Here in San Diego, we discovered the first indoor privy west of the
Rockies. The commandant's house (Jose de Zuniga) at the Presidio of San
Diego had a privy (or necessario) in his house (built around 1780-1785).
The seat was a three-holer from the length and the pit had been carefully
cleaned out.

Zuniga was apparently experimenting with this idea. The original
configuration had a door leading from his bedroom to the privy, but this
was sealed up later (probably due to the stench). An antechamber was
constructed with a second door to contain the smell (we assume). Out back,
Zuniga planted a flower garden (we know this from documents that show he
had ordered a large shipment of flower seeds).

There was also a privy built inside the walls next to one of the towers.
This had been cleaned out and carefully covered with a large stone.

We found no lime in association with either pit, but lots of artifacts in
the tower privy.

At 06:39 AM 1/1/02 -0500, you wrote:
>Privies are unlikely to be found immediately adjacent to houses in
>rural settings. The reason would be obvious, I believe.  We did a
>study of privy and well locations, and found that privies virtually
>always were located farther from the house than the wells.


Anita Cohen-Williams
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