Colonial Houses
It is well worth while for us at this point to look more in detail at
the colonial towns to see the houses in which our ancestors dwelt and to
note the architecture of their public edifices, for these men had a
distinctive style of building as characteristic of their age as
skyscrapers and apartment houses are of the present century. The household
furnishings have also a charm of their own and in many cases, by their
combination of utility and good taste, have provided models for the
craftsmen of a later day. A brief survey of colonial houses, inside and
out, will serve to give us a much clearer idea of the environment in which
the people lived during the colonial era.
The materials used by the colonists for building were wood, brick, and
more rarely stone. At first practically all houses were of wood, as was
natural in a country where this material lay ready to every man's hand and
where the means for making brick or cutting stone were not readily
accessible. Clay, though early used for chimneys, was not substantial
enough for house building, and lime for mortar
and plaster was not easy to obtain. Though limestone was discovered in New
England in 1697, it was not known at all in the tidewater section of the
South, where lime continued to the end of the era to be made from calcined
oyster shells. The seventeenth century was the period of wooden houses,
wooden churches, and wooden public buildings; it was the eighteenth
century which saw the erection of brick buildings in America.
Up to the time of the Revolution bricks were brought from England and
Holland, and are found entered in cargo lists as late as 1770, though they
probably served often only as ballast. But most of the bricks used in
colonial buildings were molded and burnt in America. There were brick
kilns everywhere in the colonies from Portsmouth to Savannah.
Indeed bricks were made, north and south, in large enough quantities to be
exported yearly to the West Indies. As building stone scarcely existed in
the South, all important buildings there were of brick, or in case greater
strength were needed, as for Fort Johnston at the mouth of the Cape Fear
River or the fortifications of Charleston, of tappy work, a mixture of
concrete and shells. Brick walls were often built very thick; those of St.
Philip's Church, Brunswick, still show three feet in depth. Chimneys were
heavy, often in stacks, and windows as a rule were small. The bonding was
English, Flemish, or "running," according to the taste of the builder, and
many of the houses had stone trimming, which had to be brought from
England, if it were of freestone as was suggested for King's Chapel,
Boston, or of marble as in Governor Tryon's palace in New Bern.
Buildings of stone were not common and were confined chiefly to the North,
where this material could be easily and cheaply obtained. As early as 1639
Henry Whitfield erected a house of stone at Guilford, Connecticut, to
serve in part as a place of defense, and in other places, here and there,
were to be found stone buildings used for various purposes. It has been
said that King's Chapel, Boston, built in 1749-54, was the first building
in America to be constructed of hewn stone, but this is not the case. Some
of the early houses in New York as well as the two Anglican churches were
of hewn stone. The Malbone country house near Newport, built before 1750,
was also "of hewn stone and all the corners and sides of the windows
painted to represent marble. " There were many houses in the colonies
painted to resemble stone, and some in which only the first story or the
basement was of this material, while in many instances there were broad
stone steps leading up to a house otherwise constructed of wood or brick.
Stone for building purposes was therefore well known and frequently used.
Travelers who visited the leading towns in the period from 1750 to 1763
have left descriptions which help us to visualize the external features of
these places. Portsmouth, the most northerly town of importance, had
houses of both wood and brick, "large and exceeding neat," we are told,
"generally 3 story high and well sashed and glazed with the best glass,
the rooms well plastered and many wainscoted or hung with painted paper
from England, the outside clapboarded very neatly." Salem was "a large
town well built, many genteel large houses (which tho' of wood) are all
planed and painted on the outside in imitation
of hewn stone." By 1750 Boston had about three thousand houses and twenty
thousand inhabitants; two-thirds of the houses were of wood, two or three
stories high, mostly sashed, the remainder of brick, substantially built
and in excellent architectural taste. The streets were well paved with
stone, a thing rare in New England, but those in the North End were
crooked, narrow, and disagreeable. Worcester was "one of the best built
and prettiest inland little towns" that Lord Adam Gordon had seen in
America. The houses in Newport, with one or two exceptions, were of wood,
making "a good appearance and also as well furnished as in most places you
will meet with, many of the rooms being hung with printed canvas and
paper, which looks very neat, others are well wainscoted and painted. "
New London with its one street a mile long by the river side and its
houses built of wood, seemed in 1750 to be "new and neat. " New Haven,
which covered a great deal of ground, was laid out in nine squares around
a green or market place, and contained many houses in wood, a few in brick
or stone, a brick statehouse, a brick meetinghouse, and Yale College,
which was being rebuilt in brick. Middletown, though one of the most
important commercial centers between New York and Boston and the third
town in Connecticut, had only wooden houses. Hartford, "a large,
scattering town on a small river" (the Little River not the Connecticut is
meant), was built chiefly of wood, with here and there a brick dwelling
house.
