriously doubt any one appreciated the building for its history in the
entire time it stood there after Mr. Taylor had moved out. At one time the
building was an asset to local business – the Taylor name well recognized
in the area, as the primary supplier of aerated water and flavoured sodas
to almost every hotel in Strathroy and area. Now it has faded into the
misty dusk of history, only more historically transparent now, by the lack
of physical evidence remaining.
Very little information has been found in the order of Mr. George E.
Murdoch. Future excavations and many hours in the library are in order. It
is unusual the number of his bottles which turned up at this household.
Perhaps large quantities of bottles marked with Mr. Murdoch’s name were
returned to Mr. Taylor by his patrons, and these were shattered in order
to prevent his competition from thriving.
It is
interesting to note a few things, as well. First – nearly every R. Taylor
bottle uncovered was of his last generation of bottle – the crown top
pints and quarts – when in actuality, this variety of bottle is actually
quite scarce in either size, at least comparatively to some of his earlier
styles. A large number of Taylor crown top quarts and pints are known to
have been destroyed in the fires previously mentioned, accounting for
their comparative rarity to the blob tops well circulated in the hobby.
The only reason the bottles we found remained more or less intact was the
presence of damage to the upper ring of the crown top – likely from damage
sustained simply from opening the bottles. This slight damage could
completely prevent the bottles from being of any use, so they would be
discarded. Not a single shard of his earliest generation of bottle –
simply embossed “R.TAYLOR / STRATHROY” with no pictorial, was recovered.
Quite a number of bottles were found with their original steel caps still
attached, as well as some ginger beer tops with the clasp and stopper
still sealed tightly. These pieces were undoubtedly broken before the
contents were even emptied. A dropped case of bottles here, a slip of the
hand here, and a full bottle would be broken, the shards then simply
thrown into the current backyard trash pit. It is unusual that such a
large number of Sarnia bottles were
 recovered
– showing the significance the railroad had on export and import in the
area, Sarnia being just 45 minutes away by driving time. It is also
unusual that none of a more common variety of Strathroy Hutchinson soda
bottle, of Wm. Richardson’s mark, were recovered. A large number of soda
bottles predating the age of this particular location of R. Taylor’s works
were found – including a large number of broken Hutchinson soda bottles
from Ontario towns other than Strathroy. William Richardson had a large
number of bottles, throughout the late 1880s, some of which one would
think would come into Mr. Taylor’s hands, and yet not a single shard was
uncovered.
It was also discovered, after correspondence with other
collectors, that some of the other bottles we turned up were much more
rare than expected. Especially of note was the inconspicuous-seeming
HORTON & MACGREGOR seltzer bottle from Chatham, Ontario. Although in
horrible condition (decapitated, and with a large amount of cracking
throughout the entire bottle), it turns out that this piece, one of the
fateful first pieces out of the ground, is incidentally one of the rarest!
A Horton & MacGregor seltzer bottle was not previously known to exist!
There has been interest from the Chatham city museum in acquiring the
piece, as it was undocumented until this excavation.
I’ve been working on throwing together a list of all the different
varieties of bottle we turned up, including broken examples, just for the
sake of knowing what can turn up at your average soda works in a small
Ontario town. The first number will indicate the numbers which were
present period, including broken examples, and the second, in brackets,
will indicate the number recovered intact. Notice the wide variety of
towns, including some from very far away (Kingston, Cornwall and Niagara
Falls especially notable)
More Photographs:
 |
Pint, hutchison-style
soda, blown-in-mould, light green - Front: {in oval slug plate} " M &
K / WINDSOR / ONT " |
 |
Quart blob top soda, light
aqua - Front: " J.H.KILLER / TRADE [J.H.K. insignia] MARK / STRATFORD
/ ONT. " Base: " K " |
 |
Pint ginger beer - " R.
TAYLOR / TRADE [horse jumping through horseshoe pictorial] MARK /
STRATHROY " |
 |
Quart crown top soda,
blown-in-mould, light aqua - Front: " J.TUNE & SON. / TRADE [deer
pictorial] MARK / REGISTERED / LONDON ONT. " Base: " T "
CANADIAN-STYLE |
 |
Quart crown top soda,
blown-in-mould, light aqua - Front: " J.TUNE & SON. / TRADE [deer
pictorial] MARK / REGISTERED / LONDON ONT. " Base: " T "
EUROPEAN-STYLE |
 |
Quart crown top soda,
yellow olive green - Front: " YORK / SPRINGS " Base: " [SM insignia] " |
Ginger Beers:
R.
Taylor, Strathroy – 18 (1 intact)
Farr
& Sharpe, Sarnia – 10 (0 intact)
Glass
Brothers, London, Quart – 3 (1 complete, though not intact)
J.
