The frequent references to the English wigwam seem to indicate that some such temporary construction was usual among many of the colonists at the outset. Settlers were living at Salem as early as 1626 and Endecott, with a considerable immigration, arrived in 1628. Marblehead, just across the harbor, was settled early and yet when John Goyt came there in 1637, he "first built a wigwam and lived thar till he got a house."14 The rude buildings also put up by planters at Salem must have been looked upon at the time as temporary structures for they had all disappeared before 1661.15
When Governor Winthrop arrived at Charlestown in 1630 with the first great emigration, he found a house or two and several wigwams – rude shelters patterned after the huts built by the Indians – and until houses could be erected in Boston many lived in tents and wigwams, "their meeting-place being abroad under a Tree."
In the summer of 1623, Bradford mentions the "building of great houses in pleasant situations," and when a fire broke out in November of the following year it began in "a shed yt was joyned to ye end of ye storehouse, which was wattled up with bowes." It will be seen that this shed was not crudely built of logs or slabs but that its walls were wattled and perhaps also daubed with clay, in precisely the same manner with which these colonists were familiar in their former homes across the sea. An original outer wall in the old Fairbanks house at Dedham, Massachusetts, still has its "wattle and daub" constructed in 1637.
Thomas Dudley writing to the Countess of Lincoln, in March, 1631, relates: "Wee have ordered that noe man shall build his chimney with wood nor cover his house with thatch, which was readily assented unto, for that divers houses have been burned since our arrival (the fire always beginning in the wooden chimneys) and some English wigwams which have taken fire in the roofes with thatch or boughs."16 It was Dudley who was taken to task by the Governor in May, 1632, "for bestowing so much cost on wainscotting his house and otherwise adorning it," as it was not a good example for others in the beginning of a plantation. Dudley replied that he had done it for warmth and that it was but clapboards nailed to the walls. A few months later this house caught fire "the hearth of the Hall chimney burning all night upon the principal beam."
In 1631, John Winthrop entered in his Journal that the chimney of Mr. Sharp's house in Boston took fire "the splinters being not clayed at the top" and from it the thatch caught fire and the house was burnt down.
The first meetinghouse built in Salem had a "catted" chimney, that is, the chimney was built with sticks laid cobhouse fashion and the whole daubed with clay inside and out.
Thatch as a roof covering was in common use in the early days. Notwithstanding the Great and General Court forbade its use, it still persisted as necessity arose. At the outset, towns along the coastline set aside certain parts of thatch banks in the marshes, as a supply for thatching houses. Rye straw also was much used. The roofs of these thatched houses were not boarded as the thatch was fastened to slats. Dorchester built a meetinghouse in 1632 with a thatched roof.
The earliest frame houses were covered with weather-boarding and this before long was covered with clapboards. The walls inside were sheathed up with boards moulded at the edges in an ornamental manner and the intervening space was filled with clay and chopped straw, and later with imperfect bricks. This was done for warmth, and was known as "nogging," following the English practice. When roofs were not thatched, they were covered with shingles split from the log by means of a "frow" and afterwards hand-shaved. The window openings were small and were closed by hinged casements, just as the houses in England were equipped at that time. Generally, the casement sash was wood, but sometimes iron was used, as was common in England.
The glass was usually diamond-shaped, set in lead "cames." Emigrants to Massachusetts were instructed by the Company to bring ample supplies of glass for windows, but the supply ran short and in the poorer cottages and wigwams, oiled paper was in common use. This was an excellent substitute and supplied a surprisingly large amount of light.
A brickyard was in operation in Salem as early as 1629, and everywhere along the coast clay was found and made up into bricks. Chimneys were built upon a huge stone foundation. The brick work began at the first floor level and the bricks were laid in puddled clay up to about the ridge line where lime was used as the chimney top became exposed to the weather.
It has been claimed and denied that bricks used in the construction of certain old houses were brought from overseas. In general the claims may be disregarded. It is certain, however, that the Massachusetts Company at the outset sent over ten thousand bricks, stowed in the ballast with five chauldrons of sea coals for the use of the blacksmiths. At the same time came iron and steel, nails, red lead, salt and sailcloth. Even fourteen hundred weight of plaster of paris, appears in the list, priced at eighteen shillings per hundred weight.
