was a "cell" or "aisle" at the rear of the narrow Tudor cottage, one
room deep. In the same way, the English parish church of single nave
sometimes sprouted a side aisle in order to make more space for
parishioners. In the Old Dominion such elongated warts or "outshuts" at
the rear of the homestead afforded additional bedroom space over and
beyond the cramped garret, but at the same time unfortunately threw
off-center the steep medieval gable, thereby causing what the English
have called a "catslide." A catslide roof is one in which the slope at
the rear extends nearly the whole way to the ground. In New England the
"cell" addition became the "lean-to." For such fabrics in Virginia we
have coined the term, the _Early Cell_ type, one which was well
represented by the destroyed "Towles Point," in Lancaster County.
Even so, the Virginian did not long relish an "ugly," though perhaps
picturesque, catslide gable; therefore, he once more began to build
symmetrically, at the same time keeping his little back "cells." When
such gables became symmetrical, we may assign the examples to the _Late
Cell_ type.
[Illustration: A "Late Cell" Transitional House
Richardson House Jas. Cy. Co. Va.]
We find, moreover, that not all Transitional structures had "cells."
Sometimes the mark of experimentation is shown by other building forms,
such as the one-room deep cottage mushrooming upward into a full second
storey and garret; at other times the settler, dissatisfied with his
"knock-head" bed chambers, experimented with the gambrel roof,
frequently but mistakenly called the "Dutch roof." The gambrel, to the
best of our knowledge, was introduced from England into the American
Colonies in the 1680s; but it did not become widespread for almost half
a century. Likewise Transitional are certain early Virginia homes with
hip roofs, perhaps the best example being the brick "Abingdon Glebe" (c.
1700) in Gloucester County, where the one-and-a-half-storey main block
of the house is exactly balanced by low end pavilions--each surmounted
by a hipped roof.
There were other Virginia building experiments in the period covered by
the Transition, but the foregoing is sufficient to summarize the Style,
which paved the way for the Georgian in the eighteenth century.
IV
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE IN VIRGINIA.
i. THE COTTAGE PERIOD
The thirteen years between the founding of James Fort in 1607 and the
landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth Rock on Christmas Day, 1620,
have been designated by this writer, for the sake of convenience, as the
"Cottage" Period of Virginia architecture. It was in the "Cradle of the
Republic," on James River, that we find the English styles taking root
and flourishing mightily. As a result, the United States of America
became characterized more by these same English styles than by any other
foreign style, such as French or Spanish.
For the most part--though not entirely--these first thirteen years of
English settlement in Virginia were marked by rough shelters, temporary
huts or booths, and fragile buildings. As a case in point, the first
fortification thrown together upon the day of first landing upon
Jamestown Island was of the skimpiest construction: boughs of trees cast
together in the form of a half-moon. The first settlement at that time
was frankly a bivouac, where a tented church was set up, and the
customary lodging was a tent cover or a hole in the ground. Secretary
Strachey wrote home to England about the ill-lodged colonists, of whom
the poorer slept on the ground and the more fortunate had such miserable
cottages that the sun pierced through them and made them hot as stoves.
All these fragile shelters have disappeared, but types of them have in
later years been described. In 1621, for example, a servant by the name
of Richard Chelsey was to have a new house built for him, in length,
fourteen feet, and in breadth, twelve feet. In Northampton County one
John Alford squeezed himself into a hut only five and a half feet high,
with a doorway only four feet, nine inches and a quarter in height. Big
enough for children! Some habitations did not bother about wood for
walls; they were of earth or clay mixed with straw. This last type was
represented in later years by some of the outhouses at "Four Mile Tree"
plantation, Virginia, which were made of red clay held together by
chopped straw.
Such abbreviated buildings had waxed paper or curtains to cover their
"wind-holes," sliding-panel windows, hinged shutters without glass, or
tiny casements.
