But the haunted Munster House was whispering to us. My digging partner Dave G. and I had wanted to dig this freakish-looking Southern California dwelling for years, and we knew the perfect opportunity to dig it had arrived!
Check out the unique Mansard-style roof. I would guess this house to date early 1880's. The architecture seems to have an oriental influence:


About 3 feet into the hole, a few late bottles and shards of glass so far. I was able to locate each wall of the outhouse with some help from the old redwood lined walls.
We pried loose this sunken panel, square-design pint sized bitters container around the 8 foot level. It reads: LASHS'S KIDNEY AND LIVER BITTERS reverse THE BEST CATHARTIC AND BLOOD PURIFIER. The bottle is fashioned with a tooled-finish top and records tell us it was manufactured from, 1884-1893. It is pictured in Jeff Wichmann's Western Bitters book (pg. 76)
After unearthing the Lash's Bitters we knew the hole was turning back a page with its age. We also knew the potential for more bitters was quite possible too. I thought I might have been working on digging out a green Henley's IXL Bitters for a minute, but it turned out to be a large wine. Oh well, digging an embossed bitters bottle is really tough, tougher than finding an old embossed whiskey container, and those are challenging enough! At the end of the day we were a bit disappointed that the Lash's was the only "decent" bottle to come out. The rest of the stuff was mostly unembossed, national brands, or broken. But any dig that produces a decent + bitters bottle is a great day to be a digger, even on a Superbowl Sunday!
Great story J.F. !
ReplyDeleteLots of work for that bitters, but it's a nice one. Your patch job looks very nice, and most likely the property owners would be a great reference for future digs. Well done!
Hey! This post couldn't be written any better! Reading through this post reminds me of my good old room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this write-up to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Many thanks for sharing!
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