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In Search of the Roosevelt Outhouse in New England

During the Great Depression, the U.S. government built 2.3 million outhouses in rural America. They earned several nicknames, including the Roosevelt Outhouse, the Roosevelt Room, the White House, the Relief Office or simply the Eleanor. Some people excused themselves by saying they had to visit Miss Perkins, meaning Frances Perkins, FDR’s secretary of Labor.

The sanitary toilet program aimed to combat hookworm, typhoid fever, diarrhea and dysentery, especially prevalent in the rural South. A survey of 700 counties in 11 southern states found the presence of hookworm in every one of them. Soil pollution was the leading cause of hookworm, and unsanitary outhouses were a leading cause of soil pollution.

Educators and government officials from 1900 on tried to improve farm sanitation by promoting better privies. “Nothing is more important to the farmer than good health. Good health cannot be preserved if the sanitary conditions of the farm are bad,” wrote Agriculture Secretary James Wilson in 1911 in the introduction to the USDA Farmers Bulletin 463 – The Sanitary Privy.

An image that appeared in a number of government publications.

Then in 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the Works Progress Administration to build 1 million sanitary privies. In the end, the WPA and other agencies more than doubled that number to 2,309,239. Today, people who own a Roosevelt Outhouse proudly describe their iconic outbuilding to local reporters or on real estate listings. But they’re mostly in the South and the Midwest. Which raises the question: Did anyone build a Roosevelt Outhouse in New England?

Yes they did.

Evolution of the Roosevelt Outhouse

In 1909, the Rockefeller Foundation made public health a priority, and undertook a hookworm study from 1909 to 1915. It found that unsanitary privies caused hookworm infections, which led to diarrhea, stomach ache and anemia. The study concluded that outhouse pits had to be at least six feet deep to prevent hookworms from making contact with humans.

The U.S. Public Health Service began to work with state governments to distribute plans for sanitary privies during World War I and the 1920s. Then the country fell into the Great Depression, and few people could afford to build a new outhouse.

The Civil Works Administration formed in 1933 as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal, and began building sanitary outhouses. Property owners supplied the wood and other materials, while the CWA provided the labor. However, the agency discovered wooden floors were hard to clean and rotted quickly.

The Works Progress Administration picked up the privy project with an improved design. It had a concrete vault below ground, which served as the foundation for the structure. The pot had a square hole and a wooden seat with a lid that closed so tight flies couldn’t get in. The concrete vault also had a ventilation shaft with screens to keep out flies.

Families had a choice of a one-holer or a two-holer. The two-holer had a smaller seat for children who might otherwise fall in.

A concrete outhouse base. Image courtesy Library of Congress.

The concrete and lids were mass produced in central locations. WPA employees then went to work building Roosevelt Outhouses for homes, schools, dairies, filling stations and tourist camps.

Sanitary pre-cast concrete bases or the Roosevelt Outhouse after stripping of forms, Image courtesy Library of Congress.

How To Build a Roosevelt Outhouse

It took three-man WPA teams 20 hours, or three days, to build one. The labor was again free, but a family had to pay for the materials if it could afford it. For $17, a farm family could buy the materials for an outhouse.

Loading completed privy houses on truck for delivery to site in 1938. Courtesy Library of Congress.

You could get a one-seater or a two-seater—either with a smaller hole for children or for two at a time.

The sanitary toilet project was one of the few that built a structure on private property. The WPA justified the private improvements as necessary for public health. The Roosevelt Outhouses did reduce the incidence of hookworm.

Where To Find a Roosevelt Outhouse

Roosevelt Outhouses still stand in places throughout the county.

Beckley, W. Va., has an exhibition coal mine that features a Roosevelt Outhouse. The concrete base has “1939” and “WPA” written in the concrete.
The Case-Barlow Farm in Hudson, Ohio, has an outhouse with a concrete base, probably a Roosevelt Outhouse.
In Atchison County, Kans., a couple enjoys owning an Eleanor outhouse, according to Capper’s Farmer.