New York, with two or three thousand buildings and from sixteen to
seventeen thousand people in 1760, was very irregular in plan, with
streets which were crooked and exceedingly narrow but generally pretty
well paved, thus adding "much to the decency and cleanness of the place
and the advantage of carriage. " Many of the houses were built in the old
Dutch fashion, with their gables to the street, but others were more
modern, "many of 'em spacious, genteel houses, some being 4 or 5 stories
high, others not above two, of hewn stone, brick, and white Holland tiles,
neat but not grand. " A round cupola capping a square wooden church tower
rising above a few clustering houses was all that marked the town of
Brooklyn, while a ferry tavern and a few houses were all that foreshadowed
the future greatness of Jersey City. Albany was as yet a town of dirty and
crooked streets, with its houses badly built, chiefly of wood, and
unattractive in appearance.
Southward across the river from New York were Elizabeth, New Brunswick,
and Perth Amboy, the last with a few houses for the "quality folk," but "a
mean village, " albeit one of the capitals of the province of New Jersey.
Burlington, the other capital, consisted "of one spacious large street
that runs down to the river, " with several cross streets, on which were a
few "tolerable good buildings," with a courthouse which made "but a poor
figure, considering its advantageous location." Trenton, or Trent Town,
was described in 1749 as "a fine town and near to Delaware River, with
fine stone buildings and a fine river and intervals medows, etc. "
Philadelphia had 2100 houses in 1750 and 3600 in 1765, built almost
entirely of brick, generally "three stories high and well sashed, so that
the city must make (take it upon the whole) a very good figure. " The
Virginia ladies who visited the city were wont to complain of the small
rooms and monotonous architecture, every house like every other. The
streets were paved with flat footwalks on each side of the street and well
illumined with lamps, which Boston does not appear to have had until 1773.
Wilmington on the Delaware was a very young town in 1750, "all the houses
being new and built of brick. " Newcastle, the capital, was a poor town of
little importance. There were but few towns in Maryland. Annapolis, the
capital, was "charmingly situated on a peninsula, falling different ways
to the water . . . built in an irregular form, the streets generally
running diagonally and ending in the Town House, others on a house that
was built for the Governor, but never was finished." This "Governor's
House" afterwards became the main building of St. John's College. A
majority of the residences were of brick, substantially built within brick
walls enclosing gardens in true English fashion.
Across the Potomac was Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia and the seat
of William and Mary College, built partly of brick and partly of wood, and
resembling, it seemed to Lord Adam Gordon, a good country town in England.
Norfolk, which was built chiefly of brick, was a mercantile center, with
warehouses, ropewalks, wharves, and shipyards, while Fredericksburg, at
the head of navigation on the Rappahannock, was constructed of wood and
brick, its houses roofed with shingles painted to resemble state.
Winchester in the Shenandoah Valley was described in 1755 as "a town built
of limestone and covered with slate with which the hills abound. " It was
the center of a settled farming country and its inhabitants enjoyed most
of the necessities but few of the luxuries of life and had almost no
books. It is described as being "inhabited by a spurious race of mortals
known by the appellation of Scotch-Irish. " In all of these towns were one
or more churches, the market house, prison, and pillory, and in the chief
city at the usual place of execution was the gallows of the colony.
