Not only in New England, but in the other Colonies as well, seats and pews in the galleries seem to have been preferred as the most desirable by persons of quality and consideration in the community next to the specially exalted seats belowstairs.

In many places, particularly in the Middle and Southern Colonies, the churches were regarded as the most dignified places of sepulture for persons of consequence, and their gravestones, with the armorial bearings and inscriptions almost effaced by the treading feet of generations of worshippers, are to be seen in the aisles and chancel pavements. The chancel was esteemed the most honourable place of burial and as an instance of this may be mentioned the grave of General Forbes, the hero of Fort Duquesne, in the chancel of Christ Church, Philadelphia. John Penn, one of the Proprietaries, is buried at the foot of the chancel steps. It is interesting in this connexion to note, by way of exception, that Judge Moore of Moore Hall, the stout old Pennsylvania Loyalist, and the person of greatest consequence in the parish of St. David, Radnor, directed that he and his wife, the Lady Williamina Wemyss, should be buried at the threshold of the church. Emblazoned hatchments were frequently used at the time of funerals and some of them are still preserved in our old churches. As in England, during much of the eighteenth century, it was the fashion in the Colonies to bury persons of note at night by the light of torches.

In not a few of the early churches there was an utter lack of uniformity in the style of the seats or pews employed and permission was often granted to influential persons to buy space within the churches and erect pews of their own, suited to their personal fancy. The space not occupied by these privately owned pews was sometimes filled with movable benches, stools, or chairs, and it was not an unusual thing for the humbler members of the congregation to bring their seats with them and put them wherever they could find room. We find ample evidence of this condition of things in places as widely apart as the simple country parish of St. David’s, Radnor, in the Welsh Barony, and King’s Chapel in Boston. In early days the members of St. David’s congregation fetched thither nondescript seats as they listed and it was not until well into the eighteenth century that rough benches were furnished and “rented for the support of the Church.” Not till the middle of the eighteenth century do the parish records show the existence of pews and the custom seems to have then prevailed of “selling a piece of ground within the Church on which the purchaser had the privilege of building such a pew as he desired.” With this system, or rather lack of system, in seating, it appears that squabbles occasionally arose as we may judge from the following minute in the old register:—

So late as 1763 the “Vestry granted to Robert Jones the privilege to build a Pew on a piece of ground in St. David’s Church, adjoining Wayne’s and Hunter’s pew, he paying for the ground £4 10s.” In King’s chapel in Boston the vestry “stipulated that each member should pay the cost of building his own pew; this was accordingly done, but without any uniformity, so that the interior of the old church must have presented an amusing diversity of work.... The walls were decorated with banners, escutcheons, and coats of arms of the King of England, of the nobility and gentry of the congregation, and of the Governour of the province, and the interior was considered so magnificent and so luxurious as to be a blot upon the religion of Massachusetts.”

As might be expected, when so much was made of assigning each member of the congregation a seat befitting his dignity, the question of suitable clothing loomed large in the minds of our forebears and from one end of the Colonies to the other they gave way to the temptation to appear before their neighbours in their best frills and furbelows so that the church service on Sunday was often a clothes show as well. To such an extent was this passion for display carried that it led to a custom in some country parishes of New England to which Alice Morse Earle refers. She says:—

If the same custom did not prevail in other parts of the country, doubtless the members of the congregation had ample opportunity, and made the best of it too, to scrutinise the apparel of their fellow worshippers. It is to be feared, however, that their brave attire sometimes suffered damage from insufficiently dusted seats for we read that the sexton of Christ Church, Philadelphia, probably the wealthiest and most splendid church in the Colonies, having applied in 1761 for an increase of salary, it was agreed to give him “£20 a year on a condition that he was ‘to wash the church twice a year and sand it at Easter and September; and also to sweep the church once every two weeks.’”

The music was of an exceedingly indifferent character from an artistic point of view and was not always edifying and whole hearted on the part of the congregation. In New England, musical instruments were only introduced after a storm of bitter opposition and general repugnance to the “boxes of whistles,” as organs were contemptuously called. Even in the Middle and Southern Colonies, where a prejudice against instruments did not exist, the music must often have been of a distressing nature. Referring once more to Christ Church we read that “the singer then called the Clerk, was Joseph Fry—a small man with a great voice, who, standing in the organ gallery, was wont to make the whole church resound with his strong, deep and grave tones.” When there was a ripple of improvement in the general musical situation, after the Revolution, “the efforts of church musicians to raise the standard were apparently not looked upon with favour. Joseph Fry, or his successors, did not ‘make a cheerful noise before the Lord’ to the taste of the congregation, for in 1785 the vestry passed a resolution ‘that the clerks be desired to sing such tunes only as are plain and familiar to the congregation; the singing of other tunes, and frequent changing of tunes, being to the certain knowledge of this vestry, generally disagreeable and inconvenient.’”

Although early New England settlers were at first summoned to meeting “by drum, horn and shell,” bells were soon introduced and in the Middle and Southern Colonies great store was set by them and more than one fine peal was brought hither from England. The bells of Christ Church, Philadelphia, were particularly famous and were always being pealed so that the German traveller, Dr. Schoepf, said that you would think you were in a papal or imperial city—there was always something to be rung. “From the time that ‘the ring of bells’—the first in the Colonies—was first hung, their metal throats were busy proclaiming all sorts of things from the anniversaries of King Charles’s Restoration, Guy Fawkes’s Day, and the King’s Birthday, down to semi-weekly markets or the arrival in the Delaware of the ‘Myrtilla,’ Captain Budden’s ship, in which the peal had been brought out from London.”

In a previous chapter reference has been made to the splendid equipage in which wealthy people of the Northern and Middle Colonies came to church. A word must be added, to complete the picture, of the way in which Southern congregations arrived. While a few of the very wealthy drove to church in their state coaches, the great majority came on horseback for the distances were too great to traverse afoot. Horses were tethered in groups to the trees about the churches and it was the recognised custom that the congregation should gather in the church yard before and after service and they gladly embraced the opportunity thus afforded for social intercourse. In country districts of the South the same condition prevails to-day, and saddle horses and buggies may be found in groups under all the trees near the church building or in the sheds, where such are provided.