Fitting vent stack and seat cover to sanitary base of privy. Courtesy Library of Congress.

A real estate listing for a 150-year-old farmhouse in Indianapolis boasts of charm, woodwork, soaring ceilings and “a Roosevelt Outhouse!”

New England certainly had its share of outhouses. The 1940 Census showed 29 percent of homes in Vermont and 25 percent in New Hampshire did not have flush toilets.

So where might one find a Roosevelt Outhouse in New England?

Probably in Albany, N.H., at the Blackberry Crossing Campground. According to the Living New Deal website,

Blackberry Crossing is unique in that it was a CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) Camp during the 1930’s. There is a self-guided tour of the old camp within the campground. The campground has 26 sites that are available on a first come, first served basis. There are hand pumps for water and vault toilets. A short walk from the campground is the Albany Covered Bridge, The Nanamocomuck Ski Trail, and the Boulder Loop hiking trail.

“Vault toilet” is another name for a Roosevelt Outhouse.

Some Historic Outhouses

In the search for a Roosevelt Outhouse, we came across several other historic privies.

The outhouse behind the Silas Deane house. Photo courtesy the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum.

Connecticut has several in Wethersfield at The Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum, which features a fancy six-holer outhouse where George Washington may have sat.

The 1938 New England Hurricane upended the outhouse at the Israel Putnam farm, and no one seems to have restored it. The National Register of Historic Places nomination form for the farm makes no mention of an outhouse. The Putnam Cottage (or Knapp Tavern) in Greenwich, however, does have a reproduction privy.

Israel Putnam’s privy after the 1938 hurricane

In Boston, archaeologists dug up an outhouse that Paul Revere may have used.

This story was updated in 2022.

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Six Revere Bells

Paul Revere

What better way to ring in the New Year than with Revere bells – especially since Paul Revere was born on Jan. 1, 1735 (New Style).

A Revere bell in Bath, Maine, will ring in the New Year as it has since 2002. So will the Revere bell that was moved from a defunct church to the Old South Meeting House in Boston in 2012.

Revere was one of the few competent bell makers in the United States. He got into the business in 1792 when the bell at his church, the New Brick Church, cracked. Revere offered to recast it, though he knew nothing about molding and casting bells.

The first of the Revere bells, a 912 pounder, was not terribly successful. The Rev. William Bentley wrote “the sound is not clear and prolonged, from the lips to the crown shrill.”

But Revere and his sons Paul, Jr., and Joseph Warren went ahead, casting 398 bells between 1792 and 1828, first at their North End foundry and after 1804 in Canton, Mass. The bells often bore the inscription “THE LIVING TO THE CHURCH I CALL AND TO THE GRAVE I SUMMON ALL.”

For the 1976 Bicentennial celebration, Evelyn Stickney and her husband Edward tried to track down every known Revere bell. They compiled a list of 134 bells, including 84 taken directly from the Revere and Sons stock books. Most of the bells are in New England, though there are Revere bells in Alabama, Georgia and Washington, D.C. The only Revere bell outside of the United States is in Singapore.

The Stickneys described the importance of bells in early New England: “The gabriel bell woke the people of the parish,” they wrote. “[T]he sermon bell announced it was time for the church services; the pardon bell rang before and after the sermon during prayers for the pardoning of sins; the pudding bell, which undoubtedly was the most popular, told the cook to prepare dinner while the church-goers headed for home; the passing bell tolled three times at a man’s death with a ring for each year of his age.”

St. Patrick Catholic Church

St. Patrick Catholic Church in Newcastle, Maine, is the oldest Catholic church in continuous use in New England and the only one to own a Revere bell. It was founded by Irish immigrants and a French priest.

James Kavanaugh and Mattew Cottrill came to Boston from Ireland in 1781. They were building a church in Boston when Father Francis Matignon arrived from France, sent by the Pope. Kavanaugh and Cottrill were each married to their wives by Father Matignon in the early 1790s. The wives then moved with their husbands to Newcastle, a thriving shipbuilding area.

