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You can call them outhouses, privies, toilets, necessaries or any term that comes to mind, but the little buildings that were "out back" were as important as any building built before indoor plumbing. The outhouses provided a degree of sanitation, a relief from the early dysentery of the great plagues that because of the lack of sanitation decimated Europe.

In the beginning, there were bushes and corn and hay fields, streams of running water and the woods. The first outhouses were simply logs hung horizontally between trees, notches cut for comfort. Perhaps this is where the term "hanging out" came from. Although toilets flushed with water are known to have existed in the Mediterranean as early as 2000 B.C., Europe never took to sanitary sewage disposal until the 1800s.

At Plymouth Plantation, a re-creation of the Pilgrims settlement in Plymouth, Massachusetts, a nice little building looked like a privy, but was in fact a smoke house and the woods was where they went to the bathroom. At night, they used chamber pots or "thunder mugs." The Pilgrims came from a world in which chamber pots were emptied in the streets, so this was a natural thing to do. Settlers in this country probably waited to build outhouses after they got the house and the barn built and the crops planted. And when the 1,000 Federal troops camped below Benton at Appleman's Bottom during the Fishingcreek Confederacy, as an example, we certainly don't think that was the most sanitary place now do we?

Most were simple rustic buildings just big enough for a person to do what they had to do‹‹and it was usually done with the door open. Fashion didn't have much impact on construction. Imagine your grandfather buttoning his eight-button trousers or your grandmother maneuvering a hooped crinoline in their outhouse! Wealthier families had outhouses as well built as the main house with amenities like plastered and painted walls and pictures hanging on the wall. In Smith Falls, Canada, we remember a house where there was an "outhouse" indoors, sort of tucked off the back pantry. One didn't have to go outside to use it, just down a hall. And strangely enough, if you went to the second floor directly over the outhouse on the first floor there was a chute that shot by the "outhouse" on the first floor, a "double-holer" but on two separate floors.

Whether fancy or plain, outhouses were just seats with holes over a pit. The number of holes varied. They went from one-holers to ones that had a separate hole for each member of the family. The seat could be all the same height or have two levels, a lower one with a smaller hole for children. Most had two the same size. People were a lot friendlier back then! Many little girls made their brothers go with them, since the long walk to the outhouse in the dark of the night was just not for the female without companionship. Sometimes one side was for women and the other for men.

The circle was representative of the sun which symbolized masculinity. The more subdued and submissive moon represented femininity. So why is the quarter-moon applied locally to outhouses in general? If one outhouse was in disrepair, the half moon was simply transferred to the other bathroom. It was reasoned that the men could always hang out in the woods, so to speak. An outhouse had to be kept for the ladies, of course, so whichever outhouse fell apart first was automatically used by the men. This practice became so widespread that in many cases only a women's outhouse would be available. Since those carried the quarter-moon, that symbol soon evolved into the sign for any outhouse, rather than one for ladies only. In today's society, outhouses are generally not allowed unless they are grand-fathered, so to disguise the fact that an outhouse exists many today have plain doors and are marked "tool shed."

No matter how fancy these outhouses were they were just plain disgusting. No matter how much you scrubbed them, or how much lye you put in them, they still smelled awful. And you didn't want to look down the hole, and many young girls felt that there might be snakes down there. They were blistering hot in the summer, freezing cold in the winter, and just plain miserable in wet weather. On those cold nights when everything was moving slowly, you could freeze to the seat. And it stung when you pulled yourself off the seat‹‹not as bad as your tongue on a frozen hand pump, but it stung.

Most of the time the winter wind came out of the West, but in the worst winter storms it came out of the East. That meant during a nor¹ Easter, the wind was blowing UP the hole but when it is all you ever knew, it didn't bother you.

The picture of the outhouse was taken by Brad Cole. The background is the cemetery of St. Gabriel's Church, Coles Creek.

And now to end this nonsense, we'll tell you a story. An Indian chief assembled the young men of his tribe and asked, "Who threw outhouse over cliff?" Nobody spoke up. Again the chief asked, again there was silence. The chief went on saying, "Many moons ago, George Washington cut down cherry tree. He confess. He get no whipping. So tell me who push outhouse over cliff?" Blowing Wind, a boy of ten and the chief's son, raised his hand. "I push outhouse over cliff." The chief smacked the kid hard on his rear end. Blowing Wind said, "George Washington no get hit by father." The chief said, "George Washington's father not in cherry tree when he chop it down."

