One of the richest spots as far as desirable bottles was "Yankee Chagres" That was the name of a town at the mouth of the Chagres River. Fort San Lorenzo was on one side of the river and Yankee Chagres was on the other side. The old map depicted Yankee Chagres as a few buildings, the only one I remember now was called "Customs House". That is typical isn't it, the government then is just like the government today, always looking to get their hand in the pockets of the common man, or woman as the case may be.
The site was right on the bank of the Chagres River. The jungle had reclaimed all. There was nothing on top of the ground that even suggested that people hand lived there 150 years before. The jungle had grown over and the bottles had sunk into the mud and were about 3 to 6 feet below the surface. The ground was red with a little clay so the mud was sticky. The level of the river was just a couple feet below so much of the time we were digging under the water.
The site of Yankee Chagres yielded bottles dating from 1848 to about the Civil War. The bottles were in fantastic condition, being protected by the mud they were in for 150 years. The spot yielded hundreds of the most prized bottles ever dug. blob top sodas, mineral waters, bitters, poisons, inks, medicines. All the bottle from the time of the 49'ers and most of them pontiled with open pontil and graphite pontils, all applied lips, and the most beautiful cobalt blues, emerald greens, and black glass all in perfect mint condition.
Maybe I shouldn't tell this part of the story. That is how I came to dig at this prized spot. I wish I could say that I discovered it. I had visited the spot before because it is shown on one of the maps that I bought. The settlement of Yankee Chagres is plainly shown on the map at the mouth of the Chagres River. I visited the place and didn't find the treasure. The bottle collectors on the Caribbean side of the Canal Zone formed a club called Antique Bottle Collectors de Panama. At one of the meetings a fellow brought some fantastic bottles to show. As soon as I saw those bottles I suspected they were from Yankee Chagres. The gentleman with the bottles said that he would eventually divulge the spot to the club membership but wanted to dig there a few more times alone.
They were all American made bottles, sodas, mineral waters. There was only one way to get to the Yankee Chagres location and that was to cross the canal and cross the river. A fellow bottle collector and myself got up early on Saturday and waited at the crossing. We didn't know for sure that he would dig that day and we didn't know for sure that the spot was on the other side of the river. We speculated and waited. He did dig that day, and he did cross the river. We followed him to a place close to the spot. We waited a few minutes and then showed up to dig as if nothing was up. I know he was not happy and I can't blame him. The spot then became known to all. For a while there would be a dozen diggers there at a time. Some got sick from sitting in the rotten water digging. I didn't get sick, I just got some of the most beautiful bottles in my collection from the old site of Yankee Chagres.
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