The Wash House
The lower right-hand of this building is an ice house, which probably dates to the 18th century. Ice was harvested from the pond on the Morven property. In the mid-19th century, Commodore Robert F. Stockton enlarged the structure for use as a wash house or laundry, and a dormitory for servants.
Helen Hamilton Shields Stockton, who lived at Morven from 1891 to 1928, referred to it as the “slave quarters,” in an attempt to equate Morven with a southern plantation. The Stocktons had owned slaves until the 1830s, but by the time the Commodore adapted this as servants’ quarters there were no longer any slaves at Morven.
Male servants slept in a dormitory over the wash house, and other servants in the room over the ice house; possibly some also occupied the second floor of the West Wing. The coachman and grooms probably lived over the stables, the gardener had a separate cottage a block away, and the farm laborers probably lived near the farm, which was about one-third of a mile north of the house.
Marker can be reached from Stockton Street (U.S. 206).
Courtesy hmdb.org
