Privies

[Larry Koschkee]

Personal hygiene and sanitation practices on the frontier does not get discussed much... only a whisper here, and maybe a whisper there.

I have first hand experience with the reliance on privies, "outhouses," "backhouses," and such. First time while growing up on a small farm in the 'driftless' area of southwest Wisconsin. My family did not get indoor plumbing until I was eight years old. Father tried to provide some creature comfort by installing electricity for a light and a "milkhouse" heater. Since then I have visited several privies at scout camps, fishing and hunting camps, rural town halls and rural schools, etc. Presently, I have a privy in use near a log cabin tucked back in a hollow located in southwest Wisconsin. Oh yes, I almost forgot about the "two holer" I built back in my back- to- the land "hippy" days spent trying to survive in a subsistence farming adventure.

Privies or refuse pits can tell us alot about different cultures and eras. I have spent many volunteer hours at archaeological digs sifting through refuse pits of Native American sites. In addition, another gentleman and I have investigated Wisconsin frontier homestead sites with metal detectors and ground penetrating radar. You probably have heard of the term 'dumpster diving' well we were doing something similiar only it was not a dumpster. Privy holes, pits or as I prefer to call them... privy shafts were discovered and excavated. It truly is amazing what the people on the frontier discarded (or lost) down the hole.

Artifacts were identified and cataloged that were found in the shaft but, I always pondered what the structure on top of the shaft looked like. Is there "out house" architecture common to Andy Jackson's America on the frontier?

On this message board we have discussed "highland Southerner" log construction prevelant in the Mining District.. can we identify common "outhouse" architecture construction characteristics?

It is interesting to imagine what Dodge, Gratiot, Meeker, Rountree, Jones, etc. would have erected on their shafts. Ok... maybe not interesting to most people. I prefer to explore the entire historical picture of day to day life on the frontier.

Very few historical sites exhibit the entire scene. Why are there not more "outhouses" on display?

Some of us are familiar with the Parkinson Prairie Springs Hotel in Lafayette County, WI. There is a "outhouse" facsimile (or non-functional) on the site. At least the volunteer workers tried to express some realism on the scene.

Larry Koschkee

[Robert Braun]

Very interesting topic, Larry... and I write this in all seriousness. History is not just about the story of "Gods and Generals..." it is the story too of the mundane, the every day, and the commonplace. And you are quite correct in observing that few among us in our readings pause to consider the great men and women of history pausing in THEIR daily activities to do what nearly all of us need to do once every eighteen hours.

In the book Vanishing American Outhouse by Ronald S. Barlow, several ornate outhouses dating from the 1830s are/were known to exist outside historic homes. Their frame construction is clearly too ornate for the carpetry skills probably most prevelant in the Mineral District.

This book also points out gender identification now seemingly lost to modern people-- who only associate the half-moon vent with outhouses! Reportedly, the half or crescent moon, long the symbol of Diana the Huntress, meant a facility for the ladies; a vent cut in the shape of a sunburst-- for Sol or the male god Apollo-- indicated "men." After some consideration, I rather doubt that gender-focused outdoor facilities were a practical consideration in the Mineral District!

Another point of consideration was a facility I am comfortable in concluding was used to some extent in the 1820s-1830s... the time honored "thunder mug" or chamber pot. ALong with the reconstructed privey at Prairie Springs Hotel... I am pleased to point out a similar thread of realism at the reconstructed Apple River Fort. At ARF, the site manager has had the detailed forsight to place earthenware chamber pots near several beds in the blockhouse and in the miner's cabin.

They also make handy cuspidors!

ADIOS! Bob.

[Larry Koschkee]

Thanks for your comments on the subject, Bob. Just a couple more comments here. It is interesting to note the significance of the crescent moon and sunburst shapes and their purpose for venting. I would submit, however, the shapes functioned better as a source of light rather than vents. Typically, early privies were fully enclosed and later "models" incorporated various forms of vent stacks. The US Department of Agriculture came out with several bulletins in the 1930s and 1940s with dubious venting designs. I have experimented with various designs and find good results with screened trapdoor openings in the shaft chamber and eaves.

