OT, Hand Dug Wells, Brick Lined

I've come across several of these in my life and am amazed at the skill and bravery of those that dug them. Imagine being down there with all that dirt above, possible stale air. When you hit water, I'm sure you had do dig a few feet further down. Was there enough support down there for the first ring of brick to be laid.

Anyone out there who has experience with these please reply. What is this cleaning out that keeps being mentioned, was that also done from the bottom up?

What i found:

You get a large cast-iron ring manufactured for this purpose, and set it on the ground where you want the well to be located. I don't see why this ring could not also have been made of stone, or even wood, but it was cast iron in this particular case.

Then, you begin digging out the center of the ring, gradually undermining it. As it sinks, you start building the brick lining on top of the ring, ABOVE ground. You keep this up, and the lining sinks under its own weight as you dig, sliding into the ground. Soon, you have one person digging at the bottom... and another up top, adding the bricks and emptying the buckets of dirt. Eventually the water starts coming in, and you keep digging until you can't continue. He said that the farmers typically waited until until the dry season - the dryer the better... that way, they could be sure that they would have water year round. If they were then hit with a long-term drought, they could use the opportunity to dig existing wells even deeper, by simply starting up the process again - send one person down the hole to dig, and have another up top adding bricks. Cool huh?

I'd have never guessed that's how it was done !!

Not a well, but our cistern is done the same way. It is 30 feet deep and about that across at its deepest. It is bell shaped, so at the top it is only about 6 foot across. It is beautifully done - perfectly laid bricks that haven't settled at all since it was done in '36. It has a spring that feeds it so it self replenishes. I was able to pump it down to three feet of water during our drought but worried that it may collapse without water in to hold the walls so I stopped using it. I have it set up so that I can either feed all of the outside hydrant off of it or switch over to use rural water during a drought. It mostly gets used for watering the garden. It is beside the milkhouse and runs under the milkhouse and out under the yard. It kind of worries me a little every time I drive a tractor over there.

The craftsmanship is just unbelievable. Someone took a lot of pride in something that very few would ever see. A few years back the cement top finally fell in. I built a wood "deck" over it with a door so that I can see down in it easier. I usually measure it with a long pice of rope with a three inch socket on the end for weight. It really is a stunning piece of craftsmanship. I haven't built anything on this farm that even compares.

we have mostly flat rock lined. Rocks are about a foot across . Neighbor had a brick one we took the top off to pull well pump and there must have been 5oo frogs sitting on the ledges. Frog water for sure

Sean describes the right way to do it, particularly in unstable soil such as sand. But in Texas white rock, the metal ring was not used....probably should have been for safety, and no bricks were needed. My father dug a big cistern in 1955...I was 7 yrs old but remember it well because he used lots of dynamite. At about 6-8 ft down the rock turned to a blue solid, full of fossils and thin 1" layers of a soft clay. Dad used this clay to plug water holes from shallow water we hit. He went 30 ft deep, belled out to 15 ft wide at the bottom, all solid blue rock. He would drill 1.5" holes in the rock with a big electric drill motor, then stuff a half stick of dynamite in the hole with a blast cap and fuse, pack the hole full of mud clay, and light it. Not a single rock would exit the top since the dynamite blew down, fragmenting the rock which was then taken out via a cable and bucket system Dad built. It took over a year to finish. He ran all the gutters from our house into it and it stayed full up to 6 ft from the top almost year round. We watered our hogs and cattle from it for years but did not use for our domestic human use, and it still holds water.

Bought this place where we now live and it was several old farms. So far we have found 4 of those perfectly dug and laid brick cisterns. Could not have dug with the iron ring deal because in all the top is probably 4 ft across and at the bottom they may be 12 to 15 ft around. Have good solid pen fences around all the entrances. Some are curbed up above ground level but have one that is ground level. Man could walk right off in it.

There is a story in the Foxfire books that an old welldigger told. It's well worth reading - I remember he said that when you are in the bottom and look up, the circle of daylight at the top looks as big as a dime. And then there was the time some smart alec pitched a cat in with him. I think he was forced to kill the cat - it was all over him - and when he finally got out the cat pitcher was long gone.

Our farm here, my grandmothers and another old farmstead long gone now had 2 of these in close proximity to each other, still there today, but I recall them 35 years ago, all flat stone lined. I have a photo of the one near the front porch of our old house, it had the hand pump and was covered with a concrete lid or so it appears. This place had a drilled well later on, no sure how deep, but the old time driller that did it, also did the one here at the house, the old up and down rig, nothing was turning. He mentioned that the aquifer here could supply an unlimited supply, based on what he saw in his lifetime of doing this. That was in the late 70's and that rig he had, I wish I had a photo of it, it was ancient looking then, the truck it was on was late 30's or so.