The home of the average New Englander in the late seventeenth century was a wooden dwelling of two stories built around a brick chimney containing large fireplaces. In Rhode Island and in parts of Connecticut, where shale abounded, the chimney was built of stone and not infrequently the house, in whole or at one end, was also so constructed. The roofs of these houses were covered with wooden shingles usually split from pine logs and shaved smooth by hand on a shingle horse. The outside walls of the well made house were covered with clapboards, also smoothed on the shingle horse. For many years these clapboards were made from oak, but as this wood has a tendency to warp and pull itself free from fastenings, by the year 1700, its use for that purpose had very generally been replaced by pine. Outbuildings and the poorer class of dwellings were not covered with clapboards or only the part next the road, for the New Englander believes in "putting his best foot forward." Such buildings were covered with "weatherboards" or plain boarding that lapped at the lower edge.
The windows in these houses were filled by casement sash containing glass set in lead cames. The glass was usually diamond shaped, but sometimes four by six inch lights were used. This glass was imported from England and came packed in cribs, but much of it came in sheets already leaded and was cut to size by "glaziers" upon demand. Early in the eighteenth century sliding-sash windows were introduced, probably about 1710, but it was a long time before existing casements were entirely given up. One Saturday afternoon in July, 1714, lightning struck the house of Colonel Vetch in Boston. He had bought the dwelling not long before and Judge Sewall records in his diary that at the time of the storm "the Work of Transformation was not finished" to make the building fit for the occupancy of Madam Vetch. The lightning played various tricks with the house, doing considerable damage, and among other details the Judge mentions that it "lifted up the Sash Window and broke one of the squares" of glass.17 Colonel Vetch was presumably a man of substance for he afterwards became Governor of Nova Scotia, and he is likely to have "transformed" his recently purchased house into the latest fashion of lighting.
On the other hand, Judge Sewall, the Chief Justice of the highest court in the Province, had casements in his Boston house at a time, ten years later, when his daughter Hannah died, for he records in his Diary that "Boston will not have her put into the Cellar [it was in August when she died]; so she is only remov'd into the best Room. And because the Casements were opened for Coolness, Boston would watch all night." This entry in the ancient diary not only preserves the fact that the Judge's house had casement windows, but it also makes allusion to the old-time custom of watching with the dead body and the interest that the town of Boston had in the bereavement of the Judge.
In 1722, Benjamin Franklin in his Boston newspaper, was satirizing the extravagancies of New England housewives in "new Glazing their Houses with new fashion'd square Glass." Diamond glass had seen its day, however, and forty years later "Windows set in lead, suitable for Hot-Beds" were advertised in the newspapers, a sure sign of discarded sash. On the other hand, a hardware shop was advertising "sheet and diamond glass" as late as 1766, probably to meet the demands for repairing old casements.
The exterior of these early houses was seldom painted, in fact it was well into the nineteenth century before the outside of houses in country towns were usually painted. A diarist who rode into Boston in 1804 comments on the dingy appearance of the houses and the general lack of paint and about the same time a Salem man met with success in business, whereupon he painted his house with the result that his associates rather sneeringly remarked: "Sam is feeling his oats; he's begun to paint his house."
The paint first used on the exteriors of New England houses was usually of a dark red color called, both then and now, "Indian red." Red ochre was used and commonly was mixed with fish oil. The Indians had "paint mines" where they had found red earth and doubtless these "mines" were utilized, particularly in adjacent locations. One of these paint mines was located near what is now Augusta, Maine, and in that part of New England formerly existed, long before the coming of the European, an Indian race that used this red earth so freely that by ethnologists it has been termed the "red paint culture."
