Unbelievable Discoveries at a Historic Riverboat Captains House in Yankton, South Dakota (2017)

Excavating two privies at the former home of famous steamboat Captain Grant Marsh, in Yankton South Dakota.
Marsh if best known for accompanying Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer (A.K.A. General Custer) and the 7th Cavalry of the U.S. Army up the Missouri and then the Yellowstone River to what would later be called "The Battle of Little Big Horn" or "Custer's Last Stand."
He would later carry the survivors from the battle back to Bismarck to receive medical attention.
#dumpdigging #antiquebottles #bottledigging #ghosttowns #treasurehunting #bottles #antiques #wildwildwest #metaldetecting #northdakota #southdakota #privydigging

[@alanatolstad4824]

I applaud you for the amount of research you do to provide us with background on all those old finds.

[@BelowthePlains]

haha thanks! it took us quite some time to get into this site.. we recorded that video over 5 years ago now, so it was way before we planned on making a youtube channel. thanks for watching

[@saturdaybasementrock3961]

Hats off to you Tom without you none of this history would ever have been known your knowledge of bottles is amazing, documented history well done , Thank you for spending your time again well done ..

[@judyhobday4760]

Imagine how many people were addicted to the so called cures. So many great finds as you dig. Really enjoy watching your digs.

[@BelowthePlains]

haha yeah i think addiction would have been even more common back then than it is today... yeah, they banned the word "cure" from being placed on products in america in 1906.. well im glad you enjoyed the video! thanks for leaving us a comment!

[@debraporch7888]

Incredible video guys!! I hope you kept the Tippecanoe bottle and restored it, because it's a beautiful bottle as well as the Warner's Safe. I can't believe the amount of bottles that came out of the second privy. There were quite a few bottles in the second privy that were unknown to me. I'm so glad that you give us descriptions on the bottles. Your videos are well out together. My only problem is that I can barely hear the person extracting the bottles. You should consider getting a microphone when y'all start digging again. Continued success on your adventures and I'm glad you're bringing us along. Take care and be safe.✌

[@BelowthePlains]

yeah we actually did buy a directional microphone.. this video was a little rough because we recorded it 5 years ago, which was way before we ever intended to put it on youtube. so theres gonna be some huge improvements in our upcoming videos, now that we put them together and know everything we did wrong. we actually wouldnt have ever posted this video, except that we though it was historically significant, so we decided to use it. but thanks for the comment, glad you liked the video!

[@musketbal]

My father has a fairly large bottle collection. Somerset County, Md. is very old (1667 or so). He has one of the Safe kidney cure bottles with the paper label attached. It was Found in the home's attic that was purchased in 1898 by our family from a former slave who worked on the steam ships as a barber going from the Eastern Shore of Md. to the Western Shore. The property also had a small village established by ex slaves after the Civil War. The only remains of that town is the scattered broken bricks and pieces of glass and pottery. The house it's self was built sometime around 1830's and had been built from the remains of several homes because of the bricks used in the foundation. The house is located next to the East Creek with Mill Dam Bridge spanning it for the town of Tull's Corner which also had been erased by time. The trash dump is about 200 feet from across a small field that falls away to the marsh and East Creek. My great grandmother threw her trash in the same location as the prior owner who owned it. Tons of blob tops too.

[@notinmanitou]

Couldn't hear Tom at all when he was in the pit. If I turned up my volume enough to hear him, Jake about blew my eardrums out whenever he spoke. Also, what's with the 1/3 screen visible and 2/3 screen all fuzzy?

[@historyhawk3621]

Great privy dig men! That Tippicanoe bottle is off the hook! Well done!

[@BelowthePlains]

Thanks a bunch!

[@winnieskees9622]

Please don’t do too many of the triple split screens. Not only annoying but hard to concentrate on the main middle screen. It’s been what maybe 3 yrs now and the 3 screen split is already old!! Thanks, otherwise I am enjoying your videos immensely!

[@MarciaShackelford-st5bt]

Great to see your early days, but I'm glad you didn't go permanently with the split screen format. Sorry that you have to put up with comments like everyone is an authority on what you do, how you do it, why did you do it, etc, etc, etc. You have probably had to develope a thick skin through all of this. I'm glad that you have stuck with it and yes, your videos vastly improved! Keep up the good work!