The older towns of North Carolina, Edenton, Bath, Halifax, and New Bern,
were all small, and in 1760 were either stationary or declining. Their
houses were built of wood and, except for Tryon's palace at New Bern — an
extravagant structure, considering the resources of the colony — the
public buildings were of no significance. Brunswick, too, was declining
and was but a poor town, "with a few scattered houses on the edge of a
wood, " inhabited by merchants. Wilmington was now rapidly advancing to
the leading place in the province, because of its secure harbor, easy
communication with the back country, accessibility to the other parts of
the colony, fresh water, and improved postal facilities. In 1760 it had
about eight hundred people; its houses, though not spacious, were in
general very commodious and well furnished. Peter du Bois wrote of
Wilmington in 1757: "It has greatly the preference in my esteem to New
Bern . . . the regularity of its streets is equal to that of Philadelphia
and the buildings are in general very good. Many of brick, two or three
stories high with double piazzas, which make a good appearance. "
Charleston, or Charles Town as the name was always written in colonial
times, was the leading city of the South and is thus described by Pelatiah
Webster, who visited it in 1765: "It contains abt 1000 houses with
inhabitants 5000 whites and 20,000 blacks, has
eight houses for religious worship . . . the streets run N. & S. & E. & W.
intersecting each other at right angles, they are not paved, except the
footways within the posts abt 6 feet wide, which are paved with brick in
the principal streets. " According to a South Carolina law all buildings
had to be of brick, but the law was not observed and many houses were of
cypress and yellow pine. Laurens said in 1756 that "none but the better
class glaze their houses. " The sanitary condition of all colonial towns
was bad enough, but the grand jury presentments for Charleston and
Savannah which constantly found fault with the condition of the streets,
the sewers, and necessary houses, and the insufficient scavenging, leave
the impression on the mind of the reader that these towns especially were
afflicted with many offensive smells and odors. The total absence of any
proper health precautions explains in part the terrible epidemics, chiefly
of smallpox, which scourged the colonists in the eighteenth century.
Taking the colonial area through its entire length and breadth, we find
individual houses of almost every description, from the superb mansions of
the Carters in Virginia and of the Vassalls in Massachusetts to the small
wooden frame buildings, forty by twenty feet or thereabouts, "with a shade
on the backside and a porch on the front," and the simple houses of the
country districts or the western frontier, hundreds of which were small,
of one story, unpainted, covered with roughhewn or sawn flat boards,
weather-stained, with few windows and no panes of glass, and without
adornment or architectural taste. One traveler speaks of the small
plantation houses in Maryland as "very bad, and ill contrived, there
furniture mean, their cooks and housewifery worse if possible, "(Eddis.
Letters, 1769-1777.) and another says that an
apartment to sleep in and another for domestic purposes, with a contiguous
storehouse and conveniences for their live stock gratified the utmost
ambition of the settlers in Frederick County. (Birket,
Cursory Remarks, 1750.) Many a colonist north of
the Potomac lived in nothing better than the "crib " or
"block" house which was made of squared logs and roofed with
clapboards. In contrast to the typical square-built houses of New England,
the Dutch along the Hudson and even to the eastward in Litchfield County,
Connecticut, built quaint, low structures which they frequently placed on
a hillside in order to utilize the basement as living rooms for the
family.
The better colonial houses were wainscoted and paneled or plastered and
whitewashed, and the woodwork — trim, cornices, stair railings, and newel
posts — was often elaborately carved. Floors were sometimes of double
thickness and were laid so that "the seam or joint of the upper course
shall fall upon the middle of the lower plank which prevents the air from
coming thro' the floor in winter or the water falling down in summer when
they wash their houses. " Roofs were covered with tile, slate, shingles,
and lead, though much of the last was removed for bullets at the time of
the Revolution. Flat tiles, made in Philadelphia and elsewhere, were used
for paving chimney hearths and for adorning mantels, and firebacks
imported from England were widely introduced. Among the Pennsylvania
Germans wood stoves were generally used, but soft coal brought as ballast
from Newcastle,
THE HALL AT CARTER'S GROVE, VIRGINIA
Photograph by H. P. Cook, Richmond, Va.
Liverpool, and other ports in England and Scotland was also for sale.
Stone coal or anthracite was familiar to Pennsylvania settlers as early as
1763, but until just before the Revolution was not burned as fuel except
locally and on a small scale. Wood was consumed in enormous quantities and
we are told that at Nomini Hall there were kept burning twenty-eight fires
which required four loads of wood a day. (Fithian,
Diary, 1767-1774.)