And now we pass to a consideration of the architectural features of the church buildings in the several Colonies. We shall begin with those in Virginia as they were the earliest. Only two of the seventeenth century structures in the Old Dominion remain but they are sufficiently distinctive to give us a very definite idea of the architectural ideals that actuated the Virginia colonists. These are St. Luke’s at Smithfield, built in 1632, and St. Peter’s, New Kent County, built at the very beginning of the eighteenth century, but so closely following the type of the first mentioned building that it may be reckoned as a seventeenth century structure. Besides these two, there is the tower of the old church at Jamestown to which has been added, in the way of restoration, a body designed upon the lines of St. Luke’s, Smithfield.

St. Luke’s is a staunchly built rectangular brick structure with a steep pitched roof and a heavy, square tower, of three stages, at the western end. The coping of the eastern gable is curiously stepped in a way that suggests Dutch or Flemish influence. The general appearance is that of a rural English village church that might have been transplanted to its new environment. There is little in its contour, proportions or detail that savours of Renaissance inspiration, then dominant in England, but rather does it smack of the old English Gothic feeling that characterised many of the sixteenth century structures, when the Gothic spirit was really decadent but still strong enough to retain certain well defined traditional features. The side walls are strengthened and divided into bays by buttresses and the pointed arch is retained above the twin lancet windows. The mullions of these windows and of the east window, with its unusual combination of round arch and pointed arch sections, are substantially constructed of bricks. The one particular in which Renaissance influence is visible is the use of quoins instead of buttresses to stiffen the tower corners. The round arched door is almost Norman in character. Within, the walls are plastered above the wainscot and the ceiling is a single barrel vault.

St. Peter’s, New Kent County, presents the same general contour so that a family resemblance is unmistakable but it is less felicitous in all its details. The tower is pierced by such large arched openings in front and at the sides that it appears to stand on legs and to have no particular connexion with the ground. There are no buttresses to support the walls, the windows are rectangular with flat-arched lintels and are filled with sashes. While venerable and interesting, St. Peter’s can scarcely be regarded as in any way architecturally so satisfying as St. Luke’s is. How much of this lack of charm is due to so-called “restoration” and “improvements,” it would be hard to say, for want of sufficiently specific data.

One of the earliest structures to show a distinctly Renaissance feeling, a suggestive precursor of the Georgian buildings that soon followed, was Bruton Parish Church at Williamsburg, completed in 1715. Here for the first time may be seen the cruciform plan, often met with in other Virginia churches, sometimes of Latin, sometimes of Greek outline. It is curious that this feature, which belongs peculiarly to edifices of Gothic provenance, should make its first appearance in a structure of Renaissance inspiration. The pitch of the roof is steep and this fact, along with the cruciform plan, gives the contour a partly Gothic character. All else is of Renaissance affinities.

There are no buttresses, the tall windows with round or compass heads contain sashes with broad muntins and the sturdy, square tower, of three stages, at the western end, is surmounted by an octagonal wooden spire which, although severely simple and devoid of architectural ornament, suggests in structural treatment the methods of Wren and his contemporaries. Circular windows pierce the end walls of the transept and chancel and these were originally filled with panes of plain glass set in broad muntins. The brick is laid in Flemish bond and the cornice is exceedingly simple and far less prominent than in later buildings of purely Georgian character.

For examples of the typically Georgian churches of the South we may instance Christ Church, Lancaster County, Virginia, “Old Pohick Church,” Fairfax County, Virginia, with the building of which Washington was intimately concerned and of which he was a vestryman, and Christ Church, Alexandria, where Washington was also a vestryman and frequent attendant. The last named building was designed by James Wren, a descendant, it is said, of the great Sir Christopher. Other churches just as typical might have been selected but these three will fully answer the purpose.

Christ Church, Lancaster County, was built in 1732 at the charge of Robert (“King”) Carter as before stated. The ground plan is in the form of a Greek cross, all the arms being of equal length. The shingle roof is hipped and of steep pitch, the cornice is bold and vigorously proportioned, the walls are of brick laid in Flemish bond with black headers. The windows are round-or compass-headed and the brick surrounds project slightly from the face of the wall, meeting at the top in a white keystone. The muntins of the sashes are heavy and the panes small. The door is set between heavy pilasters and surmounted by a straight pediment. Above the pediment, and just below the cornice, is a small elliptical window. Within, the aisles are paved with stone, the pews are high and straight backed, the pulpit is an imposing structure and the plastered ceiling is vaulted. All the details, both inside and out, are characteristic of the Georgian mode.

“Old Pohick Church,” the parish church of Mount Vernon, was built in 1769 and shows evidence of later Georgian feeling in several of its details. The cornice, notably, has become more refined in the proportion and contour of its mouldings and the muntins are of less buxom dimensions. The building is taller than Christ Church, Lancaster County, and the walls are pierced by two tiers of windows, those in the lower tier being rectangular while those in the upper tier are round headed. Both upper and lower windows have surrounds of one-coloured brick, not projecting as at Christ Church but set flush with the surface of the wall. The building is practically square in plan, the corners being stiffened by white stone quoins, and the roof is hipped. Inside, the aisles are paved with stone, the communion table, surrounded by a railing, stands at one end of the church and the wall back of it is panelled and embellished with a broken pediment resting on four Ionic pilasters, in the panels between which are painted the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed and the Ten Commandments. Against one of the side walls is built a high, wine-glass pulpit with a great sounding board above it and, just below it, the clerk’s desk. At the angle of the walls and ceiling is an unusually heavy and elaborate wooden cornice. All the minutiæ of the interior woodwork show the increasing refinement of proportion and detail characteristic of this part of the Georgian period.

Christ Church, Alexandria, built slightly later than Pohick Church, is substantially the same in plan, the main points of difference being the Palladian window at one end of the building and the tower and portico at the other, the latter embellishment being a later addition. Inside, the chief point of difference consists in the placing of the pulpit immediately in front of the central member of the Palladian window, the panelled spaces on each side of the window being devoted to the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments, according to a common custom. Christ Church, Alexandria, further differs from Pohick Church in having galleries around three sides, supported on slender Tuscan columns. The coved cornice at the angle of walls and ceiling, while exceedingly graceful, is not so beautiful as the wooden cornice in Pohick Church.

