century had towers. Such buildings were usually simple rectangles,
occasionally with a porch attached to the long side on the south, in the
approved English parish church manner.
Giving an idea how an early church was constructed is revealed in the
building specifications of the "Second Hungars Church" (1680), in
Northampton County--an edifice which was contemporaneous with old "St.
Luke's." Specifications can be pretty dry reading, but this one had a
humorous touch or two. It appears that the church wardens contracted
with the builder to put up a timber-framed parish church forty feet by
twenty, with wall plates ten feet high. Wall plates, by the way, are
timbers upon which rafters rest. Of "substantial substance," the framing
was to be oak, and the foundation to be locust blocks of wood. The walls
and roof were to have planks or clapboards. It is interesting that the
upper edge of the roof planks were to be let, or set, into the rafters
for strength and tightness. The inside of the church was also to be
planked in order to seal off the walls of the "Old Church,"--the "First
Hungars Church,"--which seems to have been incorporated, at least in
part, in the second shrine. The planks covered the barrel vault, which
was called "Arches," situated beneath the roof. Nails, planks, and food
were to be furnished to the builder.
One of the excellent contract provisions was that the contractor was to
take over no additional work elsewhere, or to leave the works, except
upon some great occasion, for a week or two at the most. Upon completion
of the job he was to receive ten thousand pounds of tobacco and to have
the help of a hand able to work an axe for the space of a month.
The foremost example of Jacobean Style in early ecclesiastical work was
the "Second Bruton Church," Middle Plantation, now Williamsburg. It was
completed in 1683--that is, soon after "St. Luke's,"--and has been
completely demolished. Excavations of its brick foundations revealed
that it possessed buttresses on its long sides and at the back. The
inside measurements were sixty feet by twenty-four. The main west
door--there was no tower--and the chancel door on the side were to be,
with minor variations, the sizes of the doors of the Brick Church of
1647 at Jamestown. An old drawing shows that the "Second Bruton Parish
Church" had curvilinear gables of the type found at "Bacon's Castle,"
and the western rose window was flanked by scrolls which were probably
formed of hand-cut brick. Both of these features are Jacobean.
Another early doorway, which is plain, round-headed, and of rubbed
brick, stands at the "Merchant's Hope Church," Prince George County, and
in style it seems to bolster the theory that at least a portion of the
existing shrine is of the seventeenth century.
Some believe that brick "Pungoteague Church" on Eastern Shore,
originally erected on a cross plan, with a mansard roof, was
seventeenth-century in date, but it is the part of wisdom to accept G.
C. Mason's belief for valid reasons that the pile was constructed as
late as 1738.
That some of these parish churches in Virginia had interiors which were
richly furnished is evident from the description of the builder's work
on one of them, the frame "Poplar Spring Church," (1677), Gloucester
County. Father Time has unfortunately done away with this shrine, but we
do know that its walls and ceiling were lathed and plastered, and that
the chancel, fifteen feet long, was to be divided from the nave by a
wooden _rood screen_--a "Screen to be run Crosse the church," and to
have "ballisters."
In the medieval English church the rood screen is the name given to the
chancel or choir screen when it supported the "rood," a large cross. It
was customary to build such a screen in three parts: a base comprising
panelled walls as high as the pews, a middle section with a row of wood
balusters set closely together, and a top part of pierced woodwork--that
is, traceried work--and heavy cornice.
[Illustration: Elements of the Typical Medieval Church in Va.]
At "Poplar Spring Church" there were double pews built on each side of
the chancel abutting the rood screen. Also set against the rood screen
was another double pew, this one between the pulpit in the nave and the
screen. The rest of the pews in the church, on both sides of the aisle,
were double and had panelled backs. The pulpit itself was hexagonal and
a three-decker affair. There was a six-foot space permitted for the
reading desk, set eighteen inches above the floor, and for the passage
into the pulpit. Half way up were the minister's pew and desk. The
church was also the proud possessor of a flowered, crimson, velvet
pulpit cloth, a silver communion service, and a drawing of cherubim,
presumably upon the altarpiece.
Although it was customary to place wainscoted pews within the chancel,
the "Second Lynnhaven Church," of 1692, Princess Anne County, had also
in the chancel several benches, which were used by the parish poor.