In addition to these frail and temporary shelters were more substantial
edifices, which may be classified, according to present knowledge, as
illustrating at least five chief methods of English Medieval
construction. These may be listed as follows:
1. The palisade
2. The puncheon
3. The cruck
4. Timber framing, including half-timber work
5. Brick
Now the first of these, _palisading_, was common in England for two
thousand years and more, and, as we have already seen, was employed by
the Virginia Indian, who invented it entirely independently of European
contact. The first palisade on the James River, that of James Fort of
1607, comprised strong planks and posts placed close together four feet
deep in the earth. They rose above ground about fourteen feet. But there
was nothing, to our knowledge, which was unusual about that palisading,
except, perhaps, its triangular shape. Most forts of that kind were
square, but on Jamestown Island the fort was a triangle, supposedly
forced into that configuration by the topography. At any rate, the
customary bulwarks or watchtowers rose at the three corners of the
fortification, and there was the usual moat and drawbridge.
English forts of this kind, with stockades and ditches, were common to
Virginia, as for example, at Sir Walter Raleigh's Roanoke Fort of 1585
in North Carolina, formerly Virginia; at Old Point Comfort in 1609; in
City of Henrico in 1611; at Claiborne's Kent Island trading post of
1621--now in Maryland; and at the "Town" on the Eastern Shore in 1623.
One of the longest palisades in all Virginia in the seventeenth century
was Dale's "Dutch Gap" on the James. Its two-mile-long moat was lined by
palisaded walls accented by towers.
After the Massacre of 1622, the Colony of Virginia ordered (1624-25) all
dwellings and plantations to be palisaded in, that is, to be enclosed by
"Park-pales," as the English called them. Ordinarily walls about seven
and a half feet high were tall enough for protection from sudden attack.
Even churches were palisaded in, as for example, the first church on the
Eastern shore. In the 1630s one Stephen Charleton threatened to kick the
Reverend Cotton over the paled fence--the "Pallyzados"--around that
sacred edifice.
The second medieval method is _puncheoning_. It seems that the English
made puncheons or "quarters" pretty much like the Indians, that is, they
fashioned upright timbers or posts, set apart in the ground so that the
space between them was the same as the thickness of the timber or post.
Then they filled the interstices with "wattle-and-daub," a basketwork of
branches, twigs, and roots, coated on both sides with loam and lime,
mixed with straw. Back home in England, this filling of the spaces was
named "post and pan." On James River there is record of the Berkeley
settlement of 1619 having most of the dwellings built of "punches" set
in the earth and with boards for the roofs. Other huts were flimsy
shelters merely "covered with boards," so that one spark could easily
set them off. But when the English employed thin turf or sod for their
roofs, the structures were safer from fire.
[Illustration: A Puncheoned Cot with wattle filling and clapboard
roof]
In connection with this wattling and daubing of Virginia buildings, the
two early churches on Eastern Shore are believed to have been puncheoned
edifices. The second church (c. 1638), near Fishing Creek was described
as "of insignificant dimensions" and constructed of two materials:
"roughly riled logs"--that is, vertical timbers, since log cabins as we
know them were virtually unknown in the English colonies before 1660;
and "wattles." A reference to "daubing" the first church (c. 1623), on
King's Creek, leads us to believe that it also was built on "punches"
and was woven with wattles.
Now, about the third construction type, the _cruck_. No one has seen
today an original cruck building in this country, but early Virginia
possessed hundreds and perhaps thousands of cruck fabrics. Like the
palisade and puncheon methods, the cruck was medieval down to its very
core. In describing the James Fort church of 1607, Captain John Smith
stated it was set upon "crotchets," covered with rafters, rushes, and
earth. When he spoke of crotchet, he probably meant cruck, of which it
was a later derivative. At all events, a building set on crucks means
that it is supported or hung upon pairs of curved or bent tree trunks
placed together in the shape of a Gothic pointed arch and spaced one
"bay" apart. It was the custom in medieval England to erect buildings in
bays for the sake of convenience. A bay was the standard unit of length,
generally sixteen feet, although it could vary. A four-bay cruck church
on Jamestown Island means that there were five pairs of bent trees, or
crucks, in total length some sixty-four feet, arranged in the following
manner: : : : : : Then, upon the crucks were hung the side walls and the
roof.