From considerations of date and geography, our attention is next claimed by the group of small churches in the Middle Colonies which may be represented by the Gloria Dei (Old Swedes), Philadelphia, St. David’s, Radnor, and Trinity, Oxford. The present structure of the Gloria Dei was built in 1700 to replace the old block house, built in 1665, which had afforded a place of worship for the congregation since 1677. Seen from the exterior, the church is cruciform in plan with an apsidal east end. At the west end is a small, sharp pointed belfry surmounting a projection in front of the church which is carried up to the peak of the roof somewhat in the manner of a tower, the lower part forming a vestibule. The roof is exceedingly steep in pitch and, by the same token, thereby exhibits the Swedish origin of its plan. The apsidal east end also indicates its Swedish origin for both the steep pitched roof and the apse were thoroughly characteristic of the Scandinavian ecclesiastical edifices. The brick is laid in Flemish bond, the headers, which seem to have been the arch bricks in the kiln, being covered with a vitreous blue black glaze. At several places an interesting diaper pattern is worked in the walls by the ingenious use of these glazed headers. The great square windows are filled with heavy muntined sashes and small panes of glass. It was found at an early date that the side walls were being pushed over by the thrust of the roof and to brace them the transepts, which do not appear in the interior plan, were built about 1703, giving the building its cruciform appearance. The south transept is a vestibule or porch while the north transept is used as a sacristy. The ceiling is vaulted. North and south galleries date from an early period but were built somewhat later than the rest of the structure. The details of panelling and woodwork are of distinctly pre-Georgian affinities.

St. David’s, Radnor, was built in 1714 and seems to have been the result of the efforts of local artisans without much attempt at architectural direction or planning. It is extremely simple in every way. In plan it is rectangular with a later addition at one side to accommodate the vestry room. The organ gallery is at one end and is reached by an outside enclosed stone stairway. The roof is of steep pitch and the cornices are severely plain. The round headed windows are now filled with small panes set in broad muntins but, if we may believe tradition, they were originally filled with diamond paned leaded casements. Perhaps the most interesting architectural feature of St. David’s is the texture of the stone work in its rubble walls which are built of random sized native field stone and pointed with white mortar. This masonry is thoroughly representative of the traditional manner of building stone walls which the Welsh artisans seem to have brought with them from their Cambrian home and which has left such a strong impress upon the stone work of so many of the old houses in Pennsylvania. It is one of the clearest instances of the survival in America of methods of craftsmanship brought from specific localities in the old world.

Trinity Church, Oxford, was built in 1711 and is mentioned here chiefly because it exhibits a more ambitious plan in its original design, having transepts in the interior which greatly add to its seating capacity and carry out the cruciform idea both within and without. Its details of design, masonry and woodwork display an affinity with the earliest phase of Georgian work.

Christ Church, Philadelphia, to which we now come, stands for all that is best in church architecture of the Colonial period in America. The present building was erected in 1727 from plans prepared by Dr. John Kearsley who seems to have drawn his inspiration largely from St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, London. From whatever source his inspiration came, Christ Church is a peculiarly beautiful and graceful structure, well meriting all the praise that has been bestowed upon it and incidentally affording a striking instance of what might be achieved by the amateur architects of the eighteenth century who believed that a knowledge of architecture was an essential part of every gentleman’s education and who were willing to put aside their own professional vocations for a time in order to plan and superintend the erection of some public structure as a kind of public duty.

In every respect the building is thoroughly representative of the best Georgian traditions. In outline the plan is rectangular with nave and aisles. The round headed windows of the lower stage are separated from each other by pilasters whose capitals support the projecting cornice-like string course. Superimposed above this member are the bases of other pilasters separating the windows of the upper tier and while their capitals come immediately below the wooden frieze of the cornice, the roof is surrounded by a heavily carved balustrade whose posts are capped by well proportioned urns. At the eastern end of the church, a great Palladian window lights the chancel. The tower, at the western end, is a massive structure of brick and is surmounted by a wooden spire of singularly graceful proportions and beautiful detail, inspired by some of the masterly creations of Sir Christopher Wren. For all the proportions are massive, the structure presents a light and graceful appearance, attributable in large measure to the manner in which the side walls are pierced with many windows and the wall spaces broken by graceful architectural adornments such as the pilasters and string courses. In this general lightening effect the triglyphs of the cornice frieze and the spindles of the surmounting balustrade must not be forgotten.

Within, the woodwork is thoroughly typical of the best Georgian traditions with its fluted pillars, its carefully carved triglyphs and guttæ and the nicety of the panelling. The aisles are now paved with tile but fortunately the ancient tombstones fill most of the aisle space so that the modern tiling is not obstrusive. The ancient pews have been replaced by modern seats but historic locations are carefully noted by small brass tablets.

St. Peter’s Church, Philadelphia, built in 1761, is peculiarly interesting because it has never undergone profanation at the hands of improvers or restorers. The old pews remain in their original condition as does also the paving of small, square blocks of stone in the north and south aisles. The exterior of St. Peter’s is less ornate than the exterior of Christ Church but it preserves the same interesting feature of having doors approximately at the four corners, the tower in both cases either serving or having served at one time or another as a vestry room. St. Peter’s exhibits at its eastern end a large Palladian window of more expansive dimensions than that of Christ Church which, however, was fully in accordance with the tendency of the times as Palladian windows seem to have expanded their dimensions as the Georgian period progressed. The pediments over the four doors are peculiarly interesting at St. Peter’s and the cornice shows considerable refinement.

The galleries within are supported on Tuscan pillars and the other woodwork, while of excellent proportions, is exceedingly simple and dignified. It is of interest to note that the pulpit is accessible only by climbing up through the tower; the clerks’ seats are immediately beneath it. The organ gallery is built above the chancel which is at the east end of the church while the pulpit and the clerks’ desk are at the west end so that frequent processions of the clergy during the course of the service are sometimes necessary.

In the same class with Christ Church and St. Peter’s must be mentioned St. Michael’s Church, Charleston, S.C., and St. Paul’s Chapel, New York City. St. Michael’s was built in 1742 from plans, it is believed, furnished by James Gibbs, the famous English architect, while St. Paul’s is of native American design. Both churches show the strong influence of Wren feeling which persisted in the ecclesiastical architecture of the Georgian era.