[@Texeq]

The intro picture is US Army General Nelson Miles, not Grant Marsh. The oxidation on that Warners Safe is superb.

[@BelowthePlains]

hmm.. i think we got it off his wikipedia page.. typical of wiki.. yeah that oxidation was really crazy.. same with all the pits of that age.. it looks really surreal, especially when you pull them out, they are much more clear, then after like 20 minutes they get really white and iridescent and then all that white stuff will just flake off.. the first few times i saw that, i thought i was imagining it different

[@loisstump5990]

Glad Tom wears a microphone now.

[@lukehorning3404]

That was a really cool dig

[@jimmieloge575]

Great age on your haul; Congrats to everyone on the crew working with Tom!!!❤

[@melainemallory5384]

That blurry effect on the sides is annoying.

[@lesliecraig4935]

Another great video 👌👌👌

[@BelowthePlains]

Thank you so much

[@birdwatcnetty9881]

I had forgotten what a awesome video this one was, Thank you ! A great collection Of bottles!!!

[@saraanddarrinmoneer3696]

Great vid guys, I realy like the discriptions you give on the bottles

[@BelowthePlains]

ah thanks, that actually really means alot to us.. we were kind of self conscience of releasing this video bc we filmed it so long ago, before we had any idea what we were doing. glad you liked it

[@saraanddarrinmoneer3696]

@@BelowthePlains Glad you did THANKS

[@MR-kd9md]

Hi. I live in Kenosha Wisconsin and in South Eastern Wisconsin there are a lot of historical buildings that were built with bricks of a creamy yellow color, hence “Cream City”. Just found your channel and have been binging and enjoying . I have collected a few old bottles over the years, now I have to go look to see if the have toiled tops or not!

[@mygrammieis]

It’s awesome that you share the history with us and at the end of video photos ✊✌🏻

[@carolynsimone8647]

Enjoyed going ago with you on this amazing history lesson and your finds..🥰

[@KenPeckOne]

Very much love your channel very relaxing and informative. Please do not make anymore videos with the blur effect on the left and right...its very confusing for people like me that have eye issues.

[@soonzach4017]

Every day your channel is very interesting. I love too watch your videos. Thank Tom and Jack.

[@jerryblum277]

Great video Tom love the history lesson that goes with it!

[@BelowthePlains]

thanks! yeah we are gonna try make them a little more informative in the future, this one was just a little fast paced, so we had to squeeze as much information we could into the least amount of words

[@shakascloset1700]

Another awesome dig. Thanks for sharing 👍

[@BelowthePlains]

Thanks 👍

[@judylutz1702]

Great video.

[@colecariveau3825]

Great job guys

[@BelowthePlains]

thanks!

[@legendarycreekhunter5929]

Some of your best digging finds in your videos, awesome, awesome. Love that Tippecanoe and if you make it down to Missouri hit me up, will show you Mark Twain history

[@marthatripp5244]

That was really cool. My hometown.

[@BelowthePlains]

oh hey, glad you enjoyed.. we actually have dug like 150 outhouses in that town. I actually really like it there and everyones really nice... everyone i meet there always tell me the same story about how Jack McCall was hanged up by the cemetery. thanks for the comment!

[@cdd4248]

I love to try to find the lists of ingredients of all the medicine/pharmacy bottles you find. Most, as all of us are probably aware, have an alcohol or opium base. OH...The Good Ole Days! Anyway, always interesting!

[@kaolinwasher]

In all my days digging for bottles, I have never even seen a shard of a Tippy canoe , love those old beers to . great video , hope you can make some more

[@BelowthePlains]

Glad you enjoyed it. That and a broken one in the same pit were the only examples I'd ever dug. Many more vids to come!

[@iliketocomment8144]

Do you ever do videos were you clean up your bottles or show off your collection?

[@amytemple6469]

Too bad the sides of the video are blurred...love your other videos though.

[@andrewchase7684]

what an incredible dig!

[@BelowthePlains]

thank you!