That all seventeenth-century churches in the Old Dominion were not of
brick or wood is shown by the "Second York Church" (1697), now Grace
Church, Yorktown, which was constructed of native marl.
The Transitional Style of architecture, which, as we have seen, greatly
influenced rural dwellings from about 1680 to about 1730, is marked in
the Virginia church chiefly by the doorway designs. The earliest motif
of a brick doorway is that plain, round-arched one on the entrance to
the Jamestown Brick Church belfry. By 1700, brick doorways were becoming
transitional: a good example is that at "Ware Church" (perhaps 1715),
Gloucester County, which is flanked by brick pilasters and an arch
bounded by a shallow hood--the whole made up of rubbed or gauged brick.
One of the most curious doorways of transitional vintage is the main
south entrance to "Yeocomico Church" (1706), Westmoreland County. The
door head consists of three brick arches in relief with stucco tympanums
or fillings. Of the three, the top arch rests upon the other two--much
in the manner that small arches cluster inside a large arch in some
English Gothic doorways. But the "Yeocomico" door has the flavor of
transitional experimentation.
Apropos of this same "Yeocomico" church, the door itself is a heavy
battened door which is Tudor, and which is believed to have been taken
from an earlier church (1653) on the same site. At all events, the long
vertical panels on the exterior of the door are reminiscent of those at
"Christ's Cross," New Kent County, already described. But the
"Yeocomico" entrance has an additional medieval feature: a small door or
"wicket" within the big door--a feature common to buildings of the
Middle Ages abroad.
Most early Virginia churches possessed parsonages, usually on the glebe
land and therefore known as "glebes." We have already cited, as an
example of the Transition, the "Abingdon Glebe House" (c. 1700),
Gloucester County, erected with balancing pavilion wings. Another
interesting glebe was specified in 1635 for erection on Old Plantation
Creek in Northampton County. Such a building appears to have been of the
"hall-and-parlor" variety with a chimney at each end and with a study
"outshut" and a buttery "outshut" off each chimney. On the front was an
"entry," the familiar little enclosed square porch, and at the rear were
a "Kitchinge" and a "Chamber." In size this parsonage was to be forty
feet by eighteen, and there were nine feet to the "wall plates," upon
which the rafters rested. One could almost make an accurate restoration
drawing of this glebe house from the description. But it must have been
typical of the minister's house of that day, and the building of a
"study" perhaps indicated that religion was then based on learning.
v. STATE HOUSES AND OTHER PUBLIC BUILDINGS
From the records we may learn of many kinds of public buildings, even
though their actual remains have disappeared above ground. We know, for
instance, of the Tavern or Ale-house (1660) of Thomas Woodhouse at
Jamestown, where at one time were made the laws of Virginia. We are
cognizant of the Eastern Shore tavern of 1697 where John Cole was
licensed to keep an "ordinary" and to retail liquors near the Court
House. We have heard of the "quartering house" of 1670 in Accomack
County, which was a kind of tourist home for one-night stop-overs. We
learn that there were many courthouses in seventeenth-century Virginia,
like that of 1690 in Northampton County, which is sketchily described as
having one exterior chimney and as being twenty-five feet long. Jails
there were, too, like the Westover Prison and Stocks of 1643, which were
probably constructed by Theoderick Bland. In Accomack there stood in
1674 a "logg'd" prison, fifteen feet by ten. At Westover, it may be
noted, was also a "Brew house."
Also from the records we find mention of the Salt Works of 1676 owned
by Daniel and Anne Jenifer and of Darby's Grist Mill of 1668, both in
Accomack County; and of the Windmill of 1642 constructed jointly by John
Williams and Obedience Robins, "chirugion," in Northampton County.
The Glass House or Factory of 1608 near Jamestown is one building which
we do know something about, because of excavations by the National Park
Service. It had originally a dirt floor about fifty feet by
thirty-seven--a large area. Upon this floor were built three crude stone
furnaces and a pot kiln. There was probably an open-walled timber
structure with a pitched roof over the large floor and with louvres for
the thick smoke to escape through the roof. There is not the slightest
evidence for the use of crucks in the present off-site reconstruction of
this great pile.