One of my bygone recollections, as I recall the days of yore is the little house, behind the house, with the crescent o'er the door.

'Twas a place to sit and ponder with your head bowed down so low, knowing that you wouldn't be there, if you didn't have to go.

Ours was a three-holer, with a size for every one. You left there feeling better after the job was done.

You had to make these frequent trips, whether snow, rain, sleet, or fog, to the little house where you sat and read the Sears Roebuck catalog.

Oft times in dead of winter the seat was covered with snow. 'Twas then with much reluctance to the little house you'd go.

With a swish you'd clear the seat, bend low and, with shivers in mind, you'd blink your eyes and grit your teeth as you sat on your behind.

I recall the day that Granddad, who stayed with us one summer, made a trip to the shanty which proved to be a hummer.

'Twas the same day my Dad finished painting the kitchen green. He'd just cleaned up the mess he'd made with rags and gasoline.

He tossed the rags in the shanty hole and went on his usual way, not knowing that by doing so he would eventually rue the day.

Now Granddad had an urgent call; I never will forget! This trip he made to the little house lingers in my memory yet.

He sat down on the shanty seat, with both feet on the floor, then filled his pipe with tobacco and struck a match on the outhouse door.

As he took a long puff on his pipe, he slowly raised his behind, tossed the flaming match in the open hole, with not a worry on his mind.

The blast that followed, I am sure was heard for miles around; and there was poor ol' Granddad just sitting on the ground.

The smoldering pipe was still in his mouth, his suspenders he held tight; the celebrated three-holer was blown clear out of sight.

When we asked him what had happened, his answer I'll never forget. He thought it must of been something he had et!

Next day we had a new one which my Dad built with ease. With a sign on the entrance door which read: No Smoking, Please!

Now that's the end of the story, with memories of long ago, of the little house, behind the house where we wencause we had to go.
~ Author Unknown


W hen memory keeps me company and moves to smiles or tears, A weather-beaten object looms through the mist of years, Behind the house and barn it stood, a half a mile or more, And hurrying feet a path had made, straight to its swinging door. Its architecture was a type of simple classic art. But in the tragedy of life it played a leading part. And oft the passing traveler drove slow, and heaved a sigh, To see the modest hired girl slip out with glances shy. W e had our posey garden that the women loved so well, I loved it, too, but better still I loved the stronger smell That filled the evening breezes so full of homely cheer, And told the night-o'ertaken tramp that human life was near, On lazy August afternoons, it made a little bower Delightful, where my grandsire sat and whiled away an hour. For there the summer mornings, its very cares entwined, And berry bushes reddened in the streaming soil behind. A ll day fat spiders spun their webs to catch the buzzing flies That flitted to and from the house, where Ma was baking pies, And once a swarm of hornets bold had built a palace there, And stung my unsuspecting Aunt--I must not tell you where. Then father took a flaming pole--that was a happy day-- He nearly burned the building up, but the hornets left to stay. When summer bloom began to fade and winter to carouse, We bank the little building with a heap of hemlock boughs. B ut when the crust was on the snow and the sullen skies were gray, In sooth the building was no place where one could wish to stay. We did our duties promptly, there one purpose swayed the mind; We tarried not, nor lingered long on what we left behind. The torture of the icy seat would make a Spartan sob, For needs must scrape the flesh with a lacerating cob, That from a frost-encrusted nail, was suspended by a string-- My father was a frugal man and wasted not a thing. W hen grandpa had to "go out back" and make his morning call, We'd bundle up the dear old man with a muffler and a shawl. I knew the hole on which he sat--'twas padded all around, And once I dared to sit there--'twas all too wide I found, My loins were all too little, and I jack-knifed there to stay, They had to come and get me out, or I'd have passed away, Then father said ambition was a thing that boys should shun, And I just used the children's hole 'til childhood days were done. A nd still I marvel at the craft that cut those holes so true, The baby hole, and the slender hole that fitted Sister Sue, That dear old country landmark; I tramped around a bit, And in the lap of luxury my lot has been to sit, But ere I die I'll eat the fruit of trees I robbed of yore, Then seek the shanty where my name is carved upon the door. I ween the old familiar smell will sooth my jaded soul, I'm now a man, but none the less I'll try the children's hole.