LEWISTON – Linda Jett still meets people who remember swallowing a spoonful of Father John’s Medicine from the dark amber bottle.
The unanimous review: “It tasted terrible.”
It’s part of her collection of antique bottles unearthed in local woods, along with something labeled Garget Cure – “What a garget is and why it needs to be cured, I have no idea” – and a bottle that held snake oil, sans snake.
(Despite his assertions, Jett said, when authorities raided Clark Stanley’s Snake Oil Liniment, “it was nothing but hot pepper sauce and oil – there was no rattlesnake.”)
Jett, 37, started digging four years ago. Her friend, an avid hunter, began tipping her off to old, forgotten dumps that he found in tromps through the woods. She got landowner permission to poke around as deep as three feet with her potato digger and has amassed a collection of the delicate, absurd and curious.
She uses books to date each old bottle and uncover its back story.
Each dump site, most in the Auburn-Poland area, has its own nickname.
Tick Dump: “It’s just infested with ticks. If you’re scared of them, don’t go.”
Really Old Dump: lots of pre-1900 bottles.
Medical Dump: lots of random finds like old metal urinals and a 1-cc glass syringe. Once upon a time, the dumps were probably under someone’s barn or privy.
“There’s so many little treasures buried under the dirt,” Jett said, warning: “If you don’t like bugs or snakes or mice, bottle digging is not your hobby.”
Most of her 100-plus bottles are in pristine shape, with clear, easy-to-read lettering. She thinks they faired best over time if they landed neck-down in the dump. Water didn’t get in and freeze.
She’s found a small, round bottle etched “Phytoline – A Powerful Anti-Fat” and can only guess what was inside it. A glass half-pint bottle of Hood milk is more familiar. A bottle of Dr. True’s Elixir is marked both “Family Laxative” and “Worm Expeller,” so, take your pick?
A bottle of French Gloss held furniture polish. A tiny bottle of Favorite Cream Root Beer held enough concentrate to make five gallons of the heady stuff. In a half-dollar-sized 1920s or ’30s art deco bottle, the old smell of the flowery perfume it once held still lingers.
Jett brings her rake, gloves and carpenter’s kneepads out into the wood on dig days. She soaks all her finds overnight in dish detergent before giving them a good scrub.
“I try to take good care of them and not touch them too much,” she said.
“Eventually, age will catch up to me and I won’t be able to dig anymore, but I’ll never stop collecting.”
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