[Illustration: THE COUNTRY-LUDWELL-THIRD STATE HOUSE BLOCK
Author's reconstruction from _Jamestown and St. Mary's_ showing four
residences and the first American state house to be built specifically
as a State House or Capitol.]
When we take up the subject of State Houses, we have an excellent
example in the "Third State House" at Jamestown, which, as heretofore
noted, formed part of the "Country-Ludwell-State House" block of five
buildings a little up river from the Brick Church of 1647. Only the
foundations of the "Third State House" remain, but from them and from
the references in the Virginia records we know pretty much how the
edifice looked originally. And it is noted as the first structure in the
United States erected as a legislative seat.
Built about 1662 and burned in 1676, the "Third State House" was a
medieval cross-house possessing close analogies to "Bacon's Castle" in
the general neighborhood, and it rose two full storeys and garret high.
There was no basement. The main facade, facing the south and the main
body of Jamestown, had a porch and porch chamber, and at the back was a
tower which held the stairway--an area which in that day was known as a
"Stair Case." In size, the stair tower was about the same as that of the
"Brick State House of 1676" in St. Mary's City, Maryland, a
cross-building which postdated the Virginia structure by only about
thirteen years.
The interior of the "Third State House" must have been impressive.
Downstairs were a spacious waiting room and a Court House Room, in which
the Governor and his Council met and in which at times Provincial Courts
were held. Upstairs were another waiting room and the Assembly Hall or
House of Burgesses. The little porch chamber on the second floor was
used by His Majesty's Secretary of Virginia, until he was ordered to
work in the eastern garret.
The four great rooms in this pile--two down and two up--had huge
fireplaces on their long sides. The downstairs fireplaces could burn
nine-foot logs. All the ceilings had girders and joists exposed.
After the conflagration of 1676 set by Nathaniel Bacon, the building was
rebuilt (1685) on the same site, probably using what brick walls were
still standing, to become the "Fourth State House." It is believed that
in the rebuilding there was not much change in the design. But it was
only natural that some of the rooms should have new uses, so that we
find that the lower waiting room was fitted into a Secretary's Office by
placing a strong partition under the "second girder" and, because of
dampness, by raising the floor two feet up from the ground. To keep
persons from breaking in to steal the record books of the Colony in the
small storage room next to the Secretary's Office, the windows were
barred with iron and had board shutters half an inch thick, with
cross-bars.
[Illustration: In 17{th} C.--Va., builders used to scratch their
initials on plaster. From J'town.]
Virginia may well be proud of the design of this "Third State House" at
Jamestown, which has recently been the subject of a special restoration
study for the Commonwealth by this writer. That legislative seat, built
nearly three hundred years ago, was dignified, handsome, impressive, and
in fine scale. Through its portals passed in those days the chief
figures of the Dominion. Its mullioned and diamond-pane windows, its
pantile roof, and its porch and porch chamber gave the fabric a strong
medieval flavor.
It is unfortunate that the "Fourth State House" burned on October 31,
1698, through an accident. What kind of an accident the records do not
state. Was it a faulty flue, an overturned sconce, or carelessness in
lighting a tobacco pipe? We shall probably never know. But the very next
year the early capital, Jamestown, which had flourished for ninety-two
years, was abandoned in favor of Middle Plantation, "nigh his Majesties
Royall Colledg of William and Mary."
Three years before the destruction by fire of the "Fourth State House,"
the foundation of the "Sir Christopher Wren Building" of William and
Mary College was laid down (1695). The shape of the great structure was
to have been a quadrangle in the best English tradition of the Middle
Ages. Colleges in Britain, as early as the 1200s, were in their general
equipment much like monastic establishments, grouped about an arcaded
cloister, and were halls of residence for communities of teachers and
students.
But in Williamsburg the Wren Building was slow to get started, and has
in truth never been completed in the form of a rectangle. By 1705, the
year of the first fire, only the front facade and half of the north side
had been completed. Consequently, for all intents and purposes, the
edifice is an eighteenth-century structure, in spite of its earlier
foundation, and belongs more to Classic Williamsburg than to the former
era. In more than one respect it paved the way for the Virginia
Georgian.
