Hand dug wells....

[kebo]

No, I'm not thinking about digging one lol!!! Anybody got any pic's of old wells on your property, or somewhere else that you know about?? This old well is on my hunt club lease. It's located adjacent to a very old homesite, the chimney is still standing and that's all that's left of it. One of these days I'm gonna take my metal detector there and see if I can dig up any old coins around the house, that usually gives a good idea of the age of a structure.

The well appears to be hand dug and lined with stone. I dropped a 100 ft tape down and it hit bottom at 44ft. It's dry now, and looks like it's been dry for a longtime. I just can't believe people used to be brave enough to do that sort of stuff!! I guess back then you did what you had to do but geez, if it had caved in there was almost certainly no help coming at all, at least in time to attempt a rescue.

Looking down the shaft. I didn't try holding the flashlight and taking a pic at the same time and the flash wasn't strong enough to light up the bottom of it.

 

[forgeblast]

Impressive, i think the fox fire book series talked about digging a well.

 

[SandburRanch]

If you can catch the sun at the correct angle you may be able to see the bottom using a mirror to reflect the light into it.

 

[CurlyDave]

Can you fill it in with your tractor?

It doesn't have to collapse to be extremely dangerous. Falling in would be fatal, especially if no one knew where you were.

Rotting animal carcasses are probably polluting the ground water down there. Getting them out is probably too dangerous, but you can cut off the supply with enough dirt.

 

[Robb71]

I agree with filling it in, huge liability even if the property is fenced and posted.
It's been a few years and it's not exactly apples to apples but no need for another Jessica Mcclure incident.

 

[JB4310]

Doing masonry work all my life I've always been fascinated with dug wells, how they built them? Seen a few growing up but not too many any more around here.

Right next door there's the remains of one, just a little cement slab at the top it's been filled but keeps settling, was thinking if it were mine I'd dig it out and try and put it back in service, this one is at the highest point topographically in a several hundred yard radius.

JB.

 

[Egon]

We have one on some recently purchased land. It's only 12 feet deep and does have water in it. It's built in the exact same way as the one in the picture. It was uncovered which is illegal here.

We have placed a concrete cover over it. I had wanted to fill it in but as I only obey that was not in the offing!

There is also a filled in one out at the play farm.

 

[dave1949]

I filled one in on our lot. It was a bit over 20' deep and had plenty of water - skunky water anyways There used to a barn and house in that area. The house cellar hole is still there.

The well was only about 15' from the road and covered with an old shot-up YIELD sign. It's over a thousand feet from where we built, so not of much use in any case. I just didn't like the idea of having a basically useless but lethal hazard there. As CurlyDave says, probably nasty stuff down there.

The stone work was fascinating. I too tried to picture how they must have built them. It looked like a long tapered cone shape may have been the dug out part. If it were closer to our house I would have built a cover of some sort and preserved it.
Dave.

 

[Treemonkey1000]

I don't have a picture of the one at my Dad's place. It is 63' deep about 4'x5' rectangular. My grandpa dug it by hand when he was in his early 70's. It is dug through clay and dirt. He used to find the wells around the property using dowsing sticks. I remember helping haul up buckets of soil with an old pulley. He would have light bulbs on old cords to see by. We don't use if for drinking just watering the garden. It has never run dry yet.

 

[ToadHill]

I had one on the back side of my property but I felt it was a potential problem with the grandchildren so I filled it with stones. It must have been almost an artezian well because the water still flows out of it for about 9 months out of the year.