[Illustration: A Hypothetical Three-Bay Cruck House in Virginia]
Yet in this era of Virginia history before the
"Mayflower" landed in New England, the most common of all the medieval
types of construction is _timber-framing_. A building which was
timber-framed was a substantial one, comprising a framework of posts set
_far_ apart, of diagonal braces, and of studs, sills, plates, and
girts--the ensemble fastened together securely with tongues and grooves
and wooden pegs. It was the custom to cut and adz the timbers so that
they would fit together neatly; and in order to do that, Roman numerals
were cut into each timber to identify it. In that way the whole
framework could be assembled properly and efficiently--the first
pre-fabricated house in Virginia. So good were these timber-framed
structures that the English in the Old Dominion called them "fair
houses" and "English houses." In 1611 James City boasted of two fair
rows of dwellings, all of framed timber, two storeys and garret, or
corn-loft, high. At Berkeley, in 1619 there were two timber-framed
habitations, and at the City of Henrico in 1611 three streets of well
framed houses.
[Illustration: Example of Timber Framing in 17{th} C. Va.]
The timber-framed dwelling is the most commonly erected today in this
country, although builders and carpenters no longer bother to number or
to peg together the timbers.
In this Cottage Period about which we have been reading the general
manner of framing structures was to either cover the framework or make
"half-timber work." In the former method, weatherboarding (clapboards),
or shingle tiles or slate nailed to weatherboards, covered up the posts
and studs. In the latter method, the filling between the studding would
be left exposed to the elements. And this filling could take a variety
of forms: plaster; "wattle-and-daub"; brick "nogging," with the bricks
laid horizontally, in herring-bone, or helter-skelter; or mud and straw.
Contrary to popular opinion, there were undoubtedly _brick_ buildings in
Virginia in the first thirteen years. It was at Jamestown in 1607 that
President Wingfield visited "ould Short, the bricklayer." What do you
suppose Short did in those early years of the Colony? He manufactured
brick for chimneys, walks, walls, terraces, floors, kilns, and
buildings--_brick_ buildings. Now brick for an edifice, usually laid in
English bond, where the courses are alternately headers and stretchers,
is still another English medieval method of construction, which became
popular in Virginia. We know, for instance, that there were in 1611, in
addition to the well-framed dwellings already cited at City of Henrico,
some "competent and decent houses, the first storie all of brick." These
were not purely brick structures but only part brick, which we have
called buildings of "half-and-half work." The downstairs was brick, the
upstairs timber-framed--another English medieval type.
Further, during the Cottage Period and for many a year afterward, the
wooden chimney was the common method of smoke outlet. Strachey mentioned
at James City not only the wattled buildings, but the "wide and large
Country chimnies"--in other words, the wood or "Welsh" chimney, a
medieval construction which dates back in English history to the
eleventh century and before. Ordinarily the fire had its smoke and
sparks sucked up a large wattle-and-daubed or lath-and-plastered hood
resting on the garret floor, thence up a wood flue and out the stack,
which might have been a barrel or wood box or some such contraption. At
other times the whole chimney and fireplace were placed on the exterior,
the better to protect against fire; and the boards were lined with crude
lath and clay daubing. Still another kind of chimney was the "catted"
chimney, made of "cats" or rolled-up strips of clay mixed with straw,
and placed closely together within a framework of wooden posts and
rails. But you have to see these wooden chimneys to know how they
actually appeared.
* * * * *
The story of this thirteen year period from 1607 to 1620 should not be
concluded without mention of the influence of Indian building methods
upon the English settlers. In 1608, after the great smoke of the fire
had blown away from James City, the colonists under the direction of
Captain Newport roofed some of their new homes with the bark of trees,
which was cooler than their usual roofing clapboards or wooden shingles.
Also they adorned their new rooms with mats woven into delicate colors
and designs by the Indians.
Thatch for roofs did not go out of style altogether in favor of bark,
because as late as 1638 there is record of a "thatcht" dwelling on the
Eastern Shore of Virginia.
Plowden noted the construction in 1650 in some of our East Coast
settlements of "arbour" houses, of poles and bark boards; and some of
these _English_ arbor buildings were undoubtedly built in Jamestown and
the other major settlements in earliest Virginia.
