The Three-Story Outhouse

I grew up in a part of Maine where two-story interior privies were common. My grandmother's house had one that I remember well from my frequent visits as a child. However, I think three-story privies were rare. The Masonic Lodge in Bryant's Pond, Maine, still has one.

According to the "Cabinet of Curiosities" (available via Google Books), "this skyscraper privy is a simple pine board with a hole in it. Anything dropped through falls two complete stories till it smacks the earth. Venerated by some, abhorred by others, the three-holer was finally supplemented by real indoor plumbing in the year 2000 - a flush toilet and everything. But only on the ground floor; the second and third stories remain as they were."

You can read more about this bit of Americana at http://books.google.com/books?id=X3L-D9i9BOMC&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46.

My thanks to the "All Things Maine" blog at http://allthingsmaine.blogspot.com for this information.

I may be revealing my age, but I will say that I grew up in a farmhouse in Maine with no running water and with an interior privy. Sadly, my parents' house only had an unimaginative single-story privy. We had to visit my grandmother to see a real two-story privy. I remember it well; as a small child, I was always afraid that I would fall in!

Do any other newsletter readers have similar memories?

For those of you who cannot imagine how a two-story or three-story privy is built, I'll describe it in a future newsletter. After all, this was the envy of many of our ancestors!

Comments

[Ed]

Build a three story privy? I'm not sure I want to know how!

[W. David Samuelsen]

You have it easy.

Try mine! I have to go around the viper snake pit (it's rattlesnakes) to get to the outhouse while living on a ranch quite a distance from nearest city.

This pit extended under the outhouse and the pit was between the ranch house and the outhouse (roof is well sheltered from summer cloudbursts.)

[Howder]

My wife's family had a 3-holed outhouse but it was arranged horizontally rather than vertically. It's on display at Old World Wisconsin, a living history museum southwest of Milwaukee. Here's a photo of 3 generations visiting the spot. http://www.howderfamily.com/travel/wisconsin_old_world_wisconsin.html

[Cyndi Beane Henry]

On both sides of the family, my grandparents had outdoor privies with no indoor plumbing.
While my grandmother's in West Virginia was a plain "one-holer", my grandmother's in Indiana was a two-holer. That grandmother was one who was not to be outdone by anyone with indoor plumbing however! Inside the old out-house she had white-washed the walls. She hung paintings, had grandpa string in an electric light, and she put bath rugs on the floor! They kept lime down the hole, and the place never smelled badly at all.
I can remember, still, as a small child, being afraid to at times to use the facility. After all, one could never be sure if there was a chance you could fall through or not! Even if it were one of the nicer out-houses!!! LOL
And there was always the possiblity of something creepy, or crawly, invading ones privacy! I had an uncle who regaled us with the tale of a snake touching his posterior while seated one time! [I was never able to use the restroom there again without first peeking to make sure there were no snakes in the vicinity!] ;)

[Holly Hendricks]

We had them at our summer place at Green Lake, Maine, although in warm weather there was an indoor option since the 1950s. I remember a glass enclosure on the wall with a few stripped corn cobs available, although that may have been a joke. Sears catalogs were highly valued for tp in earlier days.

The multi storied ones I knew were stepped like a pyramid, although the most I ever saw was two stories.

Privies do not have to be nasty or unpleasant if well cared for. Publicly maintained ones may become that way because of the bad habits of some users. (Missing the hole is not kind to those who follow.)

If you go to Walden Pond, Mass. you can see high-tech public privies (probably Clivas?) that are well-maintained and environmentally friendly. I support this as long as there is a place to clean hands appropriately!

I never had to deal with snakes, a scary thought, but spiders like the old family privies and tend to grow rather large on the other bugs they eat. I saw one design where the toilet seat was raised in a certain way to discourage the spiders from settling right where one sits, and thought this a fine idea. As a kid I kept the door open in order to make a quick exit from any spider that exceeded my comfort level.

Holly

[Dorothy Martin]

Were the multiple story outhouses constructed so one had access, without shoveling out a path, during the deep snows of winter? And were the interior ones so that a person did not have to make that midnight trip downstairs?

[Judy Newman]

I had never heard of an indoor privy. In our section of the country one had to go outside or use a chamber pot. I remember taking our two little boys to various historical castles in Europe in the 70s and what interested them most were the sanitary facilities for the garrisons where the drop was much more than three stories.

