Episode #0291

 

Complete this phrase: "Willie didn't like the idea that there was going to be a female in the house on a regular basis because it meant he and Barnabas could no longer..."

Willie didn't like the idea that there was going to be a female in the house on a regular basis because it meant he and Barnabas could no longer leave the outhouse seat up all the time.

I know some fans love to make fun that the Old House had an outhouse. However, I can't go one more second without pointing out that (and this isn't directed at any one fan in particular because several have been guilty  ):

• The flush toilet was invented in 1596 by John Harrington
• First valve-type flush toilet was introduced in 1738 by a man named J.F. Brondel (J.F. Bronde)
• Alexander Cummings invented the Strap, a sliding valve between the bowl and the trap in 1775.
• Samuel Prosser applied for and received a patent for a plunger toilet in 1777.
• Joseph Bramah altered the design in  1778 so that it had a valve at the bottom of the bowl that worked on a hinge, a predecessor to the modern ballcock.

And something tells me the Collinses were rich enough to have had the latest toilets installed in the Old House when it was constructed in 1767 - and the facilities were probably upgraded with each new innovation (Revolutionary War be damned!).    The idea of Joshua Collins - or any members of that generation of the family, for that matter - actually using an outhouse is patently absurd! I suspect they would rather have been dead. 

smoke cigars  and leave open Playboy magizines all over the house.

"Willie didn't like the idea that there was going to be a female in the house on a regular basis because it meant he and Barnabas could no longer make cookies with their EZ Bake oven without embarrassment."

"Willie didn't like the idea that there was going to be a female in the house on a regular basis because it meant he and Barnabas could no longer make cookies with their EZ Bake oven without embarrassment."

LOL and congrands.

I know some fans love to make fun that the Old House had an outhouse. However, I can't go one more second without pointing out that (and this isn't directed at any one fan in particular because several have been guilty  ):

• The flush toilet was invented in 1596 by John Harrington
• First valve-type flush toilet was introduced in 1738 by a man named J.F. Brondel (J.F. Bronde)
• Alexander Cummings invented the Strap, a sliding valve between the bowl and the trap in 1775.
• Samuel Prosser applied for and received a patent for a plunger toilet in 1777.
• Joseph Bramah altered the design in  1778 so that it had a valve at the bottom of the bowl that worked on a hinge, a predecessor to the modern ballcock.

And something tells me the Collinses were rich enough to have had the latest toilets installed in the Old House when it was constructed in 1767 - and the facilities were probably upgraded with each new innovation (Revolutionary War be damned!).    The idea of Joshua Collins - or any members of that generation of the family, for that matter - actually using an outhouse is patently absurd! I suspect they would rather have been dead. 

Actually...in 1795, outhouses were so common that no one thought anything about them. Outhouses in 1795 were not backwards. They were an advancement over going into the woods and squatting or using a tree. Joshua, Barnabas, Naomi, Sarah, Josette, they all used the outhouse. Or the chamber pot. Or the woods, if the need arose.

In fact, in big cities, there was such a lack of plumbing and ways of carrying away waste that people dumped night soil from bed pans into their cellars and basements and even into the street. Outhouses *might* be cleaned out by a nightsoil man from time to time, if you had the money, but mostly the sewage lingered there to rot. London in 1795, certainly much more advanced than a backwater village such as Collinsport of the same year, had no drainage for sewage. In fact no sewage system existed (except to take away rainwater), hence the epidemics of the 1850s that generated (finally) an interest in creating a sewer system, instead of just using the River Thames. Indoor plumbing was too new, even in the early 1800’s, to be readily accepted, and certainly was not accepted until there was the infrastructure to support it. That infrastructure in London wasn't created until the late 1850's, and as I recall, NYC developed theirs some time after that. So even as they had toilet designs with valves and bowls and hinges, there was no way to hook the toilets up to anything to make them useful. Especially not in Maine.

Consider the fact that they didn’t even have water pumps in 1795 in Maine. They were still using wells for water in that part of the country until at least the 1820's. New York City might have had a few pumps in 1795, but they were few and far between and made of wood. The pipes that supported the few pumps that did exist were made of wood as well, and had the tendency to rot and burst. No such water pumps have been documented in the any part of Maine, and not north of Frenchman Bay, where Collinsport is said to be located in 1795. So, if upstate Maine didn’t have the plumbing for a pump, they certainly wouldn’t have had the plumbing for an indoor toilet.

As much as some might want the Collins family to have an indoor toilet, all the technology in the world would not make up for the fact that the availability of enough water pressure, pipes, and a plumber to install such a thing in 1795 in what was not yet the state of Maine was somewhat lacking. Indoor plumbing was invented, but not used until much later, and then only in big cities. Just because something was invented, doesn’t mean it was adopted for common use.

Check out the non-fiction research book A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, which is available on amazon.com. This book carefully researches the day to day life of the real people of Maine, both the rich and the poor. No mention of indoor plumbing is made, though there are plenty of references to dumping nightsoil from chamberpots onto the garden for fertilizer.

