Modern-day visitors to Mount Vernon often ask about the location of the bathrooms in the Mansion; there were none. Mount Vernon had outdoor toilets called necessaries.
In the 18th century, there were probably four necessaries spread out around the Mansion House grounds. During cold nights, the Washington family, their guests, the estate’s enslaved workers, and servants used chamber pots in their rooms.
Today, there are two restored necessaries at Mount Vernon. They are located just outside the Upper and Lower Gardens, but they are no longer used. Each has three seats fitted with large, removable wooden drawers for cleaning.
Learn more about the necessaries:
Did George Washington Have A Bathroom? January 18, 2019 George Washington's Mount Vernonon YouTube
Did George Washington have a bathroom? Of course, people in the 18th century didn't have the same kind of bathrooms we do today, but what they did have was very basic and functional. At Mount Vernon, there are two necessary's on the estate for visitors to see.
I’m sure you have seen this illustration of the Wabash County Courthouse many times before, but have you looked closely...
I’m sure you have seen this illustration of the Wabash County Courthouse many times before, but have you looked closely at the picture it does reveal much more. For instance, did you know there was a fence at one time around the courthouse? Look again over to the southwest corner of the courthouse lawn at the octagon shaped building. That was a building very important to carrying out business at the courthouse. It was the public privy also known as a necessary or outhouse. Pretty fancy one if you ask me. It was a “three holer” with three separate doors. They were “necessary” just like today for emergencies when downtown. However, in the fall of 1893, it became the center of unwanted notoriety at the hands of the Wabash Plain Dealer. One fall day in 1893 an unnamed man of German extraction visiting the courthouse on official business found the need to use the facilities. He entered the structure and, fearing that the building might not be clean, struck a match so that he might survey his surroundings. Satisfied, he dropped the match down the vault, and instantly there was a loud explosion. The door he had just walked through was blown into the yard, casing and all. In fact, all three doors were blown from their hinges and out into the yard. “Great seams were torn in the building at the corners.” The man was thrown out of the privy with all sorts of debris falling around him. The minute he discovered he was not dead he started on the run for the gin mill across the street. A witness to the explosion said he was dodging debris “with a wild look in his eye, and the hair on his head pointing toward the heavens, and his suspenders extending in a perpendicular line.” The fence was no obstacle for the man “he jumped over the iron fence surrounding the courthouse lawn like a frightened deer.” He rushed into John Pitt’s saloon “grasped hold of the bar and exclaimed, ‘Give me some schnapps!!’” After that he was able to relate his harrowing ordeal to the men crowded about him. The Plain Dealer described the damage to the privy “all three doors were blown from their hinges and out into the yard. Great seams were torn in the building at the corners, and the side toward the courthouse had to be propped to keep it from tumbling.” Oh by the way, the county commissioners rebuilt the outhouse it was “necessary” to the county business.
