Victorian Urban Legends: Sewer Wealth February 21, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
Sewer stories…
Several years ago a little German Jew, named Schwartz, believing that in the sewers of New York might be found many articles of value which had been lost, entered them, and for three days wandered through the labyrinth. He was very successful, picking up some 27,000 dols. worth of jewellery, spoons, forks, &c.; but having lost his way the first day, believed that he might have found much more could he have carried out the original plan, which was to visit Fifth and Madison Avenues, Broadway, and the wealthy portions of the city. So great, however, were the difficulties and dangers which he encountered, that nothing could induce him again to visit ‘New York underground.’
This is a great tale, but singularly unlikely. In all sewers people work and if there was really such treasures just waiting their embrace they would pick them up. There is also evidence from several cities, including London, of professional sewer scavengers. But now we move onto the second chapter.
His adventure for a time created quite little sensation, but there were none venturous enough to attempt a second, until Wednesday of last week (we are quoting from a New York paper), when an adventurous party of three entered the sewer or Houston Street, the ferry East River, intending to remain for one week, during which time they proposed visiting every portion of the city where there seemed to be any chance of finding a treasure-trove. The party consisted of Mary Walker, a young girl of eighteen, her brother James, aged sixteen, and Michael Grady, a man of fifty. The result of a week’s search is roughly estimated at 1,500,000 dols. I saw the treasures yesterday piled in three heaps on the floor, and the jeweller informed me that it must have cost over 3,000,000 dols., but in consequence of the old-fashioned style of setting, its bruised, battered, and corroded condition, its value was reduced to about one half. A little over a bushel (how queer it sounds to talk jewellery by the bushel) has been sorted, and among it has been found a diamond ring valued at 16,000 dols., two more valued at 6,000 dols., and half a dozen valued at 3,000 dols. and upwards. The most curious is a plain gold ring, inscribed on the inside in Dutch, ‘Peter Stuyvesant to his wife’. It is an heirloom of the Stuyvesant’s, and was stolen, with other jewellery, last March by burglars. How it came into the sewer is a problem for philosophers to speculate about. Miss Walker and her brother, who find themselves thus lifted suddenly from penury to great wealth, intend to proceed to England, where they have relatives. Grady has not been seen since he ventured alone upon a trip one day, and he is supposed to have perished.
Interesting that they got so specific with names who would have, doubtless, contradicted the information. Other sewer legends: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
Just in case there is anyone out there trusting to believe a newspaper report from the US remember the great moon fake of 1835
Source: The Enniscorthy News (26 Jan 1867), 3
Southern Man, 31 Oct 2017, sent a link to this site, Treasure Net. I’ve excerpted the most interesting on sewer treasure: legend or truth. Thanks to Southern Man.
1) I know this might sound disgusting but I met a guy on a flight recently who worked in the sewer systems in Vancouver Canada. He told me that there are areas in the sewer systems where gold items collect! Much like nuggets in a river. He said he actually makes a nice additional income mining these pockets of treasure! It made sense to me, but who wants to dig through THAT!?!?!
2) Ok I know this is a disgusting topic…but I worked in the sewer treatment lab for awhile ….. blah blah blah…but the guys who worked in the actual plant, would find great stuff all the time. There is a filtering system ,in which everything is passed though, broken down and basically treated and put back out….in these filter systems, after they are empty, they have to be washed with powerwashers …but everything that didnt fit through the filters….remained….leaving rings, watches ,money, wallets….you name it …
3) A member of our local metal detector club got permission to wade through the goo at a sewer treatment plant. I think they were replacing the intake line or something. Anyhow, he put on all the protective gear and waded into about 5 inches or so of the effluent. It ran into a shallow holding pond or overflow pond…something like that. Can’t remember the details. Anyhow, he found some coins and a nice ring. He said he’d do it again if the opportunity arose. He said the guys at the plant often get calls from people about stuff they’ve lost down the drain/toilet and stuff their kids tossed down the drain/toilet. The sewer treatment guys seldom try to find the stuff unless it was lost by someone they know. Frankly, I can’t think of much that would entice me to dig through other people’s crap, even if it’s been treated first. YUCK!!!
4) Its true, in both the storm lines and the sanitary lines, people lose coins down both. Personally i have found a silver washington quarter. also had a buddy bring me a “gold coin” out of a sewer which turned out to be a corroded but shiny 1901 indian head. i have heard from a good source that if there is a defect such as a missing brick in the bottom of an old sewer that coins like gold and silver will get lodged in there. (since theyre so heavy) makes sense. some old brick sewers date back 100 years. they were all built by hand, brick by brick, back in those days. some of the old brick work is actually quite impressive. but its too dangerous and too disgusting to purposely try to collect coins out of old sewers. you could literally be killed by deadly gasses. before anyone goes into a sewer they need to get “shots” to protect from hepatitus, tetanus, a few others. most old manhole steps have rotted away and are now rusty, cruddy “spear points” of rusted iron. one could give way or impale you with a sewery coating. please do not mess with the sewers, trust me!! the coins are ruined by the corrosive sewage anyways.
5) Drove a Honey Wagon at a Mountian RV Park,kind of like a Crap Vacuum truck for cesspools.Found a gold chain that caused a clog in the noslle.When the truck was full I dumped it in open pits on a hill top.made a riffle ramp out of a mid 40s truck bed and some angle iron and dumped into it like a sluice box.Found more treasure.Decided to check all the P traps(sideways S shaped pipe under the sink) and found mens Gold ring with 9 rubys set in it.Posted this story on a dumpster diving thread and noone ever posyed again, thought it must have grossed um out and ended the conversation.
