It is likely that most of the houses in the town conformed to the
minimum requirements of 20 by 20 feet. They were probably all of wood, a
story and a half high with a chimney built against one end. Forman
describes a 20-foot-square house foundation at Jamestown, known as the
"House on Isaac Watson's Land." This had a brick floor and a fireplace
large enough to take an 8-foot log as well as a setting for a brew
copper. The ground floor consisted of one room, and there was probably a
loft overhead providing extra sleeping and storage space.[39] The
original portion of the Digges house at Yorktown, built following the
Port Act of 1705 and still standing, is a brick house, also 20 feet
square and a story and a half high. Yet, brick houses certainly were not
the rule. In remote Stafford County, shortly before the port town was
built, the houses of even well-placed individuals were sometimes
extremely primitive. William Fitzhugh wrote in 1687 to his lawyer and
merchant friend Nicholas Hayward in London, "Your brother Joseph's
building that Shell, of a house without Chimney or partition, & not one
tittle of workmanship about it more than a Tobacco house work, carry'd
him into those Arrears with your self & his other Employees, as you
found by his Accots. at his death."[40] Ancient English puncheon-type
construction, with studs and posts set three feet into the ground, was
still in use at Marlborough in 1691, as we know from the contract for
building a prison quoted by Happel.[41] No doubt the houses there
varied in quality, but we may be sure that most were crude, inexpertly
built, of frame or puncheon-type construction, and subject to
deterioration by rot and insects.