While speaking of ecclesiastical architecture of the Middle Colonies we must not omit to mention the Quaker meeting houses which were ordinarily of brick or stone and sometimes covered with a coating of roughcast. They are rectangular in form with pitch roofs and usually display two rows of square windows. The cornices are simple and severe and all the woodwork is extremely plain. As a rule there are four doors, two on each of the longer sides. The woodwork within is not infrequently devoid of paint and has acquired a wonderfully rich colour from age. In many of the meeting houses there are galleries although the gallery is by no means a universal feature. The smaller and older meeting houses are generally of one storey in height but those of later date are frequently of two storeys and in that case ordinarily have galleries. All the details of woodwork are so exceedingly simple that one can scarcely say they show a marked affinity with Georgian models although they belong, for the most part, to the Georgian period.

Nor must we forget the meeting houses erected to accommodate the various German sects. These buildings generally displayed architectural affinities of Teutonic character. As an example of this we might mention the old Trappe Meeting House on the Perkiomen, or some of the Moravian churches and Reformed churches in the interior of Pennsylvania.

It will be unnecessary to make any further mention of the Georgian churches of New York as they are, in the main, similar to those that have been mentioned in an earlier part of this chapter. Some note, however, should be made of the little Dutch churches one occasionally finds such as that at Tarrytown-on-the-Hudson. Here we see the same persistence of Dutch ecclesiastical traditions as was noted in Pennsylvania in the case of German traditions exemplified in the structures like the Trappe Meeting House. The general form of the building and the method of its execution might readily be paralleled in Holland.

We now come to the New England Meeting House as the next type demanding examination and for this we can find no more fitting example than the Old Ship Meeting-house at Hingham, Massachusetts. This building was erected in 1680 and it is said to have been framed by ship’s carpenters. It is a spacious square building of extreme severity of line. The roof is hipped, or would be a perfectly hipped roof were it not truncated at the top and finished with a balustrade and a belfry with a small pointed spire. The exterior is so devoid of all architectural amenity that one can scarcely speak of the structure as having any architecture at all. The walls are clapboarded and the cornice is of the simplest contour. The interior is plain and, owing to modernisation, has been made unattractive and prosaic. For our purpose this building is valuable as marking the four-square type of meeting house so often met with.

Where the older meetings have not fallen victims of modern improvement, their interiors, though severe and rigid, possess a degree of charm with their ancient high backed pews, tall pulpits, and seats for the elders of the meeting immediately below them. Their excessive plainness is, of course, proverbial, but although there was a dearth of architectural amenity in their construction, it must be admitted that many of them possessed the charm of unobtrusive simplicity.

The Old South Meeting-house, erected in 1730, is a fair representative of similar structures where more attention was paid to and more allowance made for architectural endeavour. The wonted plan of having the pulpit on one of the long sides was adhered to and the gallery stretched around on the other sides. The double rows of windows are round arched and form the chief point of interest both on the exterior and in the interior. The brick is laid in Flemish bond and there is a slightly projecting base course several feet from the ground. Cornices are plain and the expansive roof is rather flat in pitch. The tower, while graceful enough in proportion, is severely plain. Nevertheless it must be confessed that the attenuated proportions of the spire with the little arcade around its base have a certain charm of their own which it is extremely difficult to analyse.

Of wholly different type is King’s Chapel. Here we find ample evidence of attention to architectural opportunity and enrichment. While the rectangular plan is adhered to, the interior is divided into nave and aisles by the columns which fulfil the double function of supporting the roof and upholding the galleries. The windows in the lower row, underneath the gallery, are of smaller dimensions than those in the upper row which throw their light down over the galleries into the middle of the nave. The windows of the lower row have flat arched tops while those above are round arched. The masonry is of carefully dressed stone and, while there are no buttresses, the front of the building is adorned by pilasters at the corners and by a pillared arcade forming a porch around the square tower. The roof is hipped. Inside the building, far more play is given to architectural elaboration than outside. Here we find the pairs of columns supporting the roof and galleries are fluted from top to bottom and surmounted by elaborately carved Corinthian capitals upon which are imposed sections of frieze and cornice from which again spring the arches of the roof vaulting. While the effect is agreeable enough, it cannot be denied that the arrangement and general method of execution are illogical and capricious.

The old North and Trinity Churches, Newport, also exhibit a somewhat similar and illogical arrangement of the ceiling and its method of support. Trinity, Newport, and the old North are mentioned in addition to King’s Chapel because they all represent the New England type of ecclesiastical edifice erected during the Georgian period which affords an antithesis to the auditorium type represented by the Old South which may be regarded as a logical development of the type exemplified by the Old Ship Meeting-house at Hingham.

It would be an unpardonable oversight to bring this chapter to a close without mentioning buildings like the Park Street Church in Boston with its graceful spire and other buildings of similar type, erected about the same period, whose inspiration we owe partly to former ecclesiastical traditions and partly to the new spirit of the Classic Revival. In Boston, and elsewhere throughout New England, may be found many such churches which illuminate the era in which that master of architectural refinement, Samuel McIntire, wrought so successfully.

The foregoing pages, cursory as the review of ecclesiastical architecture has necessarily been, will show the diversity of styles that prevailed in the Colonies from North to South and incidentally the reader will be enabled to compare the modes of architectural expression with the ideals and habits of the people inhabiting the several sections of the country.

CHAPTER XIII

MATERIALS AND TEXTURES

A very great number of the settlers of New England, as stated in a previous chapter, came from the Danish parts of England where the timber tradition was especially strong. Consequently, despite the abundance of stone in the new land, which they might readily have used, they preferred, in the majority of instances, to build their houses of wood. Of course, some allowance, too, in this respect, must be made for ease and expedition of working and for climatic conditions. In the Middle Colonies and the South, most of the settlers came from the Saxon portions of England where stone and brick traditions had always prevailed and, although there was abundance of good timber and occasionally some lack of other materials, there was a general preference for brick or stone walls notwithstanding any inconvenience incidental to procuring them. The artisans in each section preferred to work with the materials with which they were most familiar and householders also seem to have concurred in the popular choice. It is to be noted that the lack of requisite material—marble or suitable stone—had not a little to do with the common use of white-painted wood for trims and external ornamental features in Georgian buildings whose English prototypes, in many cases, were embellished with pillars, pediments and cornices of the more durable substance.