While the white man sometimes copied the Indian in his construction, it
is significant that when the colonists landed in 1607, the Indian, for
his part, was already employing several types of English medieval
construction, which he had invented and acquired independently of
European contact. Although we have already cited most of these types, we
list them again, in order to give the Indian credit, where credit is
due: palisaded walls with moats, and pale fencing; puncheoning with
wattles; central hearths with roof louvres for smoke; thatched roofs;
and timber-framing with wattle-and-daub panels. How can anyone belittle
the technical accomplishments of the Indian by calling him "savage,"
when in at least five building methods he equalled the white man
bringing the English Medieval Style to these shores? Our English
ancestors _originally_ lived in smoky buildings with the central open
hearth in the middle of the great room; in seventeenth-century Virginia
the Indian did likewise. The difference was in timing.
ii. THE COUNTRY HOUSE
In the seventeenth century, the English rural homestead was usually
placed along the great Bay, the Chesapeake, or upon one of its tidewater
tributaries. Back of such a seat, or on either side of it, there
stretched the outhouses, generally arranged in rows or around
courtyards. The water served as the principal highway, and the
plantation depended upon it. Certain Indian paths, it is true, were
turned into narrow lanes for carts, in order to reach the interior, like
the oldest "road" in Virginia, which, as we have seen, extended from
Jamestown to Middle Plantation, now Williamsburg.
[Illustration: A Type of 17{th} century Virginia Plantation
"Carotoman," Lancaster Co.]
The variety and number of properties which the prosperous land-owners
possessed is revealing, by giving us a glimpse of the economic and
architectural life of the times. Besides the mansion-house there were
offices, kitchens and bake houses, slave quarters, school houses,
dairies, barns, stables, granaries, smoke houses, spring houses, and
dovecots.
There were servants' dwellings, spinning houses, smithies, tan houses,
bin houses, well houses, hogsties, cornhouses, and guest houses. For the
gardens, sometimes called "hortyards," there were summerhouses,
greenhouses, and arbors. Then there were bloomeries and ironworks,
wharves for landing goods, called "bridges," warehouses, windmills,
watermills, sawmills, glassworks, silkhouses, brick and pottery kilns,
lime kilns, saltworks, and blockhouses.
[Illustration: The Green Spring Pottery Kiln c. 1646]
[Illustration: Two Va. Outhouses
Bin House Jamestown (Author's Reconstr'ns)]
For all intents and purposes such grandiose estates were
self-sustaining. Those goods not produced in Virginia came generally
from England and were usually landed upon the wharf in front of the
plantation-dwelling. That the kitchen outhouse was frequently placed at
a distance from the dining room was primarily due not to class or color
distinction, but to the medieval custom of carrying food across the
service courtyard.
Very often throughout the seventeenth century, especially on the Eastern
Shore of Virginia, the kitchen building was tied to the main abode by a
colonnade--a passage with columns--or by a curtain--a covered
passageway.
That these edifices in their wooden parts were painted, when the owner
could afford paint, is proven by the record of importations of large
quantities of color pigments and oils to make paint. Many of us today
think that the early Virginia building was white, but colors like gray
and tan were common. When the owner could not bear the expense of
painting, he left his house bare or "whited" it with good white
lime--that is, used whitewash.
[Illustration: SOME OCCUPANTS OF 17TH-CENTURY VIRGINIA HOMES ATE FROM
BOWLS LIKE THIS ONE, FROM JAMESTOWN
A scraffito or scratched slipware bowl with one handle. Height 3-5/8",
dia. 8-3/4". _Photo, author._ (See page 21)]
[Illustration: A MEDIEVAL "PYRAMID" CHIMNEY IN VIRGINIA
So large is the fireplace of this one-bay dwelling that you can burn
an eight-foot log within it. Great "weatherings" taper the chimney
towards the stack, which is freestanding as protection against fire.