There were few professional architects, for colonial planters and
carpenters did their own planning and building. What is sometimes called
the "carpenters' colonial style" was often designed on the spot or taken
from Batty Langley's Sure Guide, the Builders' Jewel, or the British
Palladio. Smibert, the painter and paint-shop man of Boston, designed
Faneuil Hall and succeeded in creating a very unsuccessful building
architecturally. The first professional architect in America was Peter
Harrison, who drew the plans for King's Chapel, the Redwood Library, the
Jewish Synagogue, and Brick Market at Newport, yet even he combined
designing with other avocations. In truth there was no great need of
architects in colonial days. Styles did not vary much, certainly not in
New England and the Middle Colonies, and a good
carpenter and builder could do all that was needed. There were scores of
houses in New England similar to Samuel Seabury's rectory at Hempstead, —
a story and a half high in front, with a roof of a single pitch sloping
down to one story in the rear, low ceilings everywhere, four rooms with a
hall on the first floor, a kitchen behind, and three or four rooms on the
second story.
The brick houses were more elaborate and were sometimes built with massive
end chimneys, between which was a steep-pitched roof with dormers and a
walk from chimney to chimney many feet wide. Other houses, made of wood as
well as brick, had hipped roofs with end chimneys or roofs converging to a
square center and a railed lookout. All the nearly 150 colonial houses
still standing in Connecticut conform to a common type, though they differ
greatly in the details of their paneling, mantels, cupboards, staircases,
closed or open beamed ceilings, fireplaces, and the like. Some had slave
quarters in the basement, others under the rafters in what was called in
one instance "the Black Hole. " Many of even the better houses were
unpainted inside and out; many had paper, hung or tacked (afterwards
pasted) on the walls; and in a few noteworthy cases in New England the
chimney breasts were adorned with paintings. The floors were usually bare
or covered with matting; rugs were used chiefly at the bedside, but
carpets were rare.
Philadelphia, which was famous for the uniformity of its architecture,
must have contained in 1760 many houses of the style of that built for
Provost Smith of the College of Philadelphia. In addition to a garret this
dwelling had three stories respectively eleven, ten, and nine feet high.
The brick outside walls were fourteen inches thick and the partition
walls, of the same material, nine inches. There were windows and window
glass, heavy shutters, a plain cornice, cedar gutters and pipes. The
woodwork, inside and out, was painted white, and all the rooms were
plastered. No mention is made of white marble steps, but there may have
been such, for no Philadelphia house was complete without them.
The Southern houses, both on the plantations and in the towns, varied so
widely in their style of architecture that no single description will
serve to characterize all. Such buildings as the Governor's palace at
Williamsburg, Tryon's palace at New Bern, and the Government House at
Annapolis were handsome buildings provided with conveniences for
entertainment, and that at New Bern contained rooms for the gathering of
assembly and council. The most representative Southern plantation house
was of brick with wings, the kitchens on one side and the carriage house
on the other, sometimes attached directly to the central mansion and
sometimes entirely separate or connected only by a corridor. In the
Carolinas and Georgia, however, there were many rectangular houses without
wings, built of wood or brick, with rooms available for summer use in the
basement. The roof was often capped with a cupola and commanded a wide
prospect.
The dwelling houses of Charleston were among the most distinctive and
quaint of all colonial structures. Some of them were divided into
"tenements" quite unlike the tenements and flats of the present day, for,
in addition to its independent portion of the house, each family had its
own yard and garden. Overseers' houses were as a rule small, about twenty
feet by twelve, with brick chimneys and plastered rooms. A typical
Savannah house had two stories, with a handsome balcony in front and a
piazza the whole length of the building in the rear, with a bedroom at one
end and a storehouse at the other. The dining room was on the second
floor, and everywhere, for convenience and comfort, were to be found
closets and fireplaces. Among the gentry in a country where storms were
frequent, electrical rods were in use, and in 1763 one Alexander Bell of
Virginia advertised a machine for protecting houses from being struck by
lightning, though what his contrivance was we do not know.
The town halls and courthouses generally followed English models, with
public offices and assembly rooms on the upper floor and a market and
shops below. The Southern courthouses were at first built of wood and
later of brick, with shingled roofs, heavy planked floors, and
occasionally a cupola or belfry. Those of the eighteenth century either
included the prison and pillory or were connected with them. The
inadequacy of jail accommodation was a cause of constant complaint. Not
only did grand juries and newspapers point out the need of quarters so
arranged that debtors, felons, and negroes should not be thrown together,
but the occupants themselves protested against the nauseating smells and
odors. In some of the prisons, it is true, a separate cage was provided
for the negroes, and in North Carolina prison bounds, covering some six
acres about the building, were laid out for the use of the prisoners, an
arrangement which was not abolished till the nineteenth century.