In 1798, an assistant to Father Matignon said the first Catholic Mass in Newcastle, probably at Cottrill’s home. In 1808, St. Patrick Church was built at a cost of $3,000, with Cottrill and Kavanaugh each contributing $1,000. In 1818, Cottrill donated the Paul Revere bell to the church. It was one of the last Revere bells cast by Paul Sr., who died May 10, 1818. The original cost was $350, with another $165 to ship. It hung from a wood structure outside the church until a brick bell tower was added in 1866.

First Unitarian Church

Providence started out as a Baptist community, and the first Congregational church wasn’t formed until 1721.

The Congregationalists built their first house of worship in 1723, which stood on the site of the current Providence County Courthouse. A larger church was built on the corner of Benefit and Benevolent streets, but it burned down in 1814. A new building was designed for the same spot by local architect John Holden Greene and finished in 1816. It was inspired by the New South Church in Boston, designed by Charles Bulfinch.

The bell, at 2,488 lbs., is the largest cast by the Revere foundry. Though the church was founded as a Congregationalist church, it became Unitarian in the beginning of the 19th century.

King’s Chapel

King’s Chapel also claims to have the largest of the Revere bells, the last one he cast and the sweetest. (You can listen to it here.) But according to the Stickneys’ list, it is 2,437 lbs. – 51 lbs. lighter than the bell in Providence.

Royal Governor Sir Edmund Andros founded the King’s Chapel congregation in 1686, the first Anglican church in New England. The first church was a wooden structure at the corner of Tremont and School streets, where its successor stands today. It was built in the King’s Chapel Burying Ground because no resident of Boston would sell land for a church that wasn’t Congregationalist. John Winthrop and John Cotton are buried there; so is William Dawes, who rode with Revere on that famous midnight ride.

The current stone building was started in 1749 and built around the old wooden one. When it was finished, the old church was taken out through the windows, then sent to Nova Scotia. There the wood was used to build St. John’s Anglican Church in Lunenburg.

The King’s Chapel bell was cast in England and hung in 1772. It cracked in 1814 and was recast by Paul Revere. King’s Chapel has since become a Unitarian church.

Hampstead Community Center

Hampstead, N.H., has one of the oldest surviving meetinghouses in New England. It is now a community center.

The interior has been modernized and a floor was added where the balcony used to be. The exterior is original, however.

The meetinghouse was built in 1745, though the interior wasn’t finished for another 47 years. The Revere bell, cast by Paul Revere, Jr., is in the belfry.

Five Revere Bells

Woodstock, Vt. has five Revere bells, the only community to be so fortunate. In 1818 three men traveled from Woodstock to Boston and bought a Revere bell for the First Congregational Church. It cost $319.95, at 45¢ a pound. It cracked in 1974, and is now displayed at the church.

Still ringing in Woodstock are Revere bells from the Masonic Temple, Saint James Episcopal Church and the North Universalist Chapel. The fifth is displayed on the putting green in front of the Woodstock Inn.

The Phantom UUSB Revere Bell

The Unitarian Universalist Society in Brooklyn, Conn., has one of the few pre-Revolutionary church buildings in Connecticut. Built in 1771, it has since been restored.

The UUSB are the direct successors of the first Unitarian congregation in Connecticut. Its first minister, the Rev. Samuel May, was a peace activist, education reformer, temperance crusader, supporter of women’s rights and a supporter of Prudence Crandall.

Back around 1935, a Works Progress Administration survey reported the UUSB church had a Revere bell. The New England Historical Society, not seeing it on the Stickney list, consulted Dennis Landis, UUSB president and historian. He could not confirm the story.

“I had a chance to view the bell closely about 2001 and saw a different bellfounder’s name and the date 1828,” he wrote. “It remains an open question who made the original bell, which was repaired several times and recast. I don’t think there was any indication of the bellmaker in the church records, only that someone was empowered to acquire one. It would be reasonable for a Revere bell to have been secured, but we just can’t prove it.”