6) This is not the first time I have heard of this. I saw a post a few years back, on another board, about a guy who works at a sewer/water treatment plant. He posted photos of gold and diamonds that the filters caught. He seemed to have a good number of finds. Too nasty for my taste but it just proves treasure is everywhere.
7) I took a course in water treatment plant operation once. A discussion came up about money being flushed (which apparently happens a lot during police raids on drug dealers.) The instructor said that if any bills happened to survive their journey through the pipes, they were pretty much fair game if any of the plant operators wanted to fish them out when they reached the sewage plant. For the heavier stuff, I can see a new field of TH technology being developed: Sewer ROV’s! It’d be safer than going down, though it would take some engineering to figure out how to keep the camera lenses clean.
8) Every once in a while the jetter trucks will show up with a load from a plugged sewer or stormdrain. Usually caused by willow roots,which will go hundreds of feet to find water, or sometimes a line break. They do trap and hold a lot of stuff. The last load I spent 4 hours on gave me $17.42 in clad, 5 rings, 8 earrings 4 cellphones 3 credit cards.. and one bowling ball. 30 lbs of diapers, piles of keys, marbles, corn,lettuce, prophylactics, dead rats,you name it, ti will be there. Most of the new coins are almost gone after only a few months in the sewer. In amongst the coins was a really black 1888 dime and a 1906 one dollar gold coin. Gold and Silver DO discolor in sewage water, it is not Tarnish but a Patina that forms. One of the rings I found this year was an 18k White gold wedding band that is listed in the Zales catalog for $2250.00. Las Vegas treatment plant guys used to fight over who got to go clean the bar screens after a major drug bust.. One of them told me he netted over 1k dollars in greenbacks that were thrown down the toilet during a bust. Rubber gloves, eye protection, old clothes, disinfect, disinfect, disinfect! Even if you see clear looking sewer water do not trust it! I once, by accident, waved a torch over a cup sized spot of clear water on the concrete floor of a basin we were working on. The water was suddenly full of wriggling cooked 4″ colorless worms! You haven’t lived until you are trying to unplug a 2.5 inch line at a pump, and when you reach in and pull out the rags you find a hypodermic syringe and needle laying between two of your fingers..with the needle against your rubber covered palm….
9) having worked in the water and sewer business I can attest that what you heard is true. We have a sump at the main entrance into our pump pit at the Central Plant in Nashville. An old timer told me that when they were able to cut the pumps off and drain the line, he would strip naked and head for the sump. He said that gold would naturally collect there and found a lot. Unfortunately our flows are such that we cannot afford to shut down as they did in the past. Also with stricter EPA regulations if we do go down everyone is working on getting the plant up again and there’s no time for anyone to hit the sump. If I’m still around and they ever take the plant out of service, I want to be there! We also had a guy that would eat his lunch om a wall around the septic tank dump. (I could never do that; the smell would knock me off the wall). When he saw something shiney he would jump into that mess and grab it before it went down the drain. He showed me some of his treasures; gold and silver rings of every type and some with diamonds and other gems.
10) I do work the city wastewater facility. Our collection system is clay tile for the most part, installed in 1970. Our old plant is the round above ground type which is now decommissioned and sorting of the collected grit under the bar screen has started. So far a few junk rings, one loose diamond, broken pieces of gold chain and some earrings have come up in the search. The pile is about the equivilent of a large dump truck full. I’ve only gone through about two wheel barrows full! Of interest I will re-tell the story of the diamonds. We had a camera crew working the creek crossings to see where we might be getting infiltration. The fellas had long scoops that were used to get the grit out of the manhole that had been collected by the jetter used to clean the line before sending in the camera. Well the fella above with the scoop dumped the contents onto a tarp they had laid out. I spotted a little something shining and picked it up sneaky like and walked to the side. Yes we all had on our tyvek and rubber gloves…anyway, it was a loose stone out of a ring which further checked out to be a 3/4 carat diamond. I showed this to my boss who was also my metal detecting buddy. We devised a system of sorts and jetted out a couple of the lines in town we thought would possibly hold some stones and it was only about 300 ft of line. Total take for that was 13 diamonds of various carat, all smaller than the first one, various other loose gemstones, rings, earrings, pieces of gold teeth, gold chains, coins, lots of sharpies like needles and pins and such. Any time we were to handle any grit material with suspect treasures, it was soaked first in a HTH (chlorine for swimming pools) solution overnight to kill all the harmful pathogens and then we still wore nitrile gloves in the recovery process. Sifting, washing, panning to recover the heavies. Diamonds are the heavy of the stones and are easy to spot as they sort of look like drops of water in the water if that makes any sense. In my research was learned that one of the most common causes for lost stones is temperature differential caused by showering or washing dishes. Out pops the stone and down the drain. I’ve been waiting for years and looking forward to getting to go through the 38 year pile. Certainly do learn of possible hazards before attempting any sewer recovery. Pretty good accumulation of cautions in the above posts so I don’t think I need to add any more on that. If you can find places where old facilities dumped the “grit” then you might have a fortune waiting to be found. Most all if not all facilities now have EPA approved sites for dumping and you can’t get in there. Our new state of the art facility has a neat little area where all the heavies settle out before going into the treatment system..