It now behooves us to see what use was made of the several materials in the various portions of the Colonies. We shall, of course, find brick and stone structures in New England, and frame buildings in the Middle Colonies and the South, but the preponderance numerically displayed the characteristics just mentioned.

If “pigs is pigs”, doubtless, by the same token, “bricks is bricks” and also “mortar is mortar.” Notwithstanding the profundity of this truism, it is just as well to remember that there are bricks and bricks and that there is mortar and mortar, too, and that both, when brought together in a wall, mutually interact and are susceptible of large diversity of treatment. This very possibility of different combination afforded the Colonial builder a field for the exercise of not a little ingenuity.

For the benefit of readers not accustomed to technical terms it will, perhaps, be well to explain exactly what is meant by the words “bond” and “texture” which are necessarily used in speaking of brick masonry.

The term “bond” simply means the way of laying or the manner of binding and denotes the position in which the bricks are laid in their courses and the appearance created by the relative position of the units. In the walls of the houses built during the Colonial and post-Colonial periods, four varieties of bond are found, two bonds sometimes being used in conjunction for the sake of variety. They are English or Liverpool bond, Flemish bond, Dutch cross bond and running bond. English or Liverpool bond has alternate rows of stretchers (bricks so laid that the long side is exposed to view) and headers (bricks so laid that only the ends appear). The courses are arranged so that headers and stretchers break joints. Flemish bond consists of alternate headers and stretchers in every course, all joints being broken. It is the strongest and best-locked of all bonds. Dutch cross bond, like English bond, consists of alternate courses of headers and stretchers but with this difference: in English bond, the headers and stretchers in alternate layers are placed directly one above the other while, in Dutch cross bond, they break joints. Running bond consists entirely of stretchers and is a kind of degenerate Dutch cross bond with all the headers left out or introduced only at intervals of seven or eight courses to tie the face of the wall together. English or Liverpool, Flemish and running bonds were all in the common heritage of English building tradition.

For the sake of historical accuracy it is important to correct a popular error occasioned by the terms “English” and “Dutch” brick. It is commonly stated of many old buildings that they were built of brick fetched overseas from England or Holland. No doubt some few were but most of them were not. George Cary Eggleston set forth the whole matter in a very clear light when he wrote that “nearly all these bricks, whether English or Dutch, were made in America, as later scholarly research has conclusively proved. The only difference between English and Dutch bricks was one of dimensions. The small bricks, moulded upon a Dutch model, were known as Holland bricks. The much larger ones, moulded upon an English model, were called English bricks. The very learned and scholarly historian of South Carolina, Mr. McCrady, has conclusively proved that the so-called English bricks used in the construction of Carolina houses could not have been imported from England. By simple arithmetical calculation he has shown that all the ships landing in the Carolinas during the seventeenth century—even if all of them had been loaded exclusively with bricks—could not have brought in enough bricks to build one half or one fourth the ‘English brick’ houses of that part of the country.” There was abundant clay in the Colonies and the colonists, usually so resourceful and self-dependent, were scarcely likely to ignore an opportunity under their very noses and depend upon an imported commodity, even though they could have afforded the cost. Indeed, bricks were exported from some of the Colonies.

To be sure, one record shows that ten thousand bricks were imported into Massachusetts Bay in 1628, and we know that some bricks were imported into the New Haven Colony at an early date and likewise that, during the demolition of some very old Connecticut houses, bricks were found with the name “London” impressed upon them. Then, too, several instances can be cited in both the Middle and Southern Colonies, where bricks were imported and used for certain specified buildings and there are a few well authenticated cases of brick importation from Holland. But against this meagre certitude of a few cargoes of bricks from overseas there is the abundant evidence of extensive brick-making in the Colonies from a very early date. There is one reference in official records to a brick kiln in Connecticut in 1635 and there were doubtless other brick kilns in operation both there and elsewhere at the same time or even prior to that year.

The bricks in early Colonial use were of various sizes. As a rule, the older the bricks the larger they are. They afterwards became smaller and now, in our own time, they are large again. Some of the bricks were four inches by eight and a quarter and two and five eighths inches thick, others were two and a half by four inches and eight inches long. The “Dutch” bricks were thinner than the “English.” Most of the seventeenth and eighteenth century bricks were roughly moulded and not a few were underburned while others were extremely hard burned and had much pleasing variation of colour. The ends of arch bricks in the kiln were often burned till they acquired a bluish black and almost vitreous glaze. These were used for headers and to them is due much of the colour and pattern interest of old walls. The large bricks used for “pugging” the openings between the timbers in the early timber built houses are scarcely more than sun-dried and readily crumble and go to pieces upon exposure to the weather.

In speaking of the “texture” of a wall, we must take into consideration the kind of bricks used, their shape and size, their colour, their bond devised to give a distinctive pattern to the wall face, the mortar joints and, finally, the kind of mortar used. It need scarcely be said that the results possible with the old brick of slightly irregular shape and varied colour in English or Flemish bond—Flemish bond was exceedingly popular among eighteenth century builders—were infinitely more satisfactory than any that could be attained through the use of the later “faultily faultless” pressed brick of monotonously uniform shape and size, with a surface “like cut cheese and a colour like a firecracker” and a great deal of the charm of the old work is due to agreeable texture. While there is some exceedingly pleasing brickwork in New England and especially in the Connecticut Valley, brick excellence is much more common in the Middle States and the South where brick building was always more in vogue. Occasionally in New England, and very frequently farther south, a goodly degree of interest was achieved by the combination of different bonds, by herring-bone panels, by projecting courses on wall faces, at cornices or about chimney tops and by diaper patterns, dates and initials wrought in blue headers on end walls and in gables. Specially moulded capping bricks for base courses and for the tops of walls were used to good effect.

Both field stone and local quarried stone were used in New England and masonry was usually of the rubble type although occasionally the stones were carefully squared and dressed. The same may be said of stone work in New York. Sometimes the walls were of stone with brick door and window trims, as at the Manor House at Croton-on-Hudson. In the Dutch part of northern New Jersey the native reddish brown stone was employed with excellent effect both in rubble masonry and for cut work. In both cases it was often pointed with white mortar joints which gave a peculiar and striking contrast.

