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The outhouse seat: No longer just for sitting

By ROBERT KYLE
Antique Week Correspondent

The once ubiquitous outhouse has been the butt of jokes for decades. From poems and songs to calendars and coffee table books, tribute has been paid to the little building off in the distance once so vital to life.

They’re known by a variety of names: necessary, privy, boghouse, thunderbox, dunny, biffy, temple, throne, kybo, longdrop, earth closet and jakes. As well as some names that are best left out of print.

Since man lived in caves, all societies around the world have had to address the problem of how to dispose of the by-products of human habitation. As early as 600 B.C. ancient Rome had developed the prototype of the modern sanitation system. Called Cloaca Maxima, it may sound like a Hollywood gladiator movie but it’s an efficient drainage system named for Cloacina, the goddess of sewers.

London in the 16th century employed shadowy “nightmen” who appeared after dark to remove “nightsoil” from homes and cart it out of town. They were also known as “gong farmers.”

American outhouses are remembered with fondness, nostalgia and humor. Reproductions are available for the person who wants the look but not the function. They are sold as tool and potting sheds. Other faux privies can be found in “outhouse races” included as part of small town annual celebrations. Built to resemble the real McCoy, they are pulled or pushed to the finish line for a prize.

In West Virginia, the town of West Union got a whiff of how important outhouses are to their residents during its 125th anniversary in 2006. When a flatbed truck delivering fresh outhouses drew a loud applause when it appeared as the last vehicle in the parade, event planners created an Outhouse Float Category for all future anniversary processions.

Few old outhouses dot the countryside today. Time and weather has taken its toll on the wood frame construction. Despite their dilapidated exterior, outhouses may contain treasures inside. Protected from the elements, the humble outhouse seat has often survived rather well. Generally made of a solid plank of one-inch board, and sometimes painted, they have endured when the rest of the little house has disintegrated.

Some collectors equate them with primitive folk art. Each seat is different. Each family made its own, thus individuality and uniqueness are their trademarks. A plank can have one hole or three. Some holes have protective lids. Some holes are wider than others, and some are shaped to accommodate the anatomy of the user. Some are round, others more oval.

“Commercial” outhouses, those used for churches and schools, will often have a single hole. That’s because each gender got its own facility. Out of courtesy, the women’s outhouse was closer to the building and, for privacy, a good distance from the men’s.

The family outhouse was often a multi-holer. Like the designated hitter position in baseball, each family member had a designated hole. The notion of three to five people needing to go all at once is unlikely.

Double-decker outhouses were built in regions where a heavy snowfall would block the door of the ground-level facility. A ladder would take the user upstairs.

While the two-holer is fairly common and the three-holer a prize to find, the five-hole outhouse is often associated with wealthy families. An 18th century mansion, Poplar Hill, once part of a 7,000-acre land grant called “His Lordship’s Kindness” in what is now Clinton, Md., has not only a large deluxe outhouse building made of brick but a five-holer inside. Prestigious historic homes in Colonial Williamsburg also have privies with accommodations for five.

How to put an old outhouse seat to good use depends on its owner. Dennis Thomas, President Ronald Reagan’s deputy chief of staff, decorates the barn’s bathroom on his Maryland farm with a three-holer. Some seat owners put a mirror in the hole and hang it on the wall. Others transform the seats into rustic frames for photos.
There’s another group who sees the outhouse seat hole as a portal into the past. Archeologists for many years have excavated the deep pits under the seat to find clues to everyday life.

Toothbrushes, inkwells, lamps, false teeth, bottles, marbles, jewelry, porcelain doll parts, clay pipes, stoneware, guns, knives, utensils, money and animal bones have been unearthed by scientists.

Pits generally were dug 5-6-feet deep, but 15-20-foot shafts have also been discovered. It was standard for the walls of the holes to be reinforced with wood, brick or stone to prohibit collapsing.
While archeologists may use old maps and surveys to find outhouse sites, another group of explorers employs steel rods to find their prey.

Bottle collectors avidly seek outhouse locations. The rod tells them when they’ve struck loose soil or an object. After obtaining permission to dig, they devote many labor-intensive hours to removing soil and debris in a quest to hit pay dirt. A pre-Civil War bitters bottle can be worth in excess of $15,000. Late 19th century bottles can bring several hundred dollars each.

While most families in 19th century America had a single outhouse, it didn’t always remain in the same location. Over time, usually 8-10  years, the pit fills up. The building is moved and a new pit dug. This procedure occurred four or five times. Each pit is a time capsule into a family’s life.

A newlywed’s first pit may have beer, wine and perfume bottles. A second pit reveals the presence of young children when doll parts are found. The final pit, closer to the house, often contains many medicine bottles indicative of old age and illness.

When modern plumbing was introduced to rural America in the 1930s, the earth closet became the indoor “water closet.” The old outhouse either fell apart or was used as a storage building. Some of the seats managed to survive, and today show up at country auctions and even on eBay. If purchased online, often the shipping charge is greater than the cost of the seat.

Romance writer Suzanne McMinn, who lives on a farm in West Virginia, has published more than 20 novels but the sight of an old outhouse really stirs her passion.

“I just love them,” she said. “To me, they represent a simpler time when life was based more on self-sustainability and function rather than on ease and extravagance. Like old barns and old farmhouses, old outhouses are another segment of the crumbling relics of rural life that are quickly vanishing as they are either falling down or are torn down by those who don’t appreciate their historical quality.

“I photograph them to document them, and I write about them to hopefully inspire people to think of them as something more valuable than crumbing shacks. It’s fun to find a ‘good’ outhouse, one not updated and genuinely historical. It’s exciting to open the door and see what’s inside. One seat, two seats, three seats?
“It often involves a good clamber over a hillside and a little dash of danger since, wherever it is, I’m probably not supposed to be there.

I’m always on the watch for them whenever I’m driving around country roads.” McMinn’s “Chickens in the Road” website with her outhouse and rural life photos is found at www.suzannemcminn.com

9/23/2009