Photos: First Unitarian church of Brooklyn, Conn., by Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States – Brooklyn, ConnecticutUploaded by Magicpiano, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29832055; Hampstead Meetinghouse By Nlynch – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21779605; Revere bell in Pawtucket Congregational Church in Lowell, By Emw – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21009269; First Unitarian Church in Providence, By Kenneth C. Zirkel – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32710198

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Isaac Bissell Electrifies Connecticut With News of the Battle of Lexington

Isaac Bissell electrified the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut with the news of the Battle of Lexington in April 1775.

He rode farther, faster and harder than Paul Revere, but is not so well-remembered. Unfortunately for the heroic messenger, ‘Bissell’ rhymes with fewer words than ‘Revere.’

Isaac Bissell

Isaac Bissell, born in 1749, lived in Suffield, Conn., at the time of the American Revolution. He married Amelia Leavitt on July 4, 1776, and they had two children, Isaac and Asaph.

He was one of a number post riders charged with telling the patriots the British army had killed people at Lexington and calling them to muster against the British regulars.

Immediately after the Battle of Lexington, and even as British reinforcements headed toward Concord, a militiaman, Joseph Palmer, scribbled a letter with the news. (Palmer later rose to brigadier general in the Continental Army.) He dispatched Bissell to take the letter to Connecticut:

Wednesday morning near 10 of the clock—Watertown.

To all the friends of American liberty be it known that this morning before break of day, a brigade, consisting of about 1,000 to 1,200 men landed at Phip’s Farm at Cambridge and marched to Lexington, where they found a company of our colony militia in arms, upon whom they fired without any provocation and killed six men and wounded four others. By an express from Boston, we find another brigade are now upon their march from Boston supposed to be about 1,000. The Bearer, Israel Bissell, is charged to alarm the country quite to Connecticut and all persons are desired to furnish him with fresh horses as they may be needed. I have spoken with several persons who have seen the dead and wounded. Pray let the delegates from this colony to Connecticut see this. —J. Palmer, one of the Committee of Safety.

Bissell’s Ride

Isaac Bissell rode to Marlboro with the news, then to Worcester along the Boston Post Road. According to legend, his horse dropped dead in Worcester. He then rode to Hartford.

In each town where he stopped, a local member of the Committee of Correspondence copied the letter and gave the copy to Bissell. Each new copy had information about who had gotten the news and when.

Along the way, Bissell may have notified Israel Putnam, a patriot and veteran of the French and Indian wars. Here’s how the post rider appeared to Putnam, according to his biographer George Canning Hill:

A man came riding through the quiet town of Pomfret on horse-back, bearing a drum about his neck, and beating it and calling out to all whom he met, — “To arms! To arms! the first blood has been shed at Lexington!” Putnam was ploughing in the field, at some distance back from his house, at the time … Putnam had his little son with him in the field. He at once unyoked his oxen and took them out of the furrow they were ploughing, sent word to his wife by the boy where he had gone, took his fastest horse from the barn, and rode away at such a pace as we should have expected from a man of his well-known character.

A copy of the letter Bissell brought went to Silas Deane in Wethersfield, just south of Hartford.

Other post riders took copies of Palmer’s letter to Norwich, New London and New York City, where the news arrived by noon on April 21^st.

Afterward

After his long ride, Isaac Bissell went home to Suffield, and then enlisted in Erastus Woolcott’s regiment. He marched back to Boston, where he participated in the siege.

Sgt. Isaac Bissell mustered out in March of 1776, then mustered back in when the British invaded Connecticut in 1779. He returned home to Suffield after the war and worked as a blacksmith. Isaac Bissell lived until 1822, when he died at age 73.

Some people confused Isaac Bissell with Israel Bissell, but historians such as J.L. Bell and Lion G. Miles concluded that’s because of spelling errors in the haste after the battle.

This story about Isaac Bissell was updated in 2022. If you enjoyed reading it, you might also want to read about Sybil Ludington, the female Paul Revere, here.

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Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt: A Look Behind the Saintly First Lady

You have to wonder what Edith Kermit Carow was feeling at the wedding of Theodore Roosevelt Jr., and Alice Hathaway Lee.

Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt

Edith, born in Norwich, Conn., on August 6, 1861, grew up next door to the bridegroom in the fashionable Gramercy Park section of New York City. Their childhood friendship blossomed into teen-aged romance, but then Roosevelt went away to college and met Alice Lee.

Fifteen years into her own marriage to Roosevelt, she found herself presiding over the White House as First Lady. For decades, she enjoyed a sterling reputation among historians for her performance in the role. But then in 2018, historian Lewis Gould wrote a biography of Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt that revealed an unflattering side to her.

She could be nasty. And she was definitely a racist.

Edith Kermit Carow

Theodore was the son of socialite Martha Stewart Bulloch and prominent businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt. Edith was the granddaughter of Daniel Tyler, a Union general during the Civil War and railroad president. Her great-grandfather fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill. The family’s ancestral home was in Brooklyn, Conn.

Theodore Roosevelt was three years older than Edith. She was his sister’s best friend and his first playmate outside of the family. As teenaged sweethearts, they spent hours together during the summer at Oyster Bay, Long Island. They were called ‘Teedie’ and ‘Edie.’

Then Teedie went away to Harvard, where he met and fell in love with Alice Lee. They married at the Unitarian Church in Brookline, Mass., on Oct. 27, 1880. Edith was a guest at the wedding.

Less than four years later, Alice Roosevelt died suddenly, two days after giving birth to their daughter, Alice. Grief-stricken, Roosevelt put the baby in the care of his sister and took off for the Badlands.

After he returned, he renewed his romance with Edith. Then on Nov. 17, 1885, Theodore Roosevelt proposed, and she accepted.

Mrs. Roosevelt

They married in a small ceremony on Dec. 2, 1886, at St. George’s Church of Hanover Square in London. A fog had settled over the city so thick that it filled the church. The groom wore bright orange gloves. According to one story, the gloves were a fashion choice made by his best man. According to another, he wore them so Edith wouldn’t marry the wrong man by mistake.

Edith insisted Baby Alice live with them, and they had five children of their own. The family lived in Sagamore Hill, Long Island, during her husband’s political rise. He became vice president of the United States in March 1901.

Eighteen months, the vice-presidential family took a vacation in the Adirondacks. Then word came that President McKinley died from an assassin’s bullet. Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt was now First Lady.

First Lady

As First Lady, she brought a steadying influence on her impetuous husband. She also had a head for money, which he didn’t. And she brought order to her rambunctious family and to the White House.

She set precedents followed by every First Lady since. Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt put a social secretary on the federal payroll. She brought fine arts to the White House — including cellist Pablo Casals, who First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy would also host at the White House.

Edith Roosevelt, official White House portrait

The White House living quarters couldn’t contain the large Roosevelt family, which had to share the second floor of the West Wing with staff offices. So Edith hired McKim, Mead & White to separate the living quarters from the offices. Offices moved downstairs to what is now known as the West Wing.

She was described as “always the gentle, high-bred hostess” and “an aristocrat to the tips of her fingers.”

“Edith Roosevelt achieved something as close to secular sainthood within the apparatus of presidential history as anyone could have imagined,” Gould told C-Span in a 2013 interview.

Another Side

She had another side, though. Her children sometimes found her tough to live with. She once told her daughter-in-law, “At no time in my life would I have hesitated to chop all my children into pieces for their father,”

The National First Ladies’ Biography describes another flaw delicately. Her letters “reflected the demeaning terminology of the era’s white, elite class for those who were non-white and working-class.” However, the First Ladies’ Library also notes, “documentation shows that she consistently maintained her private charitable donations to those citizens who, beset by illness or unemployment, were in dire need.”

Gould, however, discovered a letter she’d written that suggested her animus toward black people was more intense than most of her contemporaries.

Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt by Frances Benjamin

He also discovered she used racial slurs in her letters to her son Kermit, away at boarding school.

