Steve Long Commented on early American military privies.

        When directing a crew for Starbuck's fields schools at Rogers Island, Fort
Edward, NY (F & I War, 1756-1760s) my crew found a rectangular feature
measuring 1.1 by 4.9 meters in plan and roughly 55 cm deep (3.5 by 16.5 by
1.8 feet).  The location of this feature had posts and stains for three
different buildings, but it clearly related to what we termed Structure C,
and was located squarely within a 5 by 5 meter (16.5 foot square) partition
of that structure as indicated by the post holes.  The feature, sharply cut
and squarely made, was filled with dark brown soil, wood fragments, and a
few military artifacts, as well as two fragments of a (or plural) wooden
plank door, crossed boards, 2 inches thick, with clinched rose-head nails
in a diamond pattern.  We were never able to determine what this feature or
the overlying building were used for but primary interpretation was as a
shallow latrine with junk thrown in when the building was taken down and
another built over the site.  We determined that the trench was associated
with the second building on this location and that the "warehouse"
described in Starbuck's varius publications, was the third building to
stand here.
        Thirty meters to the north of this a test slit trench encountered a soil
stain of similar width and incredibly loaded with artifacts.  Of course we
were at the end of the field season so we covered it over and the next
season another crew got to excavate it.  It was in the same alignment of
the other feature to the south (and of most other buildings on the island)
and I suspect that it may have been associated with another building.  I
have not seen a final report of the incredible finds of this 1.1 by 3 by
about 2 meters deep but I know that it certainly was a latrine from the
military occupation of 1756+.
        These features were on an island in the middle of the Hudson River and I
always wondered why they just didn't build a seat out over the river to do
their business (like an old picnic ground we used to play in), unless of
course they were not fond of the idea of snipers picking them off in such
revealing and precarious circumstances.

        Dan W.



At 11:56 AM 7/21/00 EDT, you wrote:
>In a message dated 7/21/2000 8:42:38 AM, [log in to unmask] writes:
>
><< However, as the military became more
>involved in the day-to-day operations of the CCC, the privies were replaced
>by centrally-located latrines.  >>
>
>We do know one thing about the military practice of digging latrines in North
>America.  By the time there were US Army manuals on the subject, the placing
>of latrines was a matter of standard camp protocol and the key consideration
>was distance from the water supply.  In their parallel marches down the Ohio
>River in the 1750's and 1790's, for example, both Col Bouqeut and Mad Anthony
>Wayne established their daily camp sites at roughly the same spots, near
>major streams that flowed down the terraced river banks and into the river.
>In the journals, the procotol was already being repeated that the livestock
>(both horses and cattle) and 'areas of refuse' be placed on the far side from
>the water supply.  This protocol no doubt carried over into more permanent
>camps, though when I can't say.
>
>All this and not one chuckle.
>
>Steve Long
>