Wash basin & slop pail

[camgarsky4]

MB -- I've been googling wash basins and slop pails to get an accurate vision of these items. My snipping talents are lacking, so I can't paste in the images I'm finding.

Any chance you could respond with visuals? For example, the night of the murders, Alice and LIzzie 'washed up' in the rooms....what did that furniture/items look like? The morning of the murders, Andrew emptied out his slop pail. How large were slop pails? The images I've looked at range, but in general they seem pretty large....basically good size buckets with a lid. Would the Bordens have been porcelain?

Guessing not, but does much of the original Borden furniture or accessories still exist?

Thanks in advance if you're able to help me better visualize! :)

[mbhenty]

None of the Borden furnishings from the Second Street house actually survived. (There have been claims by some but not reliable)

We have a good idea what the furnishings looked like from photos of the period and of the inside of the Borden house. As in the guest room or sitting room for example.

Slop pails were pretty straight forward. Basically chamber pots. In the case of the Borden household it appears that Mr. Borden emptied his out in the privy in the barn.

We can only imagine what the slop pails at the Borden house looked like. There were thousands of designs and shapes, decorative or plain, porcelain or metal. Most were porcelain which was easier to clean. And they came in all sorts of sizes and most with lids. (If you wanted to sleep comfortably) Everyone would have one.

Abby and Andrew would probably share and the girls could very well have their own, since Lizzie kept her's in the closet by the side of the bed which is a china cabinet today. Back then it was just a small space, a closet with a curtain. (No door and known as a portiere)

Below is an example of what a slop pail may have looked like. Bed pans, essentially.

[mbhenty]

Of course most people kept a bowl and pitcher filled with water to wash before or after going to bed in the morning. Bathing was not done everyday like today. Or twice a day if you're a teen. If you study the floor plan of the borden house you notice there is no bathroom or wash room. Such business was tended to in the bed chamber.

So the Borden's probably had a hip bath tub stored somewhere. Baths were probably taken once a week. Until then the sponge was your friend. And in the bedroom you would keep a dry sink of sorts or small table, possibly with a marble top to store a bowl and pitcher for washing up. The Borden household would not be any different.

[mbhenty]

Here is a little description by Robinson at the trail taken from his closing argument, which is very long:


There was talk about poison and poison was feared in the family because all had been made sick. Then they say for some reason, I don't know what, that Miss Lizzie went down stairs in the cellar that Thursday night. Well, she did with Miss Russell. But what did they do? They did what a good many of us have to do at home. They did something about the house. There had been people there examining the room and looking over the bodies and there was water in the pitcher up in her room and people had been washing there during the day and Mrs. Holmes said, "If I should stay there all night I should want the slop pail emptied."


Here he is talking about Mrs. Holmes who had visited Lizzie in her bedroom on the day of the murder. We can see that a basin with water was indeed kept in the room and spent or soiled water was dumped into the slop pail.

[camgarsky4]

Thanks for the info and photo's!

Mr. Robinson 'overlooked' the second and solo trip Lizzie took to the cellar that night! I'm sure that was an inadvertent oversight! (sarcasm alert)

By the way, love the "Pears Soap" ad! Seems like something the Borden's should have used with their bias towards pears. :)