Gould argued that Edith Roosevelt probably influenced her husband, who fell short of his self appraisal as the heir to Abraham Lincoln.

In one of the most famous incidents of his presidency, Roosevelt summarily dismissed three companies of African-American soldiers framed for the shooting death of a white man in Brownsville, Texas.

“She was not a monster, and the contribution she made to the evolution of presidential spouses were important and lasting,” Gould said. “But she was also a woman with an intellectual flaw that characterized her life in the White House and her effect on her husband.”

Life After the White House

Theodore Roosevelt died of a heart attack in 1919, 10 years after leaving the White House. Edith survived him by nearly three decades, She traveled widely, edited her family papers and co-authored a travel book. In 1927, she bought her great-grandfather’s home in Brooklyn, Conn, as a summer retreat. When Franklin Roosevelt, her distant relative by marriage ran for president, she endorsed Herbert Hoover.

Until her death on Sept. 30, 1948, she stayed involved with the Oyster Bay Needlework Guild, which provided clothing for poor people. In 1932, she told the group,

Nothing would please me more than when I die they put this inscription on my tombstone:
Everything she did was for the happiness of others.

With thanks to Edith Kermit Roosevelt Creating the Modern First Lady by Lewis Gould.

‘Edith Roosevelt’ by Bain News Service. Image available from the Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID ggbain.04770. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. ‘Theodore Roosevelt and family, 1903’ by unknown photographer. Image available from the Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3c13665. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. This story was updated in 2022.

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The Daring, Headlong Escape of Gen. Israel Putnam

Of all the colorful exploits of Revolutionary War Gen. Israel Putnam, his escape from the British cavalry in Greenwich, Conn., ranks as one of the most daring.

Gen. Israel Putnam escapes British dragoons

Israel Putnam

Born Jan. 7, 1718 in Danvers, Mass., Israel Putnam won renown for his fighting spirit and reckless courage. He fought with Roger’s Rangers during the French and Indian War, survived a shipwreck near Cuba, founded the Sons of Liberty in Connecticut, narrowly escaped being burned to death by Indians and planned the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Israel Putnam

During the winter of 1778-79, Putnam served as the Continental Army general supervising the Connecticut troops’ winter quarters in Redding, Conn. In early 1779, the 61-year-old soldier known as “Old Put” traveled to Greenwich to review the troops. On Feb. 25, a marauding party of 1,500 British cavalry and infantry started from Kingsbridge in New York City. They skirmished with a small party of Continental soldiers on the way to Greenwich. They killed some and scattered the others. Capt. Titus Watson galloped toward Greenwich to warn the Continental troops, outnumbered 10-to-1.

The Continental troops stationed along the road then withdrew, realizing challenging the British would be madness.

Down He Goes

According to legend, Old Put was shaving in his room at Knapp’s Tavern on the morning of Feb. 26, 1779, when he saw British cavalrymen in his mirror. Outnumbered and unprepared, Putnam’s men fled for their lives. Putnam, cut off from his men, jumped on his horse and galloped toward a rocky cliff. A church stood at the top of the cliff, with 100 stone steps leading from it to the foot of the cliff. Putnam rode his horse down those steps, threading his way to the right and to the left. Not one of the British cavalrymen dared follow him.

A cottage where Putnam supposedly stayed in Greenwich was preserved as a historic structure, but doubts have been raised about whether he really stayed there. The shaving story is a little improbable as well. A more likely version has it that Watson found Putnam in the tavern – perhaps with shaving foam on his cheeks.

Whether Putnam rode his horse down the stone steps or a cow path is also open to dispute. That his ride was so daring no British soldier was willing to follow him is well-established by eyewitnesses at the time.

Israel Putnam Rides On

Putnam then rode on to summon reinforcements. They attacked the marauding British in Greenwich, took British prisoners and recaptured their plunder.

Putnam House

In 1900, the Daughters of the American Revolution placed a commemorative bronze market on the spot at the top of the cliff where they believe Putnam launched his headlong ride. The marker reads,

This marks the spot
Where on February 26, 1779,
General Israel Putnam,
Cut off from his soldiers and
Pursued by British Cavalry,
Galloped down this rocky steep
And escaped, daring to lead where not
One of many foes dared to follow.

