Kitchen

Adjacent to the main house is the kitchen. The Potts generally used the home during the summer months, so the additional heat the kitchen provided was unwanted; for this reason, the kitchen was separate, connected by a covered archway known as a 'dogtrot.' Here meals were prepared during the encampment by General Washington's domestics, which included free and enslaved servants. Housekeeper Elizabeth Thompson, a fine Irish woman in her seventies, managed the household. One of the enslaved servants, Hannah Till, worked here alongside her husband Isaac, the cook. Her wages were paid to her master, who put forty shillings a month aside until £53 was acquired to buy her freedom; which she earned by the end of the war.

The kitchen bustled with activity; baking, roasting, broiling, frying, and stewing were all accomplished here, both over the fire and atop piles of hot coals placed at several locations on the hearth. The most common cookware found in a colonial kitchen was made of iron. Wrought iron frying pans were used to cook items such as Washington's favorite hoe cakes, a cornmeal pancake that was popular for its ability to last on long journeys. Cast-iron pots received frequent use, usually weighing between 20-40 pounds empty; they could hold gallons of soups and stews for Washington's military family and guests. In back of the fireplace, there is a small opening cut into the wall.

This is bale oven, used to produce the majority of a household's baked goods. A fire burned inside the oven for hours, until the bricks reached the proper temperature. Ashes and coals were raked out, a wet mop was used to swab out any debris, and then the baking commenced: breads first, then cakes, cookies and pies, and lastly puddings.

The outdoor oven minimized

Photograph by Carol M. Highsmith
Valley Forge National Historical Park