For all that, the style of the original building may be said to be
Transitional, with Georgian details, like modillions in the cornice. The
main facade, one hundred and thirty-six feet long, is distinguished by a
"break-front" or projecting bay on the center, crowned by a steeply
pitched gable--the motif being repeated on the courtyard side. According
to an old drawing of 1702 the entrance facade had in the center two
balconies, one above the other, over the great, arched, front doorway.
The hipped main roof is crowned by a "tower" or cupola.
The arrangement of the main roof on the quadrangle side is unique: there
is on each side of the central gable a row of hipped roofs. In the early
days in Virginia there must have been many a building with a similar
row. It is possible that the "First State House" itself had three hips
contiguous to one another instead of the three gables which we have
drawn herein. At any rate, in order to see existing parallels one has to
visit the Bermudas, the Bahamas, or even Great Britain herself.
V
THE RICH HERITAGE OF ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS
Although it is true that the vast majority of English buildings in
Virginia during the seventeenth century were simple and unadorned,
constructed by plain people, there was a large number of structures
which had ornate or costly details and exquisite furnishings. What is
known about these interesting features is still largely unknown to
Virginians, and it is the purpose of this chapter to make mention of
some of them.
The richest details known to a seventeenth-century building in the Old
Dominion appear to have once upon a time decorated the ceiling of the
Great Hall of "William Sherwood's House," built about 1677-80 in
Jamestown. The dwelling was a small, brick, storey-and-garret residence
built on top of and across the foundation ruins of the old "Governor's
House," already described. Mr. Sherwood's Great Hall, seventeen feet by
sixteen in size, was rented in 1685 by the Government of Virginia and
used as a Council Room by His Majesty's Governor and Council.
Now for the discovery. It was in the excavations of 1935 in Sherwood's
neat, brick basement, and in the area immediately surrounding that
cellar, that more than fifty thousand fragments of plaster were
retrieved. There are still some who do not believe that this plaster
work came from Sherwood's House; but like "Kilroy," this writer was
there and can vouch for its coming from Sherwood's. In fact we have
charts showing exactly where each important fragment of plaster was
found, and at what depth below the ground.
At any rate, some of the plaster was colored or frescoed, and much of it
was moulded. There were two particular pieces of plaster with raised
letters upon them: on one the letters "VI," on the other the letter
"Y." What did they mean? This writer invited Mr. Singleton Moorehead, of
the Williamsburg Restoration, down to Jamestown Island to view the
letters, and he immediately identified them as belonging to the "Garter"
of the Royal Arms of Great Britain. In quoting what the Garter states,
we have underlined the Jamestown letters, thus: "HONI SOIT Q_VI_ MAL _Y_
PENSE." Translated, the words mean, "Evil be to him who evil thinks."
There is no doubt that Mr. Moorehead was correct. The tail of the "Q" in
"Q_VI_" showed plainly, and the blank space in front of the "_Y_"
indicated that it was a letter by itself. But with the Garter in hand we
could identify the other important plaster finds--the masks, roses,
leaves, the lion, the hand-and-book, and the ribs, which ordinarily
divide a large plaster composition into separate panels--as part of the
Royal Coat of Arms.
[Illustration: The Now Famous Letters from the Jamestown Plaster
Garter identified by S. P. Moorehead]
In England such a ceiling arrangement in plaster was called "pargetry"
and was a Tudor manner of decorating an important room. How appropriate
to find the Royal Arms of England in the room in Sherwood's which was
used by His Majesty's Governor and Council. That was one of the great
archaeological finds of America, and the translation of the inscription
one of the great interpretations.
The important, widespread, and non-perishable building material of
tidewater was brick; and when we take up the subject of
seventeenth-century brickwork, we may still with justification hover
about the ruins of "William Sherwood's House" at Jamestown as a starting
point. It was there were found the largest and most varied collection
of rubbed or gauged brick in that capital city. By "gauging"--and we
have mentioned the term before in describing certain church
doorways,--we mean that the bricks have been cut and finished off by
rubbing upon a sandstone. In England by 1660, only about seventeen years
before Mr. Sherwood's home was erected, gauged bricks had become widely
popular. Such bricks were usually lighter in color than the
run-of-the-mill bricks, and were employed on cornices, belt or string
courses, quoins at the corners of buildings, and the heads
and jambs of openings. They dressed up an edifice in the eye of the
seventeenth-century beholder.