[Dick Eastman]

---> Were the multiple story outhouses constructed so one had access, without shoveling out a path, during the deep snows of winter?

In Maine, and probably in most northern states, these were typically interior privies, as described in the article above. Both the one-story privy in the house I grew up in and the two-story privy at my grandmother's house were built into barns or sheds that were attached to the house. There was no need to go outside, even in a major blizzard.

My grandmother's house actually had a two-story shed that connected the house to the barn. There was a door on the first floor that connected to the kitchen of the house. There was another door on the second story of the shed that connected to the upstairs hallway where all the bedrooms were. It was possible to walk from a bedroom, into the hallway. and then open the door and walk directly into the second floor of the shed and then use the second story of the privy.

The shed was used for the privy and for storing firewood and for whatever other storage space you use in a shed. In turn, the other end of the two-story shed connected a rather large barn which also had a door on the first floor and another door on the second floor to walk directly from the shed into the barn.

I can only guess what a modern-day board of health would say about having a privy in a building that was attached to the house. However, such "conveniences" were very common in the rural areas of Maine where I grew up.

- Dick Eastman

[gmf]

As a kid I often visited an uncle and aunt who had a privy that was situated at the end of room that was entered thru a door from the kitchen. This room was, as I recall, rather long and used mainly for storing items; at the very end was the "facility." No need to go outside on a bitterly cold night. I don't recall giving it a second thought as similar accommodations were then quite common in areas outside the city and occupied by relatives.

[Mary Crutchfield]

All this talk brings back memories....I remember as a child spending a Summer (1950) on my Grandma's farm in IN. The "throne" was a tall one seater, 30 ft. down the hill on a dirt path from the back door of the farmhouse. Besides the BIG black widows that hung under the seat!, there were BIG Bumble Bees that buzzed around the door because of the Honeysuckle vine that covered and hid the "house". You had to move fast!It was a real scary place for a 10 year old! I tried to avoid going out there after dark, even with a flashlight!
Mary Crutchfield

[Barbara Halsey]

Oh the memories of an outhouse.My grandparents outhouse was always a scary place until in the late '50's grandma had grandpa run electricity out there. It is a three holer. I could neverr understand why three people would want to use it at the same time. There was a small metal medicine cabinet on the wall. Never had anything in it except bandaids. The toilet paper is kept in an old coffee can. My brother has the farm now. When I am out running garage sales that way I iknow that I can still run that way to use ther outhouse. My kids would never think of using it and my grandkids don't even know what it is. If I could have one here in town I would.

[Rebekah Martineau]

I'm young enough never to have seen a real outhouse, privy, or even a chamber-pot. However, my sister and her husband are very environmentally conscious. They have an organic toilet that composts all human waste, or something like that - it's not really my kind of thing. Anyway, they were having a large wedding celebration and their organic toilet couldn't handle that volume of waste, so they brought in 2 port-a-potties. After the first day, they started smelling so bad that I found myself saying, "Oh, I'd better go to the bathroom here at Walmart before we go home."

My father-in-law has also informed me that a good corncob will get you cleaner than any modern toilet paper will. I'll just take his word for it.

[Sandy Todd]

I grew up in the bootheel of Missouri where outhouses were common in the 1950s. My grandparents had a three-holer for the girls and a two-holer for the boys. My cousins and I thought it was great fun to line up on the seats and giggle while using the outhouse together! One of my aunts tells a story that one night she got up from bed to use the outhouse which was some distance from the house. She didn't have a light and headed for the "hole" from memory. She sat on the hole and then put her hand down on top of fur! She ran screaming from the outhouse waking up the neighborhood. My grandfather ran outside with his shotgun to kill the critter in the outhouse. It turned out that my youngest uncle left his fur hat next to the hole :) We get hysterical everytime she tells this story at age 89.

[bill]

As I recall... we had "Yellow Snow" in front of camp..... cause "The Old Threeholer" was a way out back !!!

Thankfully we have "Indoor Plumbing" at this 'Retirement Home'... but.. now that I'm old.... and my "Aim" is poor...I have to sit on the 'Hopper' so I won't "p" on the floor.

[John Wilder]

My mother's Maine neighbors had a big family with a 7-holer outhouse. The holes varied in size, each one labeled "Pa", "Ma", "Sis", "Buddy", "Joey", "Ruthie", etc.