The morning of October 7th dawned cool and slightly overcast, a typical morning for upstate New York. Little did we know that surprises were in store for us. Rob Lloyd of Windsor, Ontario, and I had decided to attend the Ann Arbor, Michigan Bottle Show, so we thought we'd do a little digging along the way. 

We left my house in Lima, New York around 7:00 a.m. and headed for Canada via the "scenic route", first going north to Rochester, and then turning west along the shore of Lake Ontario. The trees still retained much of their fall colors, the lake was dotted with fishing boats and we passed acres of fully-laden apple trees. Our mouths watering, we stopped at a roadside stand and purchased a half bushel. Climbing back into the truck we continued west, now munching contentedly. Having gone less than a mile, we spotted that telltale aqua color at one of those "perpetual yard sales". Naturally, I "locked them up" and returned for a look-see. Most were common, but we did pick up a CD 210 Postal and a butterscotch O-B porcelain for 50 cents each. Unfortunately, that was all that New York had to offer on this trip. 

We crossed the border at Niagara Falls, and decided to take a break and play tourist for awhile. We viewed the Horseshoe and American Falls while we had lunch, stretched our legs, and then hurriedly headed for Michigan, still some six hours away. 

Once you leave the Niagara Peninsula, most of southern Ontario is pretty flat, given over mainly to farming and tobacco growing. We passed several railroad lines that were old enough to have used threadless, but we believed these lines had been heavily worked in the 1970's by both the Banks and the Plunkett families, and hadn't yielded much in recent years. 

We had driven another hour or so when I spotted an old power line running near a factory area. Hoping for a discarded multi-part or two, I talked my partner into taking a quick look. After fighting through thick brush for about a 1/ 4 mile, Rob called out that he had found something. No not an insulator, but a bunch of them. On the side of an embankment were lots of broken insulators (as well as tires, bottles, washing machines, etc). Almost everything was smashed, but what a variety CD 252 Knowles and No.2 cables, Hemingray and Brookfield signals, porcelain signs, cables, and multi-parts, as well as bushings and electrical hardware.

We spent some time rooting around but had very little to show for our efforts. I left Rob to dig out an extremely large multi, and worked my way around the edge of the dump looking for strays. I discovered a railroad siding nearby, and started walking parallel to it. After crawling through brambles and hawthorns, I had traveled no more than a hundred feet when I spied some glass laying under a bush. No, not a Hemingray 42, but a CD 119 W. BROOKFIELD - O'BRIENS PATENT!!!! In dark aqua, no less! The dome was popped off, but was laying right there with it. I grabbed up both halves, took a quick look around (less I fall over any more), and went for reinforcements. 

Barely able to suppress by excitement, I handed just the dome to Rob and asked his opinion. "A toll, with mold line over dome?" he replied without much interest. "Well, it does fit nicely on this!" I said, as I reunited the two pieces.

Needless to say, he was duly impressed, and the large multi was quickly forgotten. We returned to the scene of the find, and Rob quickly located the top portion of another O'Brien. Leaves and dirt began to fill the air -- but only to reveal some Hemingray 9's, a broken CD 160 H.G.CO. and a small Pittsburg type multi. We had spent another 30 minutes raking and scanning the area when Rob called out "I've got another O'Brien!" Sure, enough, this one a near mint beauty! We reluctantly called off the search a short time later on account of darkness. 

We couldn't believe our good fortune, and repeatedly admired our finds during the rest of the drive. While we congratulated ourselves we couldn't help but speculate as to the "why, how and when" of these pieces. We came up with many hypotheses but no real answers. A letter to N.R. Woodward gave us some information on the CD 119's. Most of those in collections are a light aqua color, with very few showing up in the typical Brookfield dark aqua. The thirty or so that he knew about had all come from Uruguay, South America. He has heard of specimens being found in the U.S., but has never seen any of them.

Epilogue: Yes, this story has a happier ending! We returned to the same area two weeks later. After about two intensive hours of digging and raking leaves, my "buddy" Rob came up with another O'Brien. It was laying partially exposed in a spot we had both criss-crossed about a dozen times! Not to be outdone, a short time later I found the impression of the broken piece that Rob had discovered on our previous visit. Careful raking revealed four other pieces of it, with barely a flake missing. However, that was it for the rest of the day.

We ended up with three whole O'Briens and one broken one which repaired beautifully. Are there any more? We haven't found them yet, but who knows?

My appreciation to N.R. Woodward and Kevin Lawless for their help and information regarding the CD 119 O'Brien.