Old Put died in Brooklyn, Conn., on May 29, 1790. A large bronze statue commemorating his ride was erected at Putnam Memorial State Park in Redding. His birthplace is preserved as a historic building.

With thanks to 1779-1879: Centennial Commemoration of the Ride of General Israel Putnam. This story last updated in 2022.

Image: Putnam escape N. Currier. (ca. 1845) Genl. Israel Putnam: the iron son of “76” Effecting his escape from the British dragoons. , ca. 1845. New York: Published by N. Currier. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2001700083/. Putnam House By Daderot. – Self-photographed, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1030952.

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The Legend of the Israel Putnam Wolf Den

Gen. Israel Putnam famously left his plow in the ground when he heard about the Battles of Lexington and Concord and immediately rode the 100 miles from his farm in Brooklyn, Conn., to Cambridge. That plow became something of a local attraction. Years earlier, he created another local attraction, one still around today: The Israel Putnam Wolf Den.

Israel Putnam

Known as Old Put, he was one of the most interesting and vigorous characters of the American Revolution. A reckless fighter, he survived a shipwreck in Cuba, galloped down a rocky cliff to escape the British and risked his life to save a burning powder magazine. During the French and Indian War he served as a Rogers’ Ranger. Mohawk Indians captured him and came close to burning him alive until it rained and a French officer intervened.

The Israel Putnam Wolf Den

Israel Putnam was born on Jan. 7, 1718 in what is now Danvers, Mass. His birthplace still stands, now owned by his descendants.

Israel Putnam birthplace

At 22, he then moved to Pomfret, Conn., attracted by the town’s cheap land for sale.

According to legend, Israel Putnam killed Connecticut’s last wolf in Pomfret two years after he arrived.

Putnam had a substantial home by then, cleared fields and a flock of sheep. But a she-wolf kept attacking his and his neighbors’ flocks. Finally, Putnam and his neighbors got together and decided to pursue the wolf until she was dead.

They spotted her one winter night and followed her to a stream six miles away. Then she turned and entered a cave. The men set up a guard, gathered a crowd of men and boys with guns and dogs and lit a fire at the mouth of the cave.

Hours passed and the wolf remained inside. Finally, Israel Putnam persuaded his neighbors to let him go into the cave with a torch. They tied a rope around his ankle and prepared to pull him out when he kicked.

Israel Putnam Wolf Den

Dead Wolf, Live Farmer

The den’s narrow passageway sloped down fifteen feet, then ran horizontally about 10 feet more and rose gradually 16 feet. Putnam crawled into the cave – you couldn’t stand up in it — and saw the she-wolf’s eyeballs three yards away from him. He kicked the rope, and was dragged out so quickly he lost his shirt.

Putnam then crawled back into the cave with a gun and shot the wolf. His neighbors dragged him out again, nearly overcome by smoke. He revived and crawled back into the cave a third time, where he found the dead wolf, seized her by the ears and kicked the rope. The dead wolf and the live young farmer were dragged out together.

The story was told many times during Putnam’s military career.

Gen. Israel Putnam escapes British dragoons, another of his famous exploits

Putnam’s Wolf Den is on the National Register of Historic Places, and can be found in Mashamoquet Brook State Park.

At the turn of the 20^th century, author Clifton Johnson visited Old Put’s old stomping grounds in Pomfret. In his 1915 book Highways & Byways of New England, Johnson tells of visiting the Wolf Den and of meeting an old New Englander.

“We had that plough of Putnam’s on exhibition here once,” said the old man. “And by gosh! When I saw it I didn’t blame Putnam for leaving it in the field. It was nothing but a crooked stick shod with iron, and I’ll be darned if I’d put it in the barn if it was mine.”

Images: Israel Putnam Wolf den By Ehkastning – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35801371. Cartoon image of wolf https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/.

This story last updated in 2023.

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