Man those old timers put in some hard work years ago.

Nice photos! Thanks!

Indeed!

Cool stuff. Love seeing photos like this

Neat old photos. Those were the days when the local government didn't regulate every aspect of your life. However those old wells probably killed more people than than guns in the olden days.

How old are the structures do you think?

Deep well hand-digging is not my forte.

You either did it or you and your family didn't survive, plain and simple.

It was built in the late 1800’s. It sits in the mouth of a hollow across from my house. I took these pictures before they tore the chimney down to make a landing for loading logs. We covered the well with a piece of sheet metal to keep anything from falling in it.

Need for that "root hog, or die" to come back.

Way the hell too many just living off big govt now.

I can't find a damn thing in the Constitution where our federal govt is supposed to be a charity.

I regularly come across old foundations & wells & orchards & stone piles in the rural sections of NY state.
I think of all the manual labor it must have taken to clear the forest & start a life there. Now much of that land is back to forest.

One of the few things that our founders didn’t fully anticipate was how our later politicians would use the promise of “free stuff” to buy votes. That combined with every dreamed up form of “diversity” has allowed politicians to create problems for them to pander to and “solve” in exchange for votes.

Driving through the neighborhood where one of my rentals is located today, I see a bunch of signs for 2 people running for Congress. Must be a war going on for control of that area. The slogan on the one person's sign read "Prosperity For All". Democrat, of course.

These are homeowners, for the most part. Beats me why people would vote for dirtbags trying to give their schit away to some undeserving louse.

I’d opt for death.

Work sucks.

I've got a well like that on my property. I've often wondered how many hours were involved in digging and lining it with rocks that way. Amazing work!

There's still a foundation and well from an old homestead back in the woods about 600 yards behind my place. The neighbor down the road, who is in his 70's, says the house was still standing when he was a boy. Said his father remembers when people still lived in it. There is no road or driveway to it and he says there never was. There's also still a hand dug well behind my dad's house. It was built in 1895.

Thanks for sharing those pictures. Any idea how deep that well is?

You couldn't pay me enough to go down that hole to build it.

Having spent 36 years drilling well, those dug wells are seen from time to time. Every single one I worked on had dead critters a floating. Typhus breeding ground. I almost wasn't here because of a hand dug well. My grandfather as a young man stopped by a relatives farm in Limestone county Texas with his 3 year old daughter in tow. Drinking from the well he and her both got typhus from contaminates in the water. In an unconscious state he awoke 3 days later on the mend. His 3 year old daughter was not as lucky. He had to bury her before he returned home.

An engineer I worked with was in the Peace Corps in Africa when he was young. The village he was assigned to needed a well. He built 3' diameter concrete rings , 3 feet high. Got the natives to get inside and dig out the inside till the concrete ring settled to the bottom of the hole. He would then add another 3' concrete ring and the digging would continue. The well went to a depth of @60' and had 6" of standing water. Defines the phrase "African under reamer".

I would say it’s close to 20 feet down to the water. I don’t know how deep it goes below the water level. It amazes me how they stacked the rocks in it.

Cool pics looks like an interesting place

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”

― Alexander Fraser Tytler

Great quote. I’ve never heard of him but he was spot on.

There was an old dugout homestead on the ranch. I was looking for arrowheads and found the collapsed dugout and stone-lined well. The boss had the mexicans dig out around the first 20 feet or so with an extend-a-hoe. They then hauled the stone back to the house. We dug another hole and they re-stacked the stone to make a well in the front yard. The new well sticks outta the ground, but the old one was flush. He had a lattice built to keep kids from falling in.....

One like that here on our Ranch too. GrandDad said it was dug in the 1880’s. It’s at least 20 feet down to the water. Don’t know how deep it goes beyond that.

This may be a stupid question but what did they use to bore out the hole back then? I can’t imagine that just jumping on a shovel would have worked, short of a massive crater and backfilling afterwards.

I have a few on the farm. 1 is close to the road and covered with an oak pallet that I replace every few years. Used to have an Uncle that would cut Thistles and haul them over by the pickup bed load and stuff them down that well. Got to the point that he was filling it faster than they were rotting down so he would hop down in it and walk them to pack it. That's when I started getting worked up and told him to do something else with them I didn't need him or his boys getting hurt. Of course I'm younger and don't know [bleep]. This kept on until he couldn't pack them any more and decided to burn them out. Poured some deisel down the hole, let her soak, poured some more and lit it up. It flashed so hard it blew him back 20 ft or so, burned the shirt and all his hair off, knocked him out cold. He got to ride the helicopter that day. He inhaled the flame, damn near melted his eyelids off and you could have read a newspaper through his left ear. They believe that it was a buildup of Methane from the decay. His son was there to call 911. He lived through that and the subsequent staff infection. Tough old bastard. Rode in at least 3 maybe 4 choppers in his day. Died last month from Cancer. I will miss the entertainment, and he provided a lot of good stories.

Well, I was entertained by that tale....

And they didn't have anything else to do.

Yep. No TV or Radio to distract them.

We get our house water from an old hand dug well.


Shallow well pump in the basement draws it in.


Its not very good water....and I think its going dry.


I will double as a cistern in an emergency.

Like this one no doubt...

Found an old spring box at a Pennsylvania homestead site, there was only a rock foundation. We lifted the cool stone lid and found a cut crystal glass stored safely inside.

That quote has also been attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville. Regardless, as you said, it is “spot on.”

Ummm, what part of "hand-dug well" did you miss? Yeah, they dug them out with shovels and large balls, and strong backs. That's how they did stuff back then. That's why the life expectancy was a lot shorter than it is today, too.

Yep.

I admit I was wondering the same thing. I knew they were dug by hand, but was wondering how they lined them with stone. Was there some way they lined them as they dug to keep the hole from collapsing, or did they line them after the hole was completed?

So they “hand dug” them with a shovel Vs some other form of low tech labor intensive device. Thanks for the info.

I filled up one like that with old shingles. Didn’t want Timmy and Lassie falling down into it.


I’ve dismantled (demolished) two limestone chimneys like that and hauled all the rock here at the house for projects. Must have been some big boys back then, some of my rocks are 300 lbs easy

Took about 5 trips with a 16ft trailer.

Our first home had a dug well down to 40 feet. Never went dry. Maybe if we didn't have today's distractions - phone, tv, internet, we'd have time to do those things as well....

I used to climb trees and break my arms a lot. 3 times.

TV has saved my life

My great grandparents had 11 kids. TV has saved my bank account and my wife’s figure.

Funny story but true I'm sure. Once having just finished drilling a 24" elevator jack hole in the dead of winter in Winter Park, CO., the men wanted to hurry and go home. However the hole was full of smoke that would take most of the day to clear naturally. The bottom had to be seen to check for plumb before we left. Got the bright idea to pour a half a cup of gas down the 40' hole and toss in a lit rag. Sounded like a jet engine with flames to the surface. No smoke and the hole was plumbed and accepted. One of the last things to be done after rigging down was weld a steel cap on top. A hour had passes since we had lot it off. There were still fumes in the casing. While cleaning up I heard a loud explosion and turned in time to see the driller being blown 10' into a snowbank. The sparks from the welding had re-ignited the fumes. The driller wasn't hurt but nervous and went back and finished welding the cap on. And that was just a half a cup of gas