DUTCH TOWN HOMES
The first log houses of the settlers, with their “reeden roofs,”
were soon supplanted by a more substantial form of edifice, Dutch,
naturally, in outline. They were set with the gable-end to the street
and were often built of Dutch brick, or, at any rate, the gable-ends
were of brick.
Madam Knights’ description of the city of New York and the houses is
wonderfully clear, as is every account from her graphic pen, but very
short:--
“The Buildings are Brick Generaly, very stately and high though not
altogether like ours in Boston. The Bricks in some of the Houses are
of divers Coullers and laid in Checkers, being glazed, look very
agreable. The inside of them is neat to admiration; the wooden work,
for only the walls are plaster’d, and the Sumers and Gist are planed
and kept very white scour’d as so is all the partitions if made of
Bords.”
Albany long preserved its Dutch appearance and Dutch houses. Peter
Kalm’s description of the city of Albany is a good one, and would well
answer for other New York towns:--
“The houses in this town are very neat, and partly built with stones
covered with shingles of the White Pine. Some are slated with tiles
from Holland, because the clay of this neighborhood is not reckoned
fit for tiles. Most of the houses are built in the old way, with the
gable-end towards the street; the gable-end of brick and all the other
walls of planks. The gutters on the roofs reach almost to the middle
of the street. This preserves the walls from being damaged by the
rain, but it is extremely disagreeable in rainy weather for the people
in the streets, there being hardly any means of avoiding the water
from the gutters.
“The street doors are generally in the middle of the houses and on
both sides are seats, on which, during fair weather the people spend
almost the whole day, especially on those which are in the shadow of
the houses. In the evening these seats are covered with people of
both sexes, but this is rather troublesome, as those who pass by are
obliged to greet everybody unless they will shock the politeness of
the inhabitants of this town. The streets are broad and some of them
are paved; in some parts they are lined with trees. The long streets
are almost parallel to the river, and the others intersect them at
right angles.”
Rev. Samuel Chandler, chaplain of one of the Massachusetts regiments,
stopped several days in Albany in the year 1755. He tells of the
streets with rows of small button-trees, of the brick houses curiously
flowered with black brick and dated with the same, the Governor’s house
having “two black brick-hearts.” The houses one story high with their
gable-ends “notched like steps” (he might have said with corbel-steps),
were surmounted with vanes, the figures of horses, lions, geese, and
sloops. There were window shutters with loop-holes outside the cellars.
Smith, the historian of New York, writing at the same time, calls
the houses of all the towns, “built of brick in Dutch taste.” Daniel
Denton, writing as early as 1670, tells of the “red and black tile (of
New York) giving at a distance a pleasing aspect to the Spectators.”
All the old sketches of the town which exist, crude as they are,
certainly do present a pleasing aspect.
The chief peculiarity of these houses were the high roofs; some
were extraordinarily steep and thus afforded a garret, a loft, and
a cock-loft. There was reason and economy in this form of roof. The
shingle covering was less costly than the walls, and the contraction
in size of second-story rooms was not great.
Very few of the steep roofs in the earliest days had eave-troughs,
hence the occasional use in early deeds and conveyances of the
descriptive term “free-drip.” At a later date troughs were made of
sections of the bark of some tree (said to be birch) which the Indians
brought into town and sold to house builders. Then came metal spouts
projecting several feet, as noted by Kalm. In 1789, when Morse’s
Geography was issued, he speaks of the still projecting water-spouts or
gutters of Albany, “rendering it almost dangerous to walk the streets
on a rainy day;” but in New York more modified fashions obtained long
before that time.
The windows were small; some had two panes. When we learn that the
ordinary panes of glass imported at that time were in size only
six inches by eight inches, we can see that the windows were only
loop-holes.
The front doors were usually divided as in Holland, into an upper and
lower half. They were in early days hung on strap-hinges, afterwards
on heavy iron hinges. In the upper half of the door, or in a sort of
transom over the door, were set two round bull’s-eyes of heavy greenish
glass, just as are seen in Holland. Often the door held a knocker of
brass or of iron. The door usually opened with a latch.
