>Beneath the floor of what will be our modern kitchen (not open
>to regular visitors) is a well, about 30 feet deep, lined with
>limestone. The house sits on a limestone ridge. There is mucky water
>visible in the bottom. We would like to preserve this well in some
>state, have a see-through floor installed above it, some kind of
>lighting, and be able to show it to special guests.


If you propose to exhibit it, why not just leave it alone and put some kind
of see-through cover over it?  The public won't be able to tell if it is a
30 foot deep well with muck or a 32 foot well with no muck.

I doubt that since it is still open you are going to find much as you would
a filled 17th century well, but who knows what is at the bottom?  You'll
never personally get to the bottom to excavate it, so perhaps some sort of
air lift suction device like what is used in underwater archaeology and
such.  If it was in use as late as the 1930s or so it will probably have a
couple rust beer cans in or otherwise boring stuff.

Perhaps a long pole to probe the actual depth, a nice rinse and suction to
clear out as much of the muck as you can, and then take a look with a
flashlight on a string or video feed.

One of the houses near where I grew up has a well that is about 80-100 feet
deep, stone lined, narrow at the top, with a big slab of limestone with a 2
foot hole in the center covering it.  The shaft starts narrow and then
spreads to about 10 feet some 20 feet down and then continuing at that
diameter to the water line.  It was very scary exploring it through the
little 2 foot diameter well cap hole as there was nothing under you just a
few feet down.  We did get the flashlight way way down but could only see
clear water at about 80 feet.  I still have nightmares about that.

At the Keith Site, a c.1850-1880s rural farmstead in south-central NY, the
well was still wide open, with a dry bottom at5 5.1 m (16.7 feet).  Probing
indicated bedrock under about a foot of soft soil, and thus no post-use
filling.  That is probably explained in that although the site had been
abandoned in the 1880s the site was entirely abandoned and was essentially
an intact time capsule of 1880 or so.  Subsequent occupants did not exist
and therefore the well stayed open.

Now, on the other hand, I discovered a late 18th century well at our VA
courthouse which intersects a wall built in 1772 to keep Baptist preachers
from spreading their version of the word from their jail cells!  It cuts
right through the wall line and does not show on the 1880s map, therefore
it had to have existed post 1772 to pre 1880s.  In just the small surface
plan exposed I thought I had fallen into a Triassic swamp for all the smell
that oozed out of the small part of the exposed soil filling the feature.

...  Now, just to convince the powers that be to let me or someone else dig
the well!

         Dan W.