A Proposal

A 1908 rendering of a privy.

I want to excavate an outhouse.

Now to explain the “why” inherent after that statement, I have found that a narrative is in order. The town of Shabbona Grove, Illinois, was founded in the winter of 1836 when Edmund Town and David Smith moved from the “abandoned” residences of the Potawatomi Indians into the first permanent wooden house. In less than 20 years, Shabbona Grove exploded to a population over 900 with immigrants and frontier families, boasting of two school houses, a couple of trade stores, a saloon, a blacksmith, and other necessary businesses. However, when the railway came not 4 miles north of the village in 1871, the town quickly became defunct. The new town of Shabbona, sitting on the rail to Chicago, boomed as new schoolhouses, churches, businesses, and residents moved onto the prairie. By 1900, only 100 people remained in Shabbona Grove. Today, 4 houses on gravel roads mark where this prosperous town used to be.

I grew up in Shabbona proper and I never encountered this history. Shabbona Grove represents the story of little towns all across the Midwest whose growth and decline depended on the flow of people and goods from the East. In this small place, the interaction between material culture and networks of exchange become crucially important. I am interested in how and from where the people of this small place received, used, and interacted with the material artifacts of everyday life.

In order to attack these questions as an archaeologist, I must look into the reminants of those everyday practices. These experiences may be understood through the base truth of human existence: garbage. In the pre‐twentieth century that I am most interested in, garbage condensed in two places‐ in garbage pits for kitchen refuse and outhouses. I have chosen an area within the town of Shabbona Grove itself, on the corner of West and Short Street (of which Short Street no longer exists). Though my research talking to current residents, I have found that a house did stand on that location well into the 1920s, though there is no map to my knowledge that shows when the house was built or where it exactly stood. Today there are no above‐surface indications of the foundation. However, there is a good chance that privy remains intact, as there has been no further use of the land after the house was removed. We can guess that the privy was located near the back of the lot, near the alley, as was common practice.

The Shabbona Grove Archaeological Project is aimed at locating, recording, and excavating the remains of outhouse or midden (garbage) deposits as associated with the house at West and Short. Further investigations with the local historical society may be able to associate those remains with the residents themselves, providing a very intimate study of rural life in the mid to late‐1800s.