Unearthed bottles from 1800s found at former Plymouth school site

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One man's trash is another man’s treasure - and that couldn't be more true in Plymouth.
  
Even though that adage is old, it rivals the age of the things Mark Menuck and his brother Craig have unearthed at the old Starkweather school.

"You just can't make it anymore - and even if you could it would cost more than it is worth," said Mark Menuck. "First we just thought it was trash like it really is. And then it became treasure."

An unearthed beer bottle was found from a Detroit brewing company from the late 1800s. Ekhardt and Becker brewing company produced brews bottled like that. Fast forward to today, and see the same bottles unearthed by the Menuck brothers as their crews dug at their construction site. 

"My guess is, it was very rural and this was farmland and this is how they handled their trash. Burn it and bury it," Menuck said.

That's likely why the only thing that survived in the only garbage from the 1800s are pieces of glass-showing us how people lived.  

The Menucks aren't tearing down the historic old school on Holbrook. They're converting it into apartments - restoring and strengthening the bones.  
  
As they dug, they found not just the beer bottle.

"This is stove polish," Menuck said. "It's probably just as old because you can tell by the raised, leaded glass."

FOX 2: "It says infant food on there doesn't it?"

"Yes, it says Melon's Infant Food," Menuck said. "This is the Wolverine Drug Company, Plymouth, Michigan. So this is what a local drug store bottle that was buried here and we found it more than 100 years later."
The city couldn't be more thrilled the historic building is being preserved.  The gift these brothers got, has fueled curiosity and wonder.  The historic items won't travel far.  Lucky renters of this apartment will see it every day They will be in glass cases throughout the apartment. 

FOX 2: "When you see this stuff, what goes through your head?"

"What kind of a lifestyle they had back then," Menuck said. "And what they ever think that 100 and some years later, somebody would find it and care about their lifestyle and their history?"