The sink room is so named because it contains a wooden sink where water was poured out during the process of doing the laundry. The back door opens into this room and was the usual means of entering or leaving the house, hence the sink room also served as a place to leave boots and coats. On washing days, the housewife would bring in buckets of water from the well that was just outside of the back door, heat it over the kitchen fire, and pour it into a barrel along with soap she had made.
	The old kitchen was the center of activity for the family. All meals were cooked here over the fire in the large fireplace or baked in the brick oven next to the fireplace. The family gathered here for meals, the children played here, the baby kept warm in the cradle by the fire, and members of the family would bathe in a tub in front of the warm fire that was always there. In the far corner of the picture, there is a glimpse of the borning room, a tiny but very warm bedroom that was the place for giving birth and for the mother and new born child to keep warm and in touch with the rest of the family.
	The sitting room could also have been used as a bedroom, but it currently is furnished as it might have been in the mid-nineteenth century. One of the two front rooms was usually used as a sitting room or a parlor and one as a bedroom.
	The parlor also would likely have been a bedroom at some time in the history of the house, but at some point a formal corner cupboard was added, making it formal enough to be a parlor where important events, such as weddings or funerals, would take place. It also would have been a place to receive distinguished visitors, such as the local clergyman.

Copyright @2003, The Chatham Historical Society. All rights reserved.