In roughly 1910, some of Raleigh’s most distinguished residents — its aristocrats, its thinkers, its throwers of fancy balls — would have scampered outside in the morning chill, hoisted their nightshirts and plopped down on a Vogel anti-frost toilet, the peak of plumbing technology.
Just such a beauty still stands outside the Mordecai House, Raleigh’s 18th-century gem, and it persists today in all its auto-flushing majesty. With its high tank and wooden seat, the antique Vogel must have witnessed decades’ worth of deep thoughts, satisfied sighs and long perusals of the farmer’s almanac.
It showed through porcelain and pipes how far humankind had advanced past the corn cob and chamber pot…