Note medieval "black-diapered" brick pattern in gable. _Photo,
author._ (See page 22)]
[Illustration: REMNANTS OF A MEDIEVAL VIRGINIA STOREHOUSE
The foundation of the "Bin House," Jamestown, excavated by the
National Park Service. The two brick bins have concave floors below
the original main floor level. _Photo, author._ (See page 36)]
[Illustration: A TYPE OF MEDIEVAL CORNICE IN VIRGINIA
Unlike the later box cornice, to which we are accustomed, the cornice
of this dwelling of about 1670 has exposed and rounded beam ends,
which are pegged to a tilted plate, on which the rafters rest. Note
corbel of overlapping bricks which stops cornice. _Photo, author._
(See page 37)]
[Illustration: A MEDIEVAL "HALL-AND-PARLOR" HOUSE IN JAMES CITY COUNTY
The "Warburton House" or "Pinewoods" of about 1680 has
segmental-arched openings, "T"-chimneys, and chimney caps with
mouse-tooth brickwork, a decoration which seems to have come into
fashion about that time. A rear wing has disappeared. _Photo,
author._ (See page 40)]
[Illustration: "SWEET HALL," A MEDIEVAL "T"-PLAN HOME IN VIRGINIA
This old seat of the Claibornes in King William County, dating from
about 1695, has very tall "T"-stacks, with "weatherings" or slopes
above the ridge, and with heavy, ornate caps. The dormers and porches
are later. _Photo, author._ (See page 41)]
[Illustration: CLAY ROOFING PANTILES FROM THE FIRST STATE HOUSE,
JAMESTOWN
The left-hand tile, nearly complete, has a "nob" at one end to catch
on the roof strips. It was pieced together by Mr. John T. Zaharov, and
is the _first_ pantile ever found in the United States. The paper
arrow at right marks cemented overlap. _Photo, author._ (See page 48)]
[Illustration: ONE OF THE MOST HISTORIC SITES IN THE UNITED STATES
Much of our knowledge of 17th-century Virginia life and art comes from
Jamestown foundations. This interesting "complex" of ruins reveals
William Sherwood's house cellar of c. 1677-80, and in the immediate
foreground, a fireplace hearth of the "Governor's House," probably
built in the 1620s, and occupied by Sir George Yeardley. _Photo,
author._ (see page 49)]
[Illustration: A JAMESTOWN LATTICE CASEMENT AS IT CAME FROM THE GROUND
This medieval window, with the diamond panes or "quarrels" knocked
out, came from the "Double House on the Land of Thomas Hampton," and
is drawn restored in _Jamestown and St. Mary_'s. Note pane of glass
standing upon a Dutch brick. _Photo, author._ (See page 67)]
[Illustration: TWO UNUSUAL JAMESTOWN STRAP-HINGES
The right-hand hinge, broken, probably came from a wagon-box or chest.
(See page 68)]
[Illustration: A BRASS SWORD HANDLE FROM THE JAMESTOWN MUD
Found in three pieces with the blade missing, this cavalier's sword is
ornamented with _putti_ and other decorations. _Photos, author._
_Courtesy, Antiques Magazine._]
The most significant aspect of the medieval rural abode in Virginia was
its regular course of development from the simple, one-room-and-garret
cottage--what an English bishop in 1610 called a "silly cote," a hut of
"one bay's breath"--to the stately and elegant Georgian mansion of the
eighteenth century. Even so, it may not be unequivocally declared that
all the simple dwellings were constructed first and all the complex ones
later. At the same time, we find that often the homes with more than two
downstairs rooms and a central passageway were constructed in late
seventeenth-century times. Further, the country lodging for the most
part was only one-storey-and-loft high. The full two-storey domicile was
the exception.
[Illustration: Floor Plan of a Medieval One-Bay House (c. 1670) in
Va.]
The elementary hut of one bay, such as we have noted as having been
prevalent in the Cottage Period of the first thirteen years, was the
earliest type of substantial house-form in the Old Dominion; it had a
"hall," which was the "Great Room"--not a passage,--a dining room, and a
kitchen, all rolled into one. The garret with sloping ceilings, perhaps
reached by a stepladder or narrow, winding, "break-your-neck" staircase,
was usually a cold, unheated, cramped space for sleeping.
One of these small, fractional-bay dwellings stood (1660) in Northampton
County, and was ten feet from end to end. It served as the first
meeting-place of the Quakers or Friends on the Eastern Shore, and was
later used as a "wheat house."
A better known one-bay domicile was Richard May's, built about 1661 in
Jamestown, and pictured in a crude sort of way in the Ambler
Manuscripts: a flush chimney at one gable and a front with central door
flanked on each side by a window. Excavations by the National Park
Service at the site of May's revealed that the house had a chimney at
the opposite end--a feature which must of necessity have marked an
addition.
[Illustration: PLAN OF A HOUSE-FOUNDATION ON THE LAND OF ISAAC WATSON
AT JAMESTOWN.
Showing the distribution of important hardware, and a reconstruction
of the house. _Courtesy Antiques Magazine._]