Abstract
In the late 17th century, Katherine Naylor and her children lived in a house fronting on Ann Street in Boston. After the death of her first husband, Robert Nanny, Katherine wed Edward Naylor, who abused her and the children. Subsequently, Edward Naylor ran off with a pregnant household servant, leaving Katherine and the children. Located at the rear of the house lot was the family’s privy, constructed to conform to restrictions placed on the location and configuration of privies in Boston in 1652. The methods used during excavation, the stratigraphie sequence, the artifact analysis, and health and sanitation in late 17th-century Boston are discussed.
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Heck, D.B., Balicki, J.F. Katherine Naylor’s “House of office”: A seventeenth-century privy. Hist Arch 32, 24–37 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03374257
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03374257