In Pennsylvania we find masonry of singular excellence and beauty where, again, both field stone and quarried stone were made use of. The Pennsylvania rubble masonry, laid by workmen who were merely perpetuating the traditions they had brought with them from England and Wales, has always commanded admiration and, in the vicinity of Philadelphia, the same inherited masonry traditions are still flourishing vigorously. These rubble walls were sometimes laid with stones of random sizes, sometimes with stones of comparatively uniform dimensions. In a few instances, notably in the neighbourhood of Kingsessing, Philadelphia, and in the walls of Belmont, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, once the home of the witty Judge Peters of Revolutionary fame, the old English custom of galleting the wide, white mortar joints with little spawls was practised. It was not infrequently the case that houses would have walls of dressed and squared stone in front with rubble walls at the sides and rear. Some few, such as Cliveden in Germantown, Philadelphia, and Whitby Hall, Kingsessing, Philadelphia, were built of cut stone all the way about. Whitby Hall and a few other houses also furnish interesting examples of brick door and window trims that project slightly beyond the face of the stone wall. This Pennsylvania stone work displayed practically no attempts at carving and the one instance where it has been carved is found in the window trims and Ionic capitals of the river front of the Bartram house, Kingsessing, Philadelphia.

In connexion with Colonial stonework must be mentioned the coating of walls with stucco and roughcast which were either allowed to remain their natural colour or whitewashed, as at Wyck, Germantown, Philadelphia. The very early houses were not stuccoed at first and the stucco seems to have been added later as a protection, partly, against the weather where porous stone had been used for the walls, such as some of the grey stone quarried in the neighbourhood of the Whitemarsh Valley. The mica stone, so abundant in Pennsylvania, after a few years’ exposure, becomes impervious to moisture and never needs stucco protection. Oftentimes stucco or roughcast were applied from choice and not from necessity, especially among the German colonists who seem to have been chiefly responsible for the introduction of the practice. For the sake of finish, contrast and cleanly appearance the stucco or roughcast coat was often whitewashed or yellow washed.

Much of the mortar in the early Colonial period was of poor quality and rapidly disintegrated. Lime, however, was soon to be had. In some cases it was imported, in others it was burned wherever limestone or oyster shells were to be had and the quality of the mortar was very generally improved throughout the Colonies. Some of it was exceptionally fine and to-day is as hard as the bricks or stone it binds together.

The oaken timbers for the framing of houses were riven and hewn into shape and dressed down with an adz. Rafters and joists were sometimes treated thus and in other cases were sawn. The great summer beams and oftentimes the studs, too, were finished with stopped chamfers along the edges. The spaces between the studs, as noted in Chapter III, were at first filled with “pugging” of stone or brick and clay mixed with chopped straw and then plastered over in the manner of the “black and white” or half timber work in England. Whether the wall spaces between the studs were ever stopped with “wattle and dab”—an old English filling of clay, plastered over a kind of loose basketwork of interwoven wattles or withes—the writer is unable to say with certainty. It is not at all improbable that the stud spaces were sometimes so filled and it is quite certain that some of the early Connecticut chimneys were constructed in this manner. The survival of “wattle and dab” work in New England in any form is an interesting instance of the persistence and continuity of craft traditions.

Clapboards were made chiefly of oak or pine and were nailed horizontally to the outside of the studs. They were usually feather edged and lapped, the upper over the lower. Although it is not impossible that there was some precedent in England for the use of clapboards nailed horizontally on the outside of the studding, it is highly probable that the practice of applying them in this manner in New England was first dictated by climatic necessity as a remedy and afterwards became incorporated as an essential part of frame construction. In some parts of New England, especially in Rhode Island and portions of Connecticut, studs between the posts were dispensed with and vertical boarding of oak or pine, usually more than an inch thick, was nailed to the cills and girts. This vertical boarding, for which, also, there seems to have been an English precedent, was generally, though not invariably, covered outside either with horizontal clapboards or with long shingles.

Shingles of pine were made both in the sizes common to-day and also of much larger dimensions, the latter being used for the outer sheathing of walls that had first been boarded. Roof shingles were sometimes laid on boarding, sometimes on “lathing” or small strips, nailed like purlins on the rafters. Shingles afforded the usual roofing material not only in New England but throughout the Colonies, although slate was not unknown and on some of the larger buildings copper and lead were occasionally used. In dry weather the danger to shingle roofs from sparking chimneys and the additional source of danger, at all times, from defective or uncleaned flues, led our forebears to adopt some rather curious and interesting methods of fire prevention. In early New England there were the chimney viewers whose duty it was to inspect the chimneys and compel the householders, by fines or other means, to keep their chimneys in repair and have them swept with sufficient frequency. This was a precaution of the utmost importance in communities where most of the houses were built of wood.

In Philadelphia, in Colonial times, the sight of a blazing chimney was enough to throw the whole community into an uproar and blazing chimneys were the subject of legislation by the Provincial Assembly of 1775, which enacted that “Every person whose Chimney shall take Fire and blaze out at the Top, not having been swept within one Calendar Month, shall forfeit and pay the sum of Twenty Shillings; but if swept within that Time and taking Fire and blazing out at the Top, the Person who swept the same, either by himself, his Servants or Negroes, shall forfeit and pay Twenty Shillings.”

Glass for windows in the beginning of the Colonial period was a luxury enjoyed by only a few of the more well-to-do settlers and even oiled paper was not always easy to come by so that oftentimes the humbler houses had only shutters to close window apertures and afford protection from the weather. Window glass, however, was imported at an early date and at an early date, also, glass in small panes was manufactured in the Colonies.

