Are you absolutely sure that it is a well?  It could have been a privy. 
Most of the privies that I have seen here in Louisville are circular brick 
and were very deep 15-30 feet deep.  They are often mistaken for wells. 
Anyway, with these privies I have seen several instances where ceramic pipes 
were punched through the sides of the privy wall.  This represented a 
transition to indoor plumbing which emptied into the old privy pit.

I would not be surprised if old wells were used in the same way once houses 
were connected to city water.  While this is contrary to our sanitary 
perceptions, this was not the case in the late 19th and early 20th century 
for many cities in the U.S.  While most physicians were well aware that 
water polluted with invisible pathogens caused disease, may public officials 
and the general public still ascribed to the out of sight, out mind sanitary 
philosophy.  I imagine that any deep hole would have made a good cess pit 
for home owners.  I have also seen old wells and cisterns used for lot 
drainage and to collect run off after their original use ceased.

I would start with local ordinances regarding water service, well and 
cistern construction/maintenance, privy construction, or sewer connections 
for the time. Also, look at health department or sanitation department 
reports.  They can help explain the transition in sanitary and water 
technology and sanitation philosophy.

M. Jay Stottman
Staff Archaeologist
Kentucky Archaeological Survey


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Meli Diamanti" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2008 2:46 PM
Subject: wells & drain pipes


> I've got a question that relates to the transition from wells to city 
> water in the late 19th or early 20th century.
> I've got examples from two urban house lots in Braddock, Pennsylvania.  In 
> both cases, there was first a circular brick well. Excavation of the fill 
> in each well revealed the same treatement: a ceramic segmented drain pipe 
> coming into the well through a break in the side wall, and then extending 
> down through the fill, beyond the limits of our excavations (about 5-6 
> feet).
> Putting your sewage down a former well seems like a really bad idea - in 
> terms of polluting the drinking water. Is this what people were doing in 
> the early 20th century as they refitted their houses for city water???
> Also, if the drain pipe was put in after the well was filled, there would 
> have been evidence of a pipe trench, but none such was found.  but if the 
> drain was put in before the well was filled, how were the segments kept 
> together, running down the center of an open air shaft? I didn't find 
> evidence of any supporting frame either. does this mean the drain and fill 
> were put in simultaneously, filling the well as the pipe was laid (from 
> the bottom up)?
> Any information on construction practices or sanitation rules of the 
> period would be helpful.
>
> Meli Diamanti
> Archaeological & Historical Consultants, Inc