[@mandybrown7758]

Another banger love every video what great stuff thanks for sharing

[@BelowthePlains]

haha we really appreciate that. we were kind of self-conscience of posting this video because it was so roughly filmed. but its one of the most historic places we ever dug and it had some really great bottles in it. thanks for posting, we're glad you liked it!

[@mandybrown7758]

@@BelowthePlains I think alot of us enjoy the not so perfect videos it makes it feel like we can be right there watching it was a cool video I just love the old bottles so much and you found some absolutely stunning bottles

[@tamran127]

Hi Guys 👋🏻! Nice finds and awesome haul donated to the church. 👍🏻

[@BelowthePlains]

haha yeah, well the truth is we have to donate almost all of everything we find. we just dont have the space to keep everything we find.. they were happy to have them tho.. thanks for watching and thanks for commenting

[@tamran127]

@@BelowthePlains I have been asking others for a DDD bottle along with another bottle marked Davis. I would gladly pay you for your time, the bottle, and shipping charges. You interested?

[@twindiggersminnesotapamandpat]

I have never seen or heard of a tippe canoe bottle. Awesome permission guys. Nice soil for digging.

[@BelowthePlains]

Thanks 👍

[@enduringhope6859]

Love this!!! Is there part 2?!?! Thanks for another great video!

[@BelowthePlains]

lol no. sorry. when we filmed it we really had no idea what we were doing and we just stopped filming.. if it wasnt such a historic site, then we would have never posted it.. we actually probably have close to 100 videos we could make, but we just filmed them so poorly..

[@enduringhope6859]

@@BelowthePlains Great work, nonetheless!! 😃 Looking forward to seeing more of your finds! Thanks for commenting back!

[@michellesayer5230]

Your Acoustic guitar during videos is amazing!! I've been playing 56 years now, and I've heard a lot! I could listen to this all day!! Who is playing?

[@dannybell926]

You should do more filming of pulling the bottles live. That's what'll get your channel moving

[@BelowthePlains]

Thats definitely in the plans. We appreciate the input.

[@jessehughes6939]

I just recently subscribed to your channel. You find some amazing stuff.

[@BelowthePlains]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@sandiezurcher3247]

Not fond of the split frames.

[@kathycronin3571]

The tippacanoe bottle is unique.

[@denisemanley5318]

Couldn’t watch because of the screen divisions. Gave me a headache.

[@kathleenjurkowich9359]

I like your show but can not hear what you say about the bottles. Just would like to hear about the bottles better.

[@VolcanoTimeLapse]

The blurred sides are hard to watch.

[@TheYammerHammer]

Awesome video 📹👏👌👍🙌😀

[@BelowthePlains]

Thanks 😀

[@carlabraenne3469]

Winslow soothing syrup I think that was the baby killer stuff. Learned that from sci-fi finds

[@Tealtra]

Wow that's alot of bottles.

[@BelowthePlains]

haha yeah that one was pretty nuts.. i think it ended up being just over 200 between both pits

[@420delux]

What do you do with all of your finds

[@DavidJones-smiley]

What was in the tippecanoe bottle? Its pretty.

[@BelowthePlains]

Stomach bitters, which were mainly alcohol and herbs.

[@johnc.alfanonaa9980]

I love your vids but this one is unwatchable. Why the phone camera? The shadow pics in each side are totally distracting.

[@BelowthePlains]

haha yeah sorry about that... it was filmed for personal use before we ever planned on starting a channel. i was considering taking it down, but its a very historic site, so i feel like its should stay up. its from 2017, and we didnt start actually filming for the channel until 2021

[@rrich52806]

Do the seeds come from the BM of old.

[@BelowthePlains]

lol.. why yes it does!

[@kathycronin3571]

Are the bottles you find worth money.

[@BelowthePlains]

yes. the bulk of the plain ones really arent worth anything. the patent medicines and stuff can be worth money, usually the rarer the better. and the local stuff that comes from the town itself are what are worth money. sodas and drugstore bottles that say the name of the local store. thats the stuff people collect. some sodas are worth thousands, and the drugstore bottles can be over 1k but usually they are between $20-$500.. again, it all depends on rarity., also some of the pottery can be worth a lot, if it has the right stamps on it. if you ever had a question about a certain bottle, you can google it and check what it went for on ebay. but that doesnt necessarily mean it isnt worth a lot less or more. hope that was easy enough to understand, thanks for watching

[@robertkreiling1746]

I am wondering if this river boat Captain did not have a hired cook because of all of these extract bottles ?