Further, we know that in Britain one of the ways of decorating an
opening in a late medieval building was to put mouldings on jambs and
head of a doorway or of a window. Apropos of Sherwood's at Jamestown,
few of us, if any, know that his mansion possessed openings with _ovolo_
bricks--bricks rubbed and cut in an egg-shaped ornamental moulding.
[Illustration: Part of a Medieval Ornamental Ovolo Jamb Brick from
Sherwood's H. Jamestown]
There seems little doubt that Virginians made bricks, even gauged
bricks, in their capital and did not bring them from England--popular
tradition to the contrary. Several brick kilns have been discovered at
Jamestown by the National Park Service. One was a well-preserved, square
brick kiln of about 1650, found with arched ovens and with some bricks
and tiles in place. The citizens of James City had no difficulty in
fabricating all the fancy and ornamental bricks or tiles which they
desired.
Virginia brick of the seventeenth century was generally called English
brick or English _statute_ brick, not because it was brought from
England--which it was not--but because its size was regulated by English
law. There was another kind of brick used at that time in Virginia, the
Dutch brick, made not by Hollanders but by Virginians and English, which
was a great deal smaller than the English brick. The Jamestown English
brick generally run 9" by 4-1/4" by 2-1/4" in size, but the Dutch brick,
yellow in color, average 6" by 2-1/2" by 1-1/2".
In the realm of fireplaces, early Virginia had some ornate ones. Old
"Fairfield" (1692), Gloucester County, before its destruction, had a
mantelpiece of carved marble and some "linenfold" wainscoting. A
peculiarity of Gothic carved decoration, the linenfold design was
employed in oak panels in imitation of folded parchment or linen.
Sometimes in the Old Dominion a rich array of Dutch faience tiles, five
inches square, decorated the sides of a fireplace, as in the "Double
House on the Land of the Reverend Hampton," already described. Those
tiles, called Dutch, but probably made in England in the Dutch manner,
have blue designs upon a milky white surface, and show human
figures--Dutchmen--throwing javelins, bowling, or playing games.
In the field of wrought-iron work early Virginia was outstanding. Iron
was a common commodity, even as far back as 1610, when the Spanish spy,
Don Miguel, wrote from Jamestown to Spain that iron mines, and mines for
other metals, were being worked in Virginia. Then, in 1619, Sir Edwin
Sandys, Treasurer of the Virginia Company of London, sent one hundred
and fifty persons to Virginia to set up three iron works. Glassware,
too, was made as early as 1608, at the "Glass House" on Glass House
Point, near Jamestown, and was imported into England; but the fragile
nature of glass has caused it to endure less well than wrought-iron.
Probably much of the best quality ironwork was brought from England: we
have record, for instance, of Sir John Harvey in 1639 bringing with him
"iron wares to the value of upwards of L45."
The wooden casement window, as well as that of wrought-iron, often gave
Virginians a chance to create beautiful and enriched designs. The little
metal casement taken from the ruin on the "John Washington Farm" of
about 1670 in Westmoreland County measures only 12-3/4" across and
18-1/2" tall, yet it has a fairly ornate iron plate, punched and cut out
in an interesting design, over which is fastened a spring latch-bar,
also of a cut-out shape. A ring or pull through which a finger could be
slipped to twist a lever against the latch-bar to open the casement was
welded to the latch itself. When viewed from the interior of a room, the
ornamental fastener was especially effective silhouetted against the
light. There was no limit to the fanciful shapes and decorations of such
fasteners.
The "First State House," which as we have already noted formed a group
of three row dwellings at Jamestown, had in its day probably as much
wealth of ornate ironwork as any other building in the Old Dominion.
From its ruins came a veritable mine of hardware of good quality, yet
rusted. A few specimens may be mentioned here: Cock's Head hinges--a
type of "H"-hinge with four heads, the pattern of which harks back to
Roman times; an ornamental cupboard latch-lock, made of wrought-iron and
steel, with a punched and lobed silhouette, a spring, a pull for
turning; and a bar delicately incised with diagonal grooves.