THE DUBOIS HOME
DuBois Pioneer Home will be closed for the summer starting May 6, 2008
The DuBois house stands on a Native American shell mound, or midden, 20 feet high and originally 600 feet long. It is now only 90 feet in length. A midden is technically a trash heap, built up over hundreds of years. Eventually such heaps became mounds and provided an elevated place for a chief's house or a religious sanctuary. The oyster and other shells that compose the mound are especially visible under the steps leading up to the house.
The House
DuBois house, erected in 1898, is the second oldest extant house in Palm Beach County . [The oldest, the George Washington Tindall house, built in 1892, is now on the grounds of the Loxahatchee River Historical Society.] Architecturally, the DuBois Home is typical of many houses built along the New Jersey shore in the latter part of the 19th century. Harry DuBois, who grew up in New Jersey and liked this style, had his parents send him the plans for such a beach house.
Originally the water in the Inlet came almost to the steps that now lead up to the front porch, but in 1921 Palm Beach County moved the mouth of the Jupiter Inlet 1,200 feet north. Part of DuBois Park is on landfill from this excavation. The Australian pines that now obscure the view of the Inlet and ocean were planted in 1925 and thereafter.
The house is constructed of Florida pine and had cypress shingles, which were later replaced with cedar. The interior walls are of pine, fastened tongue in groove, and set on the diagonal for added strength during hurricanes. The interior walls were unpainted. The floor boards, in accordance with the fashion of the day, were painted red. There was a machine made rug in the living room and homemade rugs elsewhere.
The original structure was a one-story building with three rooms: a living room, dining room, and bedroom. There is evidence of a wall that once divided the present main room into a living room and dining room and of a hole in the ceiling for the stovepipe from the wood-burning stove.
The kitchen was a separate building attached to the main house by a breezeway. [Until the 20th century, and almost without exception, kitchens throughout the South were detached buildings ten or more feet from the main house to protect against a kitchen fire spreading to the house and because the heat from the wood-fueled stove and oven would have made the house unbearably hot.] Other outbuildings included a privy, cowshed, chicken coop, duck house, and woodshed. Laundry was done in a large iron kettle over an outdoor fire behind the main house. The wash house had a wooden bench and a couple of rinsing tubs.