So runs the present-day tradition of Indian red in New England. In point of fact, however, red earth was brought from the East Indies long before the settlement of the American Colonies, hence the name "India red," by which it was advertised in the Boston newspapers in the mid-eighteenth century. In 1766, John Gore, "at his Shop at the Sign of the Painter's Arms in Queen Street," Boston, advertised a stock of oils, paints, brushes, etc., just imported from London. He had linseed oil by the barrel or smaller quantity, boiled oil, nut oil, turpentine oil and turpentine varnish. Among his white colors, were Spanish white and French halk, – whatever that may be. Red was a color that was in demand for he carried red head, Spanish brown, India red, purple red, Venetian red, Vermillian, drop hake, carmine, umber and rose pink. Under yellows, he listed King's yellow, Princess yellow, Naples yellow, spruce yellow, stone yellow, English ochre, Orpiment-pale and deep, Dutch pink and brown pink. The blues were ultramarine, ultramarine ashes, Prussian blue of various sorts, calcined smalt, strowing ditto, verditer blue and powder blue.
Gore also sold crayons in sets and canvas for portrait painting in half-length cloths, kit-kat and three-quarters length. He carried "Colours prepared for House and Ship Painting," best London crown glass for pictures and "Water Colours ready prepared in Shells."18
Two years later he advertised chariot glasses, genteel looking-glasses and Wilton carpets and also announced that he did coach and carpet painting in the best and cheapest manner.
At how early a date was paint used on the exterior of a New England house? Who can solve the problem? Undoubtedly it was on a house owned by some merchant having a direct contact with England. It is an established fact that the Andrews house, built in 1707-1710, in the country town of Topsfield, Mass., was painted Indian red at the time it was built, or soon after, but only on the trim – the window frames, corner boards, etc. The clapboards and weather-boarding at the easterly end, remained unpainted until long years after.
The inside finish of town houses owned by well-to-do people, probably was painted at a comparatively early date, at least, one or two rooms in a house. "A large Fashionable Dwelling-House" in Boston, "about 1¼ miles from Charlestown ferry" was advertised to be sold in 1734. It had eight "fire rooms" – that is, rooms with fireplaces. The entries and two of the rooms were "beautifully Wainscotted and laid in oil" and four were "handsomely Painted."
In 1753, George Tilley, a Boston shop keeper, advertised his house for sale. It contained "eight rooms, seven of them fire-rooms, with a Number of convenient Closets and a good Cellar, four of the said Rooms is cornish'd, and the House is handsomely painted throughout; one of the Rooms is painted Green, another Blue, one Cedar and one Marble; the other four a Lead colour, the Garrets are handsomely plaistered; the House has twenty Sash-Windows to it and is pleasantly situated on Pleasant Street, near the Hay-Market."19
But such glory did not exist in other parts of the same town and certainly not in the country. Rufus Choate, the lawyer, was born in a house in Essex, Mass., built in 1725 by an ancestor who was popularly called "Governor Choate." He was a man in comfortable circumstances and built for himself a house of ten rooms having good panelling in four of them. None of the finish on this house was painted until well after 1825 or a century after it was built. This paint has now been removed and the old white pine finish is revealed in all its natural beauty of varying shades of reddish brown, effectively contrasting with the whitewashed walls. Natural wood finish, laid in oil, was quite the common thing in the ordinary New England dwelling, until after the people had recovered from the financial exhaustion of the Revolution.
The plastered walls were usually whitewashed which was quite in keeping with the Puritan character that covered with limewash the beautiful mural decorations of the English churches at the time of the Commonwealth. Families of wealth covered their walls with hangings brought from England. Peter Sergeant died in 1714, possessed of a "suit of Imagery Tapestry hangings" in his cedar room. This house was one of the finest in the town of Boston and afterwards became the Province House, – the residence of the Governors of the Province. Another room in this house was also furnished with hangings. Arras hangings were advertised from time to time in the Boston newspapers and in 1736, Boydell, the printer of the Boston Gazette, advertised a house in which one chamber in the first story was "hung with Scotch Tapestry, the other with Green cheny." The large brick house of the late Isaac Gridley, situated near Fort Hill, in Boston, was sold in 1771. It contained thirteen rooms and three of the lower rooms were "genteelly furnished with Tapestry Hangings."