The earliest windows were filled with small diamond shaped panes leaded into the casements and the casement window was universally used. In the fore part of the eighteenth century, double or single hung sash windows became the fashion and were very generally substituted for the older casements by alterations made in the manner alluded to in Chapter III, although, quite frequently, particularly in the Middle and Southern Colonies, no change in the shape or dimensions of the window openings was considered desirable or necessary. The lights for the sashes were universally small and it was not until the end of the eighteenth century that they increased appreciably in size. It should be remembered that a great deal of the charm and individuality of fenestration during both the early Colonial and Georgian periods was due to the manifold divisions of the lights—with lead in the first instance and with heavy muntins in the second. A good many of the old leaded casements that had endured, despite the favour of the new styles, till the outbreak of the Revolutionary War disappeared at that time, the lead being melted to make bullets. This is said to have been the fate of the original windows in the Church of St. David at Radnor.

Paint, in the first years of colonisation during the seventeenth century, though not unknown, was not in common use and it must be admitted that the old woodwork, whether oak or pine, took on a delightful tone in the course of a few years from the combined agency of the atmosphere and the smoke of wood fires. In Pennsylvania and the neighbourhood, paint both inside and out seems to have been used from the first. It should be remembered, particularly in this connexion, that paint for either exterior or interior use in the Colonial and Georgian periods was not invariably white. Colours were frequently used and specific reference has been made in Chapter VIII to the employment of paint of various colours for panelling and other interior woodwork.

The panelling in many of the old Colonial houses, and for that matter the same thing may be said with perfect truth of much of the panelling to be found in houses of the Georgian type, exhibits marked irregularities. Although the almost mediæval methods of the early craftsmen were gradually supplanted by other ways of treating the material, there was always a delightful personal element of originality and lack of symmetry in the panelling and woodwork generally. It is this very originality that gives it its charm and interest. It is precisely like the features of the human face. If all the features of any human face were absolutely symmetrical and regular, so that both sides were precisely alike in every measurement, the countenance would be truly imbecile in expression. It is the irregularity which causes the outward indications of character and gives whatever beauty or the opposite quality there may be. The early craftsmen had no compunction in making one panel deeper than another, being governed therein by expediency, the width of the piece they were using, or the distance to be covered. It was not that they did not do their work well and in a workmanlike manner, but they saw no reason why they should be tied down by a slavish exactitude in the exercise of their craft, and they accordingly took liberties for which we in our slavishly mechanical days may be truly thankful, and from which we may learn a valuable lesson if we will only use our eyes and not be afraid to act with a little independence.

CHAPTER XIV

EARLY AMERICAN ARCHITECTS AND THEIR RESOURCES

WHO lived in our old houses and what manner of men they were, we fortunately know. At any rate it is an easy matter to find out. Who planned and built those houses we do not, as a rule, know nor will the most careful search and enquiry always bring to light even the name of the architect or, if they do succeed in doing so much, the information gained is generally so meagre that it does but whet the appetite for more. However, regardless of what we may or may not be able to learn of the designer of this or that house or public building, we shall be quite safe in attributing the design of early American structures to the agency of one or the other of three classes of men. This triple division consisted, first, of amateur architects; second, of carpenter architects and, last of all, of professional architects. In this grouping, the professional architect is given the last place because he was least frequently represented. The first and second classes were by far the most numerous and some of our best eighteenth century buildings, houses, churches and other public structures alike, are the results of collaboration between them.

We shall not be far wrong in ascribing seventeenth century buildings, almost without exception, to the capable and resourceful craftsman who not only preserved conscientiously the traditions he had learned as an apprentice or journeyman in the Mother Country and faithfully perpetuated them by his practice as a master carpenter or joiner in a new land but also showed himself possessed of ready wit and keen perceptive faculties by the alacrity with which he modified and adapted traditional methods and precedents to new conditions and requirements of climate and environment. So far as he could consistently do so, he held by preference to tradition in plan, methods of construction and choice of materials. When necessity or common sense, however, dictated a departure from established usage he was quick enough to follow the promptings of expediency and devise satisfactory substitutes for the deficiencies of past practice. Hence were originated local types without any conscious attempt on the part of the agents to be original.

The methods followed by the seventeenth century American builder showed a close relationship with the practices of mediæval joiners and masons. Furthermore, these early workmen showed an all-round mastery of their own craft, an intelligent understanding of related crafts and a thorough knowledge of the properties and uses of materials that their modern successors would do well to emulate. They respected their calling and took a proper pride in the excellence of their craftsmanship. Hence the work of their hands, however plain and simple, still possesses a dignity and honest beauty that plainly proclaim how they put their hearts into what they were doing and, at the same time, command our reverence and admiration. The old buildings have lasted so well and assumed such an atmosphere of grace because the artisans acted upon the principle that what was worth doing at all was worth doing well and set much store by honest workmanship instead of regarding their occupation as a job to be got through with at a maximum of wage for a minimum of time spent in labour. They got the best out of their materials because they knew and respected the peculiar qualities of their materials. Whether English or Dutch, Welsh or Swedish, the handiwork of these seventeenth century builders, wholly without pretence as it was, expressed faithfully the aggregate of the contemporary phases of the domestic architecture in the countries whence they came and also evidences both the beginnings and development of our own several vernacular manifestations, all of which, to a certain degree, were obscured and discounted by the expansion and increasing popularity of eighteenth century Georgian modes. To the carpenter-architects of the seventeenth century we owe a great debt of gratitude for their faithful preservation of time-honoured tradition in plan and manner of building so that we may easily trace our architectural lineage, for the intrinsic excellence of the structures they erected and the lessons they can still teach us in craftsmanship but, most of all, for the honesty and sincerity of the vernacular forms they developed, forms created by ready ingenuity in response to local needs and void of all pretence and hollow affectation. These forms, one and all, are full of vitality. Their very fitness for the conditions they were designed to meet in the neighbourhoods where they were evolved and the successful event of their application to modern demands for characteristic and informal domestic architecture drive home the extent of our present debt to the forgotten and nameless architect-carpenters of a by-gone generation.

With the dawn of the eighteenth century it becomes easier to connect buildings and the names and personalities of those that designed them. When we are not able to say with certainty that such a structure was designed by such a man, we know, at least, that there were then living in the different cities men of acknowledged architectural attainments, that their work is to be seen in this house or that church as a matter of indubitable record and that there is a strong presumption that their influence is to be traced in the design of houses or public edifices where there is no documentary evidence to support attribution to an individual architect.