The inventories of the household effects of many of the early citizens
of New York might be given, to show the furnishings of these homes. I
choose the belongings of Captain Kidd to show that “as he sailed, as he
sailed” he left a very comfortable home behind him. He was, when he set
up housekeeping with his wife Sarah in 1692, not at all a bad fellow,
and certainly lived well. He possessed these handsome and abundant
house furnishings:--
One dozen Turkey work chairs.
One dozen double-nailed leather chairs.
Two dozen single-nailed leather chairs.
One Turkey worked carpet.
One oval table.
Three chests of drawers.
Four looking-glasses.
Four feather beds, bolsters, and pillows.
Three suits of curtains and valances.
Four bedsteads.
Ten blankets.
One glass case.
One dozen drinking-glasses.
Four tables.
Five carpets or rugs.
One screen frame.
Two stands.
One desk.
Two dressing boxes.
One close stool.
One warming pan.
Two bed pans.
Three pewter tankards.
Four kettles.
Two iron pots.
One skillet.
Three pairs of fire irons.
One pair of andirons.
Three chafing dishes.
One gridiron.
One flesh fork.
One brass skimmer.
Four brass candlesticks.
Two pewter candlesticks.
Four tin candlesticks.
One brass pestle.
One iron mortar.
2¹⁄₂ dozen pewter plates.
Five pewter basins.
Thirteen pewter dishes.
Five leather buckets.
One pipe Madeira wine.
One half-pipe ” ”
Three barrels pricked cider.
Two pewter salt-cellars.
Three boxes smoothing irons.
Six heaters.
One pair small andirons.
Three pairs tongs.
Two fire shovels.
Two fenders.
One spit.
One jack.
One clock.
One coat of arms.
Three quilts.
Parcel linen sheets, table cloths, napkins, value thirty dollars.
One hundred and four ounces silver plate, value three hundred
dollars.
The early New Englanders sat in their homes on stools and forms, and
very rarely on chairs. It is not so easy to know of Dutch furnishings,
for the words _stoel_ and _setel_ and _banck_, which are found in early
inventories, all mean a chair, but also may not have meant in colonial
days what we now designate as a chair. A _stoel_ was really a seat of
any kind; and _stoels_ there were in plenty among the first settlers.
As Cowper says:
“Necessity invented stools,
Convenience next suggested elbow-chairs,
And Luxury the accomplished Sofa last.”
In this natural succession came the seats of the colonists. The leather
chairs with double rows of nails--in Captain Kidd’s list--were a very
substantial and handsome piece of furniture.
Tables there were in all houses, and looking-glasses in all well-to-do
homes. The stands of Captain Kidd were small tables. The carpets named
after the tables were doubtless table-covers. The early use of the word
was always a cover for a table.
A truly elegant piece of furniture--one in use by well-to-do folk in
all the colonies--was a cupboard. Originally simply a table for the
display of cups and other vessels, it came to have shelves and approach
in form our sideboard. An inventory of a New York citizen of the year
1690 names a “Holland cupboard furnished with earthenware and purslin”
worth fifteen pounds. Another owned a French nut-wood cupboard of about
the same value. Cupboard-cloths usually accompanied them. A few of
these cupboards still exist, usually their exact history forgotten,
but still known as “Holland cupboards.” As long as the inventories of
estates of deceased persons were made out and registered with much
minuteness of detail, a single piece of furniture could be traced
readily from heir to heir, but unfortunately only the older inventories
display this minuteness.
One unusual word may be noted, which is found in New York inventories,
_boilsted_, _bilsted_, or _billsted_--as “a boilsted bed,” “a boilsted
bureau.” The “Century Dictionary” gives _bilsted_ as the native name
of the American sweet-gum tree, the liquidambar, but Mr. Watson says
_boilsted_ or _bilsted_ meant maple,--hence these articles meant a
bureau of maplewood, etc.
A very common form of bedstead in early days, both in town and farm
houses, was the one built into the house, scarcely more than a bench to
hold the bedding, usually set into an alcove or recess. In a contract
for the “Ferry House,” built in Brooklyn in 1665 (the house in which
the ferry-master lived), we read one clause thus: “to wainscot the east
side the whole length of the house, and in the recess two bedsteads
(betste) one in the front room and one in the inside room, with a
pantry at the end of the bedstead.”