Tune, London – 12 (1 intact)
Stratford Soda Water Works, H. Wilkinson, Stratford – 1 (0 intact)
T.H.Hutchison, St. Thomas – 2 (0 intact)
Unknown, marked with 4 digit phone number – 1 (0 intact)
Quart sodas:
A.
Robertson, Mount Forest, blob (?) – 1 (0 intact)
A.W.
Brown, Brampton, blob – 2 (0 intact)
Charles Wilson, Toronto, blob – 6 (5 amber broken, 1 aqua/amber two tone
broken)
Eamer
& Cameron, Cornwall, crown – 2 (0 intact)
Farr
& Sharpe, Sarnia, blob – 2 (one amber intact, one aqua broken)
Farr
& Sharpe Soda Water Works, Sarnia, blob – 3 (0 intact)
J. H.
Killer, Stratford, blob – 1 (1 intact)
J.
Tune, London, blob – 8 (3 emerald green broken, 3 amber broken, 1 amber
intact, 1 aqua intact)
J.
Tune, London, crown – 100+ (6 intact)
James
Thompson, Kingston, blob – 1 (0 intact)
Lambert & Turner, Chatham, crown – 1 (0 intact)
R.
Taylor, Strathroy, blob – 50+ (including several light green examples, 0
intact)
R.
Taylor, Strathroy, crown – 150+ (0 intact)
Sharpe & Kirkpatrick, Sarnia, blob – 3 (1 intact amber, 2 broken amber)
Sharpe & Kirkpatrick, Sarnia, crown – 35 (0 intact)
Pilgrim Bros, Hamilton, crown – 5 (0 intact)
T.H.Hutchison, St. Thomas, crown – 10 (0 intact)
York
Springs (all yellow green), crown – 35 (1 intact)
Miscellaneous Michigan soda works – 2 (0 intact)
Pint crown Sodas:
R.
Taylor, Strathroy – 50 (0 intact, 3 with only part of top crown ring
missing)
G.E.
Murdoch, Strathroy (round slug plate) – 12 (0 intact, one with part of top
crown ring missing)
Sharpe & Kirkpatrick, Sarnia (S & K on base) – 4 (0 intact)
Pilgrim Bros & Co, Hamilton – 3 (1 green broken, 1 aqua broken, 1 clear
intact)
Unknown – Lower half of letter insignia remains unbroken – TORONTO – 1 (0
intact)
Hutchinson Sodas:
Baby
& Hanrahan, Windsor – 2 (0 intact)
C.
Andrae, Port Huron, Michigan – 1 (1 intact, Cobalt Blue)
Clark
Bros, Toronto – 5 (1 aqua intact, 1 yellow olive green broken)
Tossel & Son, Niagara Falls – 1 (0 intact)
Farr
& Sharpe, Sarnia – 1 (1 intact)
Jas
Matthews, Toronto – 1 (1 intact)
Jno
Vernor, Toronto – 3 (2 intact)
Joseph Bilton, London – 3 (0 intact)
Lambert & Turner, Chatham – 1 (0 intact)
M &
K, Windsor – 3 (1 intact)
P.C.
Foy, Toronto – 1 (1 intact)
R.
Taylor, Strathroy – 16 (0 intact)
Gravitating Stoppers:
J.
Tune, London – 1 (0 intact)
Half Pint (split) Sodas:
R.
Taylor, Strathroy – 30 (0 intact, 2 with only part of top crown ring
missing)
J.
Tune, London – 6 (0 intact)
Seltzers:
Cole
& Henderson, St. Thomas – 1 clear (0 intact)
Geo.
E. Murdoch, Strathroy – 5 blue (0 intact)
J.
Tune, London – 6 (3 clear broken, 2 blue broken, 1 blue deer facing
forwards broken)
Lambert & Turner, Chatham – 2 clear (0 intact, 1 with just top knocked
off)
Horton & Macgregor, Chatham – 1 clear (badly cracked with top knocked off)
Pilgrim Bros, Hamilton – 2 clear (0 intact)
T.H.Hutchison, St. Thomas – 1 blue (0 intact)
R.
Taylor, Strathroy – 12 (9 clear, broken, 2 clear with only tops knocked
off, 1 previously unknown marking – missing ‘ONT’ – top knocked off and
badly cracked)
Miscellaneous, Michigan – 1 (0 intact)
And there it is. As much history and information as we could
recover from the incredible experience of digging the backyard of a local,
turn of the century soda works. It was an experience we are unlikely to
ever have again - an experience I recommend everyone try at least once, as
difficult as it may be to do so. To say the least, finding a shard of a Strathroy bottle is never going to be quite the same again (let me remind
you that this was the first time either Kyle or myself had recovered even
a shard from an R. Taylor or G.E. Murdock soda bottle). A little research,
and some initiative with your words and the blade of a shovel can get you
a long way. The history has been there a long time, and will wait for you
– but what’s the point in waiting for it to come to you? |