In addition, to proper venting I have incorporated various sized windows scrounged from time to time. Privacy was considered in the placement on the building , but in some cases sacrificed for a panoramic view.

At one point I incorporated the composting techniques observed in a 1968 18 month overseas vacation to Vietnam. There the privies did not have shafts. They were built on top of a box with a trapdoor in the rear. Human waste was mixed with vegatative materials and because of the heat and humidity the matter composted fairly quick. The composted material was then spread on gardens and fields. This practice does not do well in a northern climate because of a short composting season.

The single most significant improvement to privy design is the addition of a styrofoam seat for those bone-chilling days and nights.

Early privies in the Mining District were probably very crude until sawmills started to show up in the late 1820s. Milled lumber was easier to work with then hewn or split logs. If the miners or settlers wanted pine building materials it was available from St Louis, but very expensive. Pine was scarce in the Mining District. There were some red cedar trees hanging on to the naked bluffs of the Mississippi and some White Pine relics scattered here and there, usually on high rocky ground or deep rock crevices where the pine escaped centuries of prairie fires. It was not until Jared Warner erected a sawmill in what is now Millville Township in Grant County in the year 1839 that pine became readily available in the District. Warner had discovered a southern lobe of the great Wisconsin pineries extending into the Kickapoo River watershed in present day Crawford and Vernon Counties. He hired logging and rafting crews to harvest the timber. Most historians agree that Warner was the first "Lumber Baron" in Wisconsin. His mills brought the miners and settlers out of their frontier log cabins into stick built homes, hotels, businesses as sophisticated as back east. They rocked their babies in pine cradles, buried their dead in pine boxes and built respectable privies.

Larry Koschkee

[Robert Braun]

As always.. great material here.

I have been informed (but have not as yet confirmed) that saw pits perhaps provided some of the boards necessary for certain construction in the District and elsewhere until the large sawmill outfits took over. Your thoughts?

Also...was there not also a sawmill at the Rock River Rapids, post-BHW, at present day Hustisford? 'Koch's Mill' or something like that...

ADIOS! Bob.

[Larry Koschkee]

You raise a valid point, Bob, there probably were some pit saws in use during the early days of the Mining District, in fact a friend of mine, Mr. Will Storrs has some walnut plank boards that were removed from a log structure in the vicinity of the old mining settlements of Buncombe and Natchez in southwestern Lafayette County. Gosh!, it was some thirty years ago that he showed them to me. The planks had the tell- tale markings of being ripped with a pit saw. The markings were - /////// versus the up and down strokes of a water powered saw - IIIIII or circular saw - )))))).

Mr. Storrs researched the building before it was razed... tried to get the Lafayette Historical Society to back a restoration project but to know avail. At any rate Will was able to take pictures and salvage some of the material before it went up in smoke.

If memory serves me correctly, the planks were not set in for flooring but were a room partition. The planks laid horizontally, were pinned with hand shapped dowels to vertical round posts (studs). The thickness of the planks varied between 2 1/2 and 3 inches. Width was 12 to 18 inches. The edges of the boards indicated the walnut log had been squared with axe and broad axe before it was sawed.

Post-1827 Winnebago War, and pre-BHW water-powered sawmills began to show up. Several sites are mentioned in the three county history books... Iowa, Grant and Lafayette.
Henry Gratiot's saw mill on the Wolf River near present day village of Gratiot ties right into what we are discussing. ...early in 1828, he came into this town accompanied by John Curtiss, and located the Wolf River mill privilege and the land in the vicinity, where the village of Gratiot now stands, on Section 9. Mr. Gratiot's object at the time was to establish a saw-mill where he could obtain lumber for building at the Grove mining camp..

From the genesis of Euro-american mining activity until the late 1820s and early 1830s when saw-mills came on the scene, I would suggest the miners were pre-occupied with extracting mineral rather then wanting to spend time working a pit saw that may only produce 15 boards per day... and a long day at that. But on the other hand slave owners may have made more use of pit saws.

Hmmmm.... 15 boards per day... you wouldn't want to expend all that time and labor then nail it to the sides of an "outhouse."

Saw-mill at Hustisford? The only one I am aware of is the one John Hustis put in shortly after arriving at the rapids in 1836.

Larry Koschkee