LEWISBURG, Pa. — Robert E. Lee III stands in a hole behind the gallery building on North Water Street in Lewisburg. He's digging into history, looking for treasures more than 100 years old.
“This was a golden opportunity for me to recover those potteries to use in these reenactments as far as a showpiece and a demonstrative piece, and then I go into the who maybe as far as the naming or anything I got I could get into the lineage and history behind that,” said Robert E. Lee III, master ceramist.
Lee is digging in an outhouse where an old tavern and hotel used to stand in the 1800s. The borough of Lewisburg didn't install a sewage system until the 1900s. The hole where Lee is digging was used for people to throw their garbage. So far, Lee has found antique dishes, a pipe, and other items.
”That's pretty unique, you know, and the fact that you found it intact—you just pray for that, there are breweries in here, there's a whiskey or two,” said Lee.
Lee started the dig early Thursday morning and plans to continue into Friday. He's digging seven to eight feet down into the outhouse, using different tools to help him find the treasures.
“Just a scraper, a little hand scraper, that's just to riff away—for the most part, you're kind of raking down through stuff then shovel that to a point, and I shovel that out, I’m looking through all of that as well just so we're not throwing little things or anything—marbles, little tiny things,” added Lee.
Lee plans to show off his findings at the gallery in Lewisburg, Union County, this Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
"There's a table or two, a lot of this again, is just for repair down the road and then that puts a future demonstration putting out later,” said Lee.
Lee tells us he would like to set up classes in the future to get children involved in archeological digging.