Laundry Room

This room was in a part of the home that was added on to between 1879 and 1881. An enclosed laundry was also an unusual feature in most Victorian Era homes. The laundry was equipped with a cistern that filled with water captured from the roof gutters. This saved the house staff from having to carry additional water up the hill to the house for doing the wash.

The stove was used to heat water for washing and later for heating the irons used for pressing the wrinkles out of clothes. Laundry probably was hung out to dry on a line behind the house. According to Douglass’s will inventory in 1895 the home had a linen inventory worth $50 which indicated that the Douglass’s had a good amount of fine, expensive linens for the time.