Yours in Research,

MaineGirl

Ah, but you see the Collinses didn't need a sewage system or plumbing. In well-to-do 18th century homes, it was often customary for toilets to be located in rooms outside the main structure of the house but connected to and still a part of it with no need to actually leave the house to access them. (How was the waste disposed of without a sewage system or plumbing? Well, we won't go into that here - but it's easily discovered via a Google search.  ) And despite Collinsport being a backwater, the Collinses themselves were extremely well-to-do - ergo... The Collinses laughed at the mere mortals who had to use outhouses! 

Ah, but you see the Collinses didn't need a sewage system or plumbing. In well-to-do 18th century homes, it was often customary for toilets to be located in rooms outside the main structure of the house but connected to and still a part of it with no need to actually leave the house to access them. (How was the waste disposed of without a sewage system or plumbing? Well, we won't go into that here - but it's easily discovered via a Google search.  ) And despite Collinsport being a backwater, the Collinses themselves were extremely well-to-do - ergo... The Collinses laughed at the mere mortals who had to use outhouses! 

So you're saying that they wouldn't have needed sewage or plumbing because...they had an "often customary" toilet outside the main structure of the house. Right? That would be attached to a...hole in the ground to gather waste? (There has to be some way for the waste material to be stored. And if this toilet was as close to the house as you describe, the possibility of waste seepage polluting the water supply would be quite high. The family would have died of cholera long before Angelique showed up! ) What you're describing sounds like an outhouse to me.

When I did research for a story, I found no evidence of a remarkable modern toilet being installed anywhere in what was to become the state of Maine, let alone anywhere else in the country. Besides which, the "u" bend wasn't invented till the mid 1800's so, if Joshua had installed anything like a toilet (as it existed in 1767, or even 1795), anywhere near or attached to his house, the smell of sewage would have backed right into his house and grossed everyone out. What record about well-to-do houses have you come across that had working toilets attached to the house like you describe? Because boy, that would certainly change some of my research.

George Washington had an outhouse. So did Thomas Jefferson, and he was a guy who liked things to be modernized, so I don't think it was customary for anyone to have a toilet.  www.victoriancrapper.com states that "In fact, until iron foundries improved cast iron pipe and potteries improved terra cotta pipe in the 1800's, if there had been a functioning toilet, it would have been placed in the outhouse anyway." (Which makes it an outhouse, not an indoor toilet.)

It seems romanticized to me to imagine that there was any sort of convenience like an indoor toilet at that time. If they had anything, it was "The earthcloset" (which) was something of a portable outhouse found in many houses. Dry granular clay was dispensed from a hopper into a box to desiccate waste and prevent odor. When the box was full the earth and waste could be removed for disposal elsewhere. It was a semi-automated kitty litter box for people. A small improvement over a hole in the backyard with a bench over it."

Here's two links to websites that covers a lot of the bases, including invention and implementation of the toilet.

http://www.victoriancrapper.com/Toilethistory.HTML

http://members.aol.com/erikschiff/history2.htm

Yours in Research

MaineGirl

What you're describing sounds like an outhouse to me.

I'll certainly grant that it may sound like it - but it's not. And getting any deeper into this topic is also way OT for the forum and especially for this particular board. So, as I said, Google is an excellent resource in explaining what it is that I'm talking about - and I know this because I used it to do my own research before I made my initial post last night. Anyone who might be interested in knowing more info should probably do the same. 

Also, keep in mind that, as with many things on DS, we're not necessarily limited to the way things actually were in colonial America. If it existed somewhere in the world at the time, if it was in any way feasible, and if enough money could have made it possible to exist in a Collins household, then the Collinses *could* have had it even if no one else around them did. That's simply one of the great advantages of being a Collins (and particularly being a Collins running a shipping business). 

"Willie didn't like the idea that there was going to be a female in the house on a regular basis because it meant he and Barnabas could no longer..."lay about the house in their underpants, scratch certain areas, or adjust themselves.  "If ya know what I mean."

"Willie didn't like the idea that there was going to be a female in the house on a regular basis because it meant he and Barnabas could no longer..."encourage each other while on the [toilet]each morning.

When I did research for a story, I found no evidence of a remarkable modern toilet being installed anywhere in what was to become the state of Maine, let alone anywhere else in the country. Besides which, the "u" bend wasn't invented till the mid 1800's so, if Joshua had installed anything like a toilet (as it existed in 1767, or even 1795), anywhere near or attached to his house, the smell of sewage would have backed right into his house and grossed everyone out. What record about well-to-do houses have you come across that had working toilets attached to the house like you describe? Because boy, that would certainly change some of my research.

George Washington had an outhouse. So did Thomas Jefferson, and he was a guy who liked things to be modernized, so I don't think it was customary for anyone to have a toilet.  www.victoriancrapper.com states that "In fact, until iron foundries improved cast iron pipe and potteries improved terra cotta pipe in the 1800's, if there had been a functioning toilet, it would have been placed in the outhouse anyway." (Which makes it an outhouse, not an indoor toilet.)

Wow.  Guess you must be right, MaineGirl!  I always figured they used chamber pots back then.

"... engage in the simultaneous mutual spankings that they had found so crucial to a tightly-run household."    (And now, while we all visualize... I love these shared experiences... and so do they...)

"...burp and fart and blow their noses in the kitchen towels."