Outhouse connoisseur provides positive spin on rancid hobby
By Laura Sweeney
Friends of Madonna University Library welcomed Tony Panepucci, the Privy Historian, to share his passion for “digging up the past” on Thursday, Oct. 8.
On his free time, Panepucci digs up old outhouses, along with the history of the people who previously lived there. He brought some of his discoveries and shared stories of others, including old beer bottles, ink bottles, fire extinguishers, and a one-time occurrence of human bones.
Thirty years ago, Panepucci found his new favorite past time by uncovering it on a hunting trip in Boyne City, Mich. He came across an old dump and, while digging through it, found an old tea pot. 
He started to learn about the skill of digging up old outhouses and began searching around old, abandoned places. Now, to find outhouses in the area, Panepucci goes to libraries and asks for the oldest map of the neighborhoods to see where old houses used to be located. Then, he starts knocking on doors.
One important point to understand is that people did not just have one use for their outhouses. Outhouses were also used as a place to put their garbage when people did not want to go to the city dump.
Sometimes when people think of outhouses, they think of old, smelly bathrooms. The smell factor is a popular question, according to Panepucci.
“When you get into there, there’s no smell whatsoever. Everyone goes ‘Ewww.’ It’s not like that. The only way you can really tell by the soil that you’re down there is raspberry seeds. The human body won’t digest that,” said Panepucci. Then he added with excitement, “They grow, they grow! I mean, the next year when we come back to the site where we dug, there’s raspberry bushes. These are real heirloom raspberry bushes.”
Now, after digging up many outhouses on this side of the state, he goes around giving presentations about all of the old bottles, silverware, dolls, and old clay pipes he has found.
Panepucci showed how he dates the bottles based on their production and how they were made. After knowing the age of the bottles, he can then judge the age of the outhouse and who the items belonged to during that time.
He shared some stories about the companies that produced the bottles, wth a majority dating to the mid 1800s and early 1900s.
Some of the bottles he found stopped being produced after the Food and Drugs Act of 1906, where companies were required to put all of the ingredients on the bottles’ labels and no longer allowed the use of the word “cure”.
“There was a big, fancy bottle that had a picture of a skeleton beating down on a guy and it was a fungus ... a fungus destroyer,” said Panepucci. However, after 1906 he said it was made known that it contained “99 percent red wine and 1 percent water.” The company, like many, went out of business once people knew what they were ingesting.
The most memorable story Panepucci told involved a 1890s outhouse that contained more than old bottles and artifacts. It contained bones.
“‘I don’t know that bone,’” Panepucci said to himself when he found the first one. “I’m a butcher I know my bones. Another one came up.” Again, he did not recognize it. The third bone was a femur and he now knew what kind of bones he found, human bones.
“I chickened out on digging the rest of the hole,” said Panepucci. “The guys I was with were fighting over it.”
The others continued to dig out the hole, and by the end they had a whole pile. The bones were given to the police. After many studies were conducted, and because of their research, they figured it out.
“They finally decided they were 1,500 year old Indian bones,” said Panepucci. The audience gasped with amazement. This story showed Panepucci never knows what he will dig up next.
When asked what his favorite artifact was, he replied “Whatever I am going to find tomorrow.” He explained there are a lot of favorites, but he truly enjoys the hunt of finding something new.
A lot of the items he digs up he does not save. Instead, he allows the current home owners to keep at least half of his findings. After 30 years of digging, he only keeps a few favorites from his digs to add to his very large collection.
“It’s been an interesting journey,” said Panepucci. “It’s my passion. Anything that’s your passion you’ll get good at.”
