The Log Cabin Living: Artifacts from 19th Century Life exhibit at Job Carr Cabin Museum encourages visitors to take a closer look at more than 20 objects in the museum's collection.
J&G Meakin chamber pot on display at the Job Carr Cabin Museum.
Before the 1880s and the installation of sewage systems and flush toilets, the residents of Tacoma used outhouses for waste disposal. Outhouses were small buildings with pits and acted as places to use the restroom. They were situated away from the main home to mitigate the odor of human waste. At night or during stormy weather, however, individuals may have preferred using a chamber pot indoors. Folks deposited their waste in this ceramic vessel and covered it with a lid to temporarily contain the smell. In the morning or in better weather conditions, they could dispose of the waste in the outhouse, before rinsing it out for reuse.
Produced by the J&G Meakin pottery company around 1890, the china chamber pot on display at Job Carr Cabin was manufactured in England.
Prior to indoor plumbing and electric water heaters, a bowl and pitcher were also common items found in bedrooms of the 1800s. It was refilled regularly to provide a convenient way to rinse one's face and hands. A hot bath with clean water was a luxury when it took extensive effort to heat the water over a fire.
Ceramic bowl and pitcher on display at the Job Carr Cabin Museum.
With the initial influx of white settlers in Tacoma, the lack of running water led to reliance on springs and wells for the water supply. A few entreprenurial businessmen filled barrels and sold drinking water in buckets at central locations in the growing city.
Before 1883, there were two towns called Tacoma. Tacoma City was the original development where the Old Town neighborhood now stands. New Tacoma occupied the area now known as the Downtown neighborhood. The state legislature ordered that the two cities merge to form one consolidated Tacoma but the representatives of each area had to negotiate the details. One of the people opposed to the merger was John Nash Fuller. To overcome his objections, he was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Tacoma City Council on November 5, 1883. Two days later he received the rights for the city water works. The following week, he no longer opposed the merger of the two Tacomas and the process moved forward unhindered. Fuller's Domestic Waterworks was fed by an arm of Buckley Gulch. It operated under various private owners until at least 1926 and was later acquired by Tacoma's public water department.
A deteriorated wooden water line section from Fuller's Domestic Waterworks unearthed during replacement at 2006 N Carr St in Old Town Tacoma. The pipe is made of cedar with metal bands, ca 1880s. This object is the archives of Tacoma Historical Society, donated by Ron Karabaich.
Soon after the establishment of Fuller's waterworks, railroad magnate Charles B. Wright established the Tacoma Light & Water Company. Mr. Wright selected General John Sprague as president of the utility; Gen. Sprague had just completed his term as first mayor of the merged City of Tacoma. The franchise sourced water from South and East Tacoma, including Galliher Gultch, Spanaway Lake, and Clover Creek. Local residents, however, were dissatisfied with the company's quality of service. In 1893, after several years of negotiations, voters in Tacoma approved public acquisition of the operation creating its first public utility.
While water lines quickly expanded to bring fresh water into local homes, other pipes transported waste water away from Tacoma homes. Tacoma's first sewers were also constructed in the 1880s. Sewer lines, however, simply took the shortest possible route to reach Commencement Bay. In the 1940s, the City finally began to assess the pollution caused by sewage discharge. It was not until 1952 that the first water treatment plant was constructed to treat wastewater from Tacoma's central, southern, and eastern neighborhoods. A wastewater treatment plant serving Tacoma's North End was finally constructed in 1968.
Take a closer look at the Museum's chamber pot in this short video:
Sources
“Later J & G Meakin Marks.” J & G Meakin (Ltd), Steve Birks, www.thepotteries.org/mark/m/meakin_jg.html. Accessed 1 Dec. 2023.
Morgan, Murray, and Michael Sullivan. Puget’s Sound: A Narrative of Early Tacoma and the Southern Sound. University of Washington Press, 2018.
“Tacoma’s Wastewater History.” City of Tacoma, City of Tacoma, www.cityoftacoma.org/government/city_departments/environmentalservices/wastewater/wastewater_system/tacomas_wastewater_history#:~:text=Community%20sewers%20were%20first%20constructed,the%20tidewaters%20of%20Commencement%20Bay. Accessed 1 Dec. 2023.
“Tacoma Water History.” Tacoma Public Utilities, Tacoma Public Utilities, 30 Mar. 2021, www.mytpu.org/about-tpu/services/water/about-tacoma-water/tacoma-water-history/#:~:text=In%201884%2C%20Charles%20B.,Spanaway%20lakes%2C%20and%20Clover%20Creek.
About the Author
Madeline Teddy completed an internship with Job Carr Cabin Museum in Fall 2023. She was a graduate of University of British Columbia majoring in history and classical Near Eastern religious studies. She hoped to take her studies further and become a museum curator.