We too had a brick cistern, behind the barns up into the field a little, when they excavated the area nearby they discovered it, must not have been in use, there was burnt garbage in it, bricks are still floating around, and the worst was the lead pipe, that heavy flexible stuff, I still have a nice length of it that I recall from then, turned up somewhere near where it was. I can't imagine using lead pipe for potable water, humans or livestock, guess they did not know back then.

That old well had caved in at the bottom!

My daddy used an IH TD14A to fill in his great grandfathers old well in 1967. When the first blade of dirt went down the hole, the ground gave way under him,leaving the machine teetering over the hole. As he ease the clutch in to back up, he remembered hearing his grandpa saying that the last time it was cleaned out, he could have turned a team and buggy around it the bottom! That well used a square wooden box for curbing.

Went in a well when I was 16. Farmer said it was not supplying the water it used to. Hand dug in the 1800s. Rock stacked up around the bottom.
It was a very cold day and I remember how comfortable it was in there. Looked up and the opening did look to be the size of a dime.
Had a light on a cord and found a cave on one side about 5 feet deep. Saw 2 eyes looking back at me. It was a snake that was hibernating. I did not mess with it and it never moved. I was over 50 feet down.
Richard in NW SC

Well I'll be darned.

My story is similar to Smalltowner's: when I was about 10, my folks decided to begin dairy farming. Problem, the place didn't have a good well. Somebody witched a spot and Dad started digging. Here in north Louisiana the geology is all sedimentary--no rock other that an occasional sandstone outcropping.

Well, Dad got down to about 35 feet when he hit one of those sandstone boulders. It was probably the only one on the entire 200 acres, but he found it. He hammered and pecked and chipped for days without making a dent. Finally he went to the hardware store and brought home some dynamite; I don't remember how much, but more than one stick.

He dropped an anvil into the hole, and my uncle lowered him and the dynamite, which he covered with the anvil and lots of clay. He lit the fuze and my uncle hauled him up. Kaboom! The anvil came shooting out of the hole like a cannonball, landing in the field a couple of hundred feet away. When the hole cleared of smoke Dad went back down to find the rock intact, none the worse for his efforts. (Big sigh. Obscenities.)

He filled hole, moved over a hundred feet, and started digging again, this time with better results. He found water at about 45 feet; it was hard and bitter, but it was wet and plentiful. It wasn't brick-lined; it had cast round concrete curbing.

Instead of the anvil, he should have mud packed one stick at a time to break it up.

On my land you go down 2' or more the ground is clay and would pose no threat of the sides falling in. The threat would be shooting yourself for having to dig through it. 10' down it gets so hard a bulldozer won't dig it.

Local farmer hired a couple of guys to hand dig a well on his place. They hit solid limestone about 20 feet down. Farmer hired a self-proclaimed dynamite expert to loosen the ledge for removal. Benny would hand drill a hole, place a portion of a stick with a generous fuse, and tamp it good. Then he'd light it, scramble up the wooden ladder, and he and the other guys would pull the ladder out and get back. Clean out the hole and repeat over and over, until he had one charge of dynamite, and a little short piece of fuse left. Benny said he was done, but the others convinced him that the short piece of fuse was plenty long (they were on top looking in). Benny set the charge in the last hole, packed it good, and the old farmer said he placed one foot on the bottom rung as he bent over with the kitchen match. When the fuse lit, Benny spun around and broke the first two rungs on the ladder, then broke more rungs on the way to the top. The farmer said Benny just made it to the top and rolled out as the charge went off, while all the onlookers barely got their heads out of the way of the blast as it blew chunks of ladder all over the yard. Benny was trained (he said) in explosives in WWII. He had several other less colorful local mishaps, but he was forever referred to as "Dynamite Expert".

That sounds dangerous as H@ll if you ask me with all those bricks being above the man that's in the hole.

After reading all the stories makes me tell the stories I was told.

An old neighboring farmer who was in his late 60's when I was 16 told me when he was a kid he dug wells. Getting the bricks started was the hard part while water was running in. Said he wouldn't ever do it again.

My Uncle told me that they would use the steel rings off of wooden wheels and lower it down as you dug to make sure the whole was round. Then as you went deeper you always made sure the dirt bucket was in the center of the hole. This told you that you were digging straight down and not at an angle. My uncle had the old home made wooden hoist they used to lower the buckets up and down with. One full bucket of dirt would come up while the empty was going down. Then just the opposite with the bricks. Full buckets going down with empties coming up.

Then the last story I was told was one my Dad told us. When he was a kid he said they had a neighbor who went down in a well with a lantern to check out and clean the well. Lone behold when he got down deep enough there was flammable gas that was heavier than air that had settled into the well. It ignited -exploded and killed the man. So be careful when going into a well.

We have a well back home that was under a windmill. It's 93ft deep and all brick lined. Use to have 13 of water in it.