This alcove _betste_ was much like a cupboard; it had doors which
closed over it when unoccupied and shut it from view. This does
not seem very tidy from our modern point of view, but the heavily
curtained and upholstered beds of other countries gave but little
more opportunity of airing. Adam Roelandsen, the first New York
schoolmaster, had these _betste_ built in his house; and Jan Peeck,
the founder of Peekskill, had four _betste_ in his country home, as
certainly were needed by a man who had--so he said--“a house full of
children and more besides.”
The _sloep-banck_, or _slaw-bunk_, was another form, a folding-bed.
This was also set within closet doors or hanging curtains. It was an
oblong frame filled in with a network of rope or strips of wood, set
apart like the slats of a bed. This frame was fastened to the wall at
one end, the bed’s head, with heavy hinges; and at night it was placed
in a horizontal position, and the unhinged end, or foot of the bed, was
supported on heavy turned legs which fitted into sockets in the frame.
When not in use, the frame was hooked up against the wall and covered
with the curtains or doors.
Other _sloep-bancks_ were stationary. One sold in Albany in 1667 to
William Brouwer was worth ten guilders. Parson Chandler as late as
1755 said the beds in Albany were simply wooden boxes, each with
feather-bed, undersheet, and blanket cover. The kermis bed, on which
the Labadist fathers slept in Brooklyn, was a pallet bed. Another
bedstead often named was the _trecke-bedde_, or the _sloep-banck
ap rollen_, which, as its name implies, was on rollers. It was a
trundle-bed, and in the daytime was rolled under a high-post bedstead,
if there were one in the room, and concealed by the valance of calico
or chiney.
The beds were deep and soft, of prime geese feathers. For many years
the custom obtained of sleeping on one feather-bed and under another
of somewhat lighter weight. The pillow-cases, called “pillow-bears,”
or pillow-clothes, were often of checked linen. The hangings of the
bed when it was curtained were also, in families of moderate means,
of checked and striped linen, in wealthier houses of kidderminster,
camlet, and harrateen. With English modes of living came English
furniture; among other innovations the great carved four-poster, which,
richly hung with valances and tester, was, as Mrs. Grant said, “the
state-bed, the family Teraphim, secretly worshipped and only exhibited
on rare occasions.” The bedsteads of Captain Kidd with valances and
curtains were doubtless four-posters.
A notable feature in the house-furnishing of early colonial days was
the abundance and good quality of household linen. The infrequency
of regular washing seasons and times (often domestic washing took
place but once in three or four months) made a large amount of bed,
table, and personal linen a matter of necessity in all thrifty, tidy
households. One family, in 1704 (not a very wealthy one), had linen to
the amount of five hundred dollars. Francis Rombout, one of the early
mayors of New York, had, at the time of his death, in the year 1690,
fifty-six diaper napkins, forty-two coarse napkins and towels, thirteen
table-cloths of linen and diaper, fifty-one “pillow-bears,” thirty
sheets, four bolster-covers, ten checked “pillow-bears,” two calico
cupboard-cloths, six table-cloths, four check chimney-cloths, two of
linen; worth in all, twenty-one pounds eleven shillings.
Mynheer Marius, who was worth about fifteen thousand dollars,--a rich
man,--had eight muslin sheets, twenty-three linen sheets, thirty-two
pillow-cases, two linen table-cloths, seven diaper table-cloths,
sixty-one diaper napkins, three “ozenbergs” napkins, sixteen small
linen cupboard-cloths. Colonel William Smith of Long Island was not
so rich as the last-named Dutch merchant, but he had six hundred
dollars’ worth of linen. John Bowne, the old Quaker of Flushing, Long
Island, recorded in his diary, in 1691, an account of his household
linen. He had four table-cloths, a dozen napkins, a dozen towels, six
fine sheets, two cotton sheets, four coarse linen sheets, two fine
tow sheets, two bolster cases, nine fine pillow-biers, four coarse
pillow-biers.
In 1776, the house furnishings of a house in Westchester County in
the “Neutral Ground,” were removed on account of the war. The linen
consisted of fifty-one linen sheets, eleven damask table-cloths, one
linen table-cloth, twenty-one homespun cloths, four breakfast cloths,
twelve damask napkins, fifty-six homespun napkins, fifteen towels,
twenty-nine pillow-cases.
