Cleaning out a privy vault (the walled pit under an outhouse) was probably never anyone’s idea of an ideal gig. For a group of workers cleaning one long-neglected vault at the foundry of F.A. Brown & Company in 1874, the job took an even more unpleasant turn when they made a ghastly discovery buried in the filth.
Their shovels first struck metal in the muck, which was odd. Moments later, a human skull emerged.
More bones followed: ribs, a hand, vertebra. Soon a complete skeleton had been unearthed. Only some rotting boots remained of the clothing, leg bones still in them. The body had been under a large metal plate, as though weighted down that way to keep it from floating up.
Foul play was clearly suspected by Coroner Peirson, who examined the remains before they were thrown into a cart with the other waste and “scattered through the heap of fertilizer on Ed Dauis’s farm.” Peirson and Selectman West made inquiries around town, but turned up nothing save speculation.
The foundry was located by the end of “Mechanics Row,” a short alley off North Street (now known as Market St) with a deeply unsavory reputation. Most of the town’s rum sellers (liquor was illegal) operated there, along with most of Pittsfield’s prostitution and opium trade. Violent disputes and massive brawls were common in the houses and shops along Mechanics Row.
It was thought one of these must have resulted in the man’s death, and the party or parties who did him in weighted down the body in the privy vault. Some local gossips spoke of remembering a certain “drunkard” who’d been seen around the Row some years previously, then stopped being seen. But no clues of any substance ever came along, for the unfortunate John Doe whose remains ended up lining farmer Ed’s fields.
These Mysterious Hills 