In all the cities of the North and South stores and shops were to be
found, occupying the first floor, while the family lived in the rooms
above. As a rule, a shop meant a workshop where articles were made, a
store a storehouse where goods were kept. But in practice usage varied, as
"shop" was in common use in New England for any place where things were
sold, and "store" was the usual term in Philadelphia and the South. An
apprentice writing home to England in 1755 and trying to explain the use
of the terms said: "Stores here [in Virginia] are much like shops in
London, only with this difference, the shops sell but one kind or species
of wares and stores all kinds. " Some of these stores, particularly in
Maryland and Virginia, were located away from the urban centers, in the
interior near the courthouses at the crossroads, along the rivers at the
tobacco inspection houses, or wherever else men congregated for business
or public duty. They were often controlled by English or Scottish firms
and managed by agents sent to America. They received their supplies from
Great Britain and they sold, for credit, cash, or tobacco, almost
everything that the neighborhood needed.
Varied as were the architectural features of colonial houses, they were
paralleled by an equal diversity in the household effects with which these
dwellings were equipped. It is impossible even to summarize the
information given in the thousands of extant wills, inventories, and
invoices which reveal the contents and furnishings of these houses.
Chairs, bureaus, tables, bedsteads, buffets, cupboards, were in general
use. They were made of hickory, pine, maple, cypress, oak, and even
mahogany, which began to be used as early as 1730. From the meager dining
room outfit of only one chair, a bench, and a table, all rough and
homemade, we pass to the furnishings of the richer merchants in the
Northern cities and of the wealthier planters in Maryland, Virginia, and
the Carolinas. But we cannot take the establishments of Wentworth,
Hancock, Vassall, Faneuil, Cuyler, Morris, Carter, Beverley, Manigault, or
Laurens as typical of conditions which prevailed in the majority of
colonial homes. Some people had silver plate, mahogany, fine china, and
copper utensils; others owned china, delftware, and furniture of plain
wood, with perhaps a few silver spoons, a porringer, and an occasional
mahogany chair and table; still others, and these by far the largest
number, used only pewter, earthenware, and wooden dishes, with the simpler
essentials, spinning wheel, flatirons, pots and kettles, lamps and
candlesticks, but no luxuries. There was in addition, of course, the class
of the hopelessly poor, but it was not large and need not be reckoned with
here.
The average New England country household was a sort of self-sustaining
unit which depended little on the world beyond its own gates. Its
equipment included not only the usual chairs, beds, tables, and kitchen
utensils and tableware but also shoemakers' tools and shoe leather —
frequently tanned in the neighborhood and badly done as a rule, —
surgeon's tools and apothecary stuff, salves and ointments, branding
irons, pestle and mortar, lamps, guns, and perhaps a sword, harness and
fittings, occasionally a still or a cider press, and outfits for
carpentering and blacksmithing. The necessary utensils for use in the
household or on the farm were more important than upholstery, carved
woodwork, fine linen, or silver plate. Everywhere there were hundreds of
families which concerned themselves little about ornament or design. They
had no money to spend on non-essentials, still
less on luxuries, and from necessity they used what they already possessed
until it was broken or worn out; then, if it were not entirely useless,
they repaired and patched it and went on as before. Economy and
convenience made them use materials that were close at hand; and in many
New England towns a familiar figure was the wood turner, who made plates
and other utensils out of " dish-timber " as it was called, a white wood
which was probably poplar or linden, but not basswood. Yet economical as
these people were, even the unpretentious households possessed an
abundance of mugs and tankards, which suggest their one indulgence and
their enjoyment of strong drink.
JOHN HANCOCK'S SOFA
In Pilgrim Hall. Plymouth. Mass.