[@joeylefdal8850]

Very cool. Which Yankton bottle was broken? I heard him say "That sucks about that Yankton bottle."

[@BelowthePlains]

The Purdy&Brecht drug store bottle had a hole in the bottom

[@timtaylor1365]

You hit the jackpot with this one, boys. You must be able to make a good business selling these?

[@bouncerslabrealnature9143]

Beautiful ❤️

[@BelowthePlains]

Thank you! 😊

[@philipcallicoat3147]

"soothing syrup" Back in the day lots of patent medicine had a great amount of either morphine or,some even contained heroin..🤯

[@harridan.]

my great, great grandmother, Mary Judirh Hirt, was essentially sold at the age of 13 to an ex confederate soldier, a widower with 2 children. she was forced to bear 11 children which she never wanted. the story goes that one was "accidentally" smothered while sleeping between its parents. the South was torn asunder by the Civil War, living was a difficult proposition during Reconstruction. i first heard about Mrs Winslow's Syrup from the Northern Mudlarks, who, upon researching Mrs Winslow, discovered that the syrup was a powerful opiate responsible for a great many infant deaths. i believe the recommended dose, a teaspoonful, was powerful enough to easily kill an infant. when i think about my great, great grandmother's very hard life of repeated rape and birth during the impoverished times of the reconstruction i find myself wondering whether that smothered baby was really an accidental occurrence. after all, she never wanted any of those kids after the first one, who always said he had to raise the others. Mrs. Winslow's syrup sounds like an easy legal way to do away with that noisy, smelly, expensive Thing that a woman was forced to conceive, bear and raise, no choice in the matter. of course not all husbands rape their wives but times were different then, and a wife was basically property, sworn to honor and obey. i have heard many stories about Mary Judith Hirt which indicate that she was a rape Survivor, mainly that she overdressed, (at least 13 petticoats) and after she was widowed she absolutely NEVER let a man touch her, not even a doctor. i can easily see a stressed out impoverished couple buying Mrs Winslow's potion.

[@653j521]

It certainly was rougher on women in the South after the war than in the North.

[@coralkellett4415]

Don't like the blurry sides

[@gaylawhorton9147]

Your vid’s are very hard to hear, volume’’’’”

[@reneeboen8781]

You are stealing history from the public by digging things up for your own benefit. Do you sell these items?

[@BelowthePlains]

We always get permission to dig whether it's private or public property. A good portion of the finds are offered to the local museums and historic society's though they often they decline being they already have plenty of pieces like the ones we dig up. I've been documenting my finds and have written two books. I am in the process of writing a massive coffee table style history book on a recent site I've dug. Note that the sites we dig are a very small fraction of whats out there. As I type this there are countless sites being ripped out by urban renewal etc. I've seen entire city blocks dug up by construction. Even some of the sites we've dug had been ripped through by utility lines or prior construction projects. I'm trying my best at preserving the history from these sites before they're gone or forgotten. I'm not in this for money.

[@653j521]

renee A better way is to ask first not attack before you know the facts.

[@reneeboen8781]

Unfortunately, you are unaware that a lot of places they dig it's illegal. This isn't scientific excavation w collections then held in public trust. It's looting. I can't support or condone it.

[@reneeboen8781]

When I see things like this on KZbin, people profiting from trashing an historic site & important data lost forever, I have to speak up.

[@robertburkhardt3506]

@@reneeboen8781 Consider this. this Earth we live on is a historic site, and man has dug into it from our beginning to get iron, aluminum, copper, silica to make glass, steel, wire and on and on, if you drive a car then all its parts came a historic site. your abode has some wood most likely, from a forest. from a tree in a historic site. nails and wires from earth, a historic site. and therefore the pot is calling the kettle black. shame on you Karen. or whatever you call yourself.

[@felinefaye8550]

Don't ya just love it when the person closest to the microphone sniffs?