A three-story house was built in Boston about 1715 by William Clark, a wealthy merchant and member of the governor's council. His death in 1742, was attributed by some, to the loss of forty sail of vessels in the French War. In this house afterwards lived Sir Henry Frankland, Collector of the Port, who fell in love with Agnes Surriage, the beautiful sixteen-year-old maid-of-all-work at the Fountain Inn in Marblehead. Her romantic story is well-known. This house differed but little from the dozen or so of its type to be found in Boston at the time, save in its rich and elaborate decoration of the north parlor, at the right of the entrance hall. Here, the walls were divided into panels by fluted pilasters supporting an elaborate cornice, the whole heavily gilded, and each of the panels was embellished with a landscape or other decoration painted in oils. Painted arabesques and heraldic devices covered all other flat surfaces and the floor was laid in a mosaic of various colored woods. Every inch of the surface of this parlor was the product of the imagination and skill of the painter, gilder or carver. But while this magnificence actually existed in New England, by no means was it typically representative of its culture or artistic development. It merely exhibited the pride of wealth and was largely the product of European craftsmen.
The heavy strap hinges on the doors of the earlier houses and buildings were probably wrought by hand at the forge of the nearest blacksmith, but most of the hardware and iron work was imported from England. Before 1650 there was a slitting mill at the Saugus Iron Works, but the principal product of this forge was cast iron manufactures, such as pots and kettles. At a later date, Parliament, at the instigation of the English manufacturers, prohibited by law the setting up of slitting mills and trip hammers, and it naturally followed that the manufactured iron and brass required by the Colonies was brought overseas from Birmingham and Sheffield.
A word or two as to the varying types of house hardware may not be amiss at this time. At the outset wooden hinges and heavy strap hinges of wrought iron were in common use. These hinges were hung on gudgeons and their points varied in design but the spear-shaped point was most common. In the best houses, at an early date and continuing until the beginning of the eighteenth century, might be found the so-called "cock's head" hinge, an ornamental survival from Roman times. The butterfly hinge was also in use at that time – usually on cupboards and furniture doors. The H and HL hinges came into use in New England in the early 1700's and lasted until after the Revolution. These hinges were cut out of heavy sheet iron and were made in factories in England. This type of hinge was superseded by the cast-iron butt, still in use, which was invented in England in 1775, and adopted very generally in the United States at the close of the Revolution.
In some old houses that have been restored and in many modern constructions done in the manner of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the door hinges in painted rooms have been picked out in black making them most conspicuous. This is a modern conceit – an invention of the modern architect. It was not done in the old days, a fact easily established by carefully scraping through the various coats of paint on an old house. Our great-great-grandmothers had no itching desire for contrasts of that sort. They knew nothing of highboys, grandfather's clocks, low daddys, Lady Washington chairs, courting mirrors, fiddle back chairs or donkey-eared spindle backs. These names are inventions of collectors or antique dealers striving for the picturesque. The highboy, it is true, antedates the others, but in the early days this piece of furniture was called a high chest of drawers and the lowboy was called a low chest. Recently the common HL hinge has been described as the "Holy Land" hinge; certainly not referring to the English colonies where there were fully as many sinners as saints.
Wooden latches were used on both outside and inside doors in early days and the wooden latch persisted in the back country until comparatively recent times. The iron thumb latch was made by the country blacksmith but more and more it came to be imported from England. The earliest type has spear-point handles. The rounded end comes in after 1700 and is common about 1750. The Norfolk latch, in brass and iron, comes in after the Revolution and was replaced by the common cast-iron thumb latch, invented by Blake in 1840. In examining old hinges and all kinds of hardware always have in mind that the machine-made pointed screw was not invented until 1846.
A feature of this hardware trade with England, which is of much interest, is the catalogues that were sent over by the manufacturers in Birmingham. About the year 1770 they began to send out drawings of different pieces of hardware, tools, etc., and this soon developed into sheets of engravings on copper which were bound into books and sent to customers at a distance who then could visualize the goods and order accordingly; size, list price and discount were indicated. Seldom was there a title-page or even a label to indicate a source, but the handmade paper bears its watermark and generally the date when it was made. These catalogues are now difficult to find and the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington, esteems them so highly that a descriptive catalogue of its collection has been published. Probably the largest collection of these catalogues in America is in the library of the Essex Institute at Salem.