As conditions of life improved and wealth increased, the number of those
who were able to indulge in luxuries also increased. The period after 1730
was one of great prosperity in the colonies owing to the enlarged
opportunities for making money which trade, commerce, and markets
furnished. Though it was also a time of higher prices, rapid advance in
the cost of living, and general complaint of the inadequacy of existing
fees and salaries, those who were engaged in trade and had access to
markets were able to indulge in luxuries which were unknown to the earlier
settlers and, which remained unknown to those living in the rural
districts and on the frontier.
In the Northern cities and on Southern plantations costly and beautiful
household furnishings appeared: furniture was carved and upholstered in
leather and rich fabrics; tables were adorned with silver, china, and
glassware; and walls were hung with expensive papers and decorated with
paintings and engravings — all brought from abroad. A house thus equipped
was not unlikely to contain a mahogany dining table capable of seating
from fourteen to twenty persons, and an equal number of best Russia
leather chairs, two of which would be arm or "elbow" chairs, double
nailed, with broad seats and leather backs. Washington, for example, in
1757 bought "two neat mahogany tables 4½ feet square when spread and to
join occasionally," and "1 doze neat and strong mahogany chairs, " some
with "Gothick arched backs," and one "an easy chair on casters. " About
the rooms were pieces of mahogany furniture of various styles, tea tables,
card tables, candle stands, settees, and "sophas." On the walls, which
were frequently papered, painted in color, or stenciled in patterns, hung
family portraits painted by artists whose names are in many cases unknown
to us, and framed pictures of hunting scenes, still life, ships, and
humorous subjects, among which the engravings of Hogarth were always prime
favorites. On the chimney breast, above the mantel, there was sometimes a
scene or landscape, either painted directly on the wall itself or executed
to order on canvas in England and brought to America. There were eight-day
clocks and mantel clocks, and sconces, carved and gilt, upstairs and down.
In the cupboard and on the sideboard would be silver plate in great
variety and sets of best English china, ivory-handled knives and forks,
glass in considerable profusion, though glassware, as a rule, was not much
used, diaper tablecloths and napkins, brass chafing dishes, and steel
plate warmers. There was always a centerpiece or epergne of silver, glass,
or china.
In the bedrooms were pier glasses and bedsteads in many forms and colors,
of mahogany and other woods. Frequently there were four-posters, with
carved and fluted pillars and carved cornices or " cornishes, " as they
were generally spelled. The bedsteads were provided with hair mattresses
and feather beds, woolen blankets, and linen sheets, and were adorned with
silk, damask, or chintz curtains and valances. Russian gauze or lawn was
used for mosquito nets, for mosquitoes were a great pest to the colonists.
On the large plantations there was to be found a great variety of utensils
for kitchen, artisan, and farm use, most of which were brought from
England, but some, particularly iron pots, axes, and scythes, from New
England. For the kitchen there were hard metal plates, copper kettles and
pans, pewter dishes in large numbers, chiefly for servants' use, yellow
metal spoons, stone bottles, crocks, jugs, mugs, butter pots, and heavy
utensils in iron for cooking purposes. For the farm there were
grindstones, saws, files, knives, axes, adzes, planes, augurs, irons, hay
rakes, carts, forks, reaping hooks, wheat sieves, spades, shovels,
watering pots, plows, plowshares, and moldboards, harness and traces,
harrows, ox chains, and scythes.
The farmer was thus provided with all the implements necessary for mowing,
clearing underbrush, and cradling wheat, and all the other essential
activities of an agricultural life. A wheel plow is mentioned as early as
1732, and in 1748 James Crokatt, an influential Charlestonian in England,
sent over a plow designed to weed, trench, sow, and cover indigo, but of
its construction we unfortunately know nothing. The colonists
usually imported such articles as millstones, as large as
forty-eight inches in diameter and fourteen inches thick, frog spindles
and other parts for a tub mill or gristmill, hand presses, with lignum-vitæ
rollers for cider, copper stills with sweat worms and a capacity as high
as sixty gallons, vats for indigo, and pans for evaporating salt. For
fishing there were plenty of rods, lines, hooks, seines with leads and
corks, and eel pots. In addition to this varied
equipment, nearly all the plantations had outfits for coopering, tanning,
shoemaking, and other necessary occupations of a somewhat isolated
community. Separate buildings were erected in which this artisan work was
done, not only for the planter himself but also for his neighbors. Indeed
the returns from this community labor constituted an important item in the
annual statement of many a planter's income.
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