This linen was usually kept in a great linen chest often brought from
Holland. Made of panelled oak or of cedar, these chests were not only
useful, but ornamental. They were substantial enough to have lasted
till our own day, unless wantonly destroyed as clumsy and cumbersome,
and a few have survived.
There was one display of wealth which was not wholly for the purpose
of exhibiting the luxury and refinement of the housekeeper, but also
served as a safe investment of surplus funds,--household silver.
From early days silver tankards, spoons, dram-cups, and porringers
appear in inventories. Salt-cellars and beakers are somewhat rare; but
as years crept on, candlesticks, salvers, coffee-pots, teakettles,
snuffers, bread-baskets, and punch-bowls are on the list. When Captain
Kidd, the pirate, was a happy bridegroom in 1692, as a citizen of
respectability and social standing, he started housekeeping with three
hundred dollars’ worth of silver. Magistrate Marius had at the same
time a silver tankard, three salt-cellars, two beakers, a mustard pot
and spoon, twenty-seven sweet-meat spoons, four tumblers, nine cups
each with two ears, a salver, a mug and cover, a baby’s chafing-dish,
a fork and cup. Governor Rip van Dam had in silver three tankards,
a chafing-dish, three castors, two candlesticks, snuffers and tray,
two salvers, a mug, salt-cellar and pepper-pot, and a large number
of spoons. Abraham de Peyster had a splendid array: four tankards,
two decanters, two dishes, three plates, eleven salvers, two cups and
covers, two chafing-dishes, six porringers, four sauce-boats, two
punch-bowls, three mugs, four sugar-dishes, a coffee-pot and tea-pot,
seven salts and shovels, a saucepan, four pairs snuffers and stand, a
mustard-pot, a bread-basket, a dram-bottle, tobacco-dish, nine castors,
six candlesticks, one waiter, twenty-three forks, three soup-spoons,
two punch ladles, ten table-spoons, ten teaspoons, two sugar-tongs;
truly a display fit for a fine English hall. We may note in this, as
in many other inventories, that the number of small pieces seems very
small and inadequate; ten teaspoons and twenty-three forks appear
vastly disproportioned to the great pieces of plate.
These outfits of silver were, of course, unusual, but nearly all
families had some pieces; and even on farms there would be seen fine
pieces of silver.
Curious forms of Dutch silver were the “bite and stir” sugar boxes,
often shell-shaped, with a partition in the middle. On one side was
placed the loaf sugar, which could be nibbled with the tea; on the
other, the powdered or granulated sugar, which could be stirred into
the teacup with a tea-spoon. Another graceful piece was the _ooma_,
or sifter, for the mixed cinnamon and sugar with which many sprinkled
their hot waffles. An _ooma_ resembled a muffineer. The name was
derived from the Dutch _oom_, an uncle, and the article was a favorite
gift of an uncle on the wedding day of niece or nephew. We find Dutch
dames leaving by will “milk-pots shaped like a cow,” a familiar form
of Dutch silver, and can readily believe that much silver owned in New
York was made in Holland.
Coming from a country where the manufacture of porcelain and
stone-ware was already of much importance, and the importation of
Oriental china was considerable, it is not strange that we find more
frequent mention of articles of china than in the English colonies. For
instance, Mayor Francis Rombouts came to this country as clerk for a
Dutch commercial house and died in 1690. He had a cupboard furnished
with earthenware and “purslin:” twenty-six earthen dishes, earthen
pots, twelve earthen “cupps,” six “purslin cupps,” six earthen “juggs,”
six pitchers, which was really a very pretty showing. Doubtless the
“purslin” was Delft. In the list of early sales at Fort Orange,
earthen-ware appears. In New England, in similar sales, its name would
never be seen.
Trim and orderly pieces of furniture, as well as pretty ones, were the
various hanging wall-racks for plates, knives, and spoons. I presume
they were shaped like the ones still in use in Holland. We find in
inventories _lepel-borties_ (which were spoon-racks) as early as 1664.
When an oaken plate-rack was filled with shining pewter plates, Delft
dishes, or even red earthen “Portugese ware,” it made a thoroughly
artistic decoration for the walls of the old Dutch kitchen. There were
also stands or boxes with divisions for holding knives and forks.