One of the earliest personalities known to us in a distinctly architectural connexion is James Portius “whom William Penn induced to come to his new city to ‘design and execute his Proprietary buildings.’” He was “among the most active of the Carpenters’ Company and, at his death, in 1736, gave his choice collection of architectural works to his fellow members, thus laying the foundation of their present valuable library.” This Carpenters’ Company of Philadelphia was the organisation that, at a later date, erected its gild house, known as Carpenters’ Hall, where the Continental Congress for a time held its sessions. It is still in an excellent state of preservation and still houses the collection alluded to. The skill of the resident artisans of early Philadelphia was of no mean order, as their handiwork amply attests to-day, and, in 1724, the master carpenters of the city “composed a gild large and prosperous enough to be patterned after ‘The Worshipful Company of Carpenters of London,’” an organisation founded in 1477. Unfortunately we cannot with certainty ascribe any buildings now standing to the plans of James Portius. We can only make conjectures. It is highly probable that Penn’s house, which originally stood in Letitia Court until its removal to a site in Fairmount Park, was designed and erected by the Proprietary’s architect. The Manor House at Pennsbury was also, in all likelihood, designed by him or at least carried out under his superintendence. It is a source of never ending regret that it was allowed to fall into a state of utter decay and was then demolished. Had it been preserved, we should now have an invaluable addition to the architectural treasures of our country and an interesting commentary upon the work of one of the earliest architects known to have practised his profession in the Colonies.

It is most important to remember that some considerable degree of architectural knowledge or, at the very least, some substantial cultivation of architectural taste and discrimination seems to have been considered an indispensable part of every gentleman’s education in the eighteenth century. Consequently it is not surprising to find that some of our native amateur architects possessed knowledge and ability by no means contemptible. Architectural appreciation was favoured by the fact that not a few of the sons of the wealthy and well-to-do were sent to England to complete their education and usually spent some time afterwards in travel on the Continent. Such broadening influences naturally tended to stimulate and aid the development of architectural taste and, as a certain amount of dexterity in drawing was highly esteemed and practised as a polite masculine accomplishment, a considerable number of men were fitted, to a far greater degree than the majority of so-called well educated people nowadays, to translate their architectural preferences into a form sufficiently intelligible for the master-carpenter to work from in putting an idea into a tangible shape.

It is not to be inferred from the foregoing that a large number of men of substance and leisure for the cultivation of polite accomplishments were capable of producing a set of measured drawings, such as professional architects prepare, to turn over to a contractor for execution. They were not. But the division of functions was altogether different. The client, as he would now be termed, showed a more intelligent and constructive appreciation of architectural principles in a proportionately larger number of cases than he does at the present day. He formed a definite conception of what he wished and was capable of conveying his desires lucidly by means of drawings or rough sketches to the head workman charged with the actual task of construction. As the average client was better informed and thought more clearly upon matters architectural than the client of later times, so, on the other hand, the master-carpenter of the eighteenth century was infinitely more capable than the average artisan of like rank to-day. He was not only a skilled master-mechanic, competent to translate rough draughts and sketches into carefully prepared working drawings, but he was also a person of some architectural education and taste and endowed with a nice perception and valuation of architectural merits and proprieties. He was materially aided in his work by a number of valuable and explicit architectural books with measured drawings of whose assistance he did not hesitate freely to avail himself. Furthermore, he still retained a sympathetic respect for his materials and a conscientious appreciation of worthy craftsmanship, inherited by tradition from his mediæval predecessors and wholly apart from modern commercialism. Pride in his calling impelled him to the closest personal supervision and painstaking interest. He would be content with nothing short of the best.

The amateur architects were no mere dabbling dilettanti, flirting with a polite and amiable penchant for architectural amenities. The best of them, and those that left the most impressive memorials of their talent and skill, were, as we shall presently see, busy men of large affairs and serious interests. They, as well as the master-carpenters, were thoroughly conversant with the best architectural books of the period and often had a fair showing of them on the shelves of their own libraries. More than one of them left standing orders with their London booksellers to send them, upon publication, such volumes as were most worth while. Another factor of their fitness is also to be reckoned. It was not unusual for them to possess training and experience as surveyors. Indeed, it was almost imperatively necessary for large landowners to have a knowledge of surveying in order to look properly after their interests. This training gave them an insight into the practice of making accurate measurements and draughting and the effect of such practical and exact education was not without its weight when they addressed themselves to designing buildings.

One of the most striking and eminent figures among the eighteenth century amateur architects was the Honourable Andrew Hamilton, “the day-star of the American Revolution,” as Gouverneur Morris styled him, sometime Attorney-General of the Province of Pennsylvania, Provincial Councillor, Speaker of the Provincial Assembly from 1729 and for a number of successive years afterward and, above all, illustrious jurist and pleader, whose defence of Peter Zenger, the New York printer, in 1735, redounded to his fame both in England and throughout the Colonies. He was a man of exceptional and varied attainments, of catholic cultivation and outlook and endowed with remarkable elegancy of taste. Amid all the distractions and pressing concerns of an exacting legal and public career and the many demands involved in the successful management of a large private estate, he nevertheless found time to devote a good measure of attention to architectural diversions and left an enduring monument to his talents in that direction in the State House in Philadelphia.

The history of the plan for the State House is peculiarly interesting for the light it sheds on contemporary conditions. Determined to erect the State House, a committee of three was appointed by the Assembly, in 1729, to procure suitable plans. Two members of this committee prepared plans for the new building, namely Andrew Hamilton and Dr. John Kearsley, to whom further reference will be made in a following paragraph. Dr. Kearsley, it is true, had achieved considerable reputation as an architect by the plans that he had devised for Christ Church, but Hamilton was not supposed to have any aptitude in that direction. He was a lawyer, much occupied in the public business of the Province. It seems, however, that he had mastered some architectural knowledge while in London where, like so many other illustrious lawyers of the Middle and Southern Colonies, he received his training in the Inns of Court. Being a man of remarkable and sterling ability, combining with his wide versatility and breadth of view a fund of initiative and force, he generally pushed to a successful completion any matter to which he addressed himself. His plan, a rough draught on parchment, which is still to be seen in the collection of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, was submitted to the Assembly and chosen. For assurance of the excellence and soundness of his judgment, one has only to turn their eyes to the fabric of the State House.

In the construction of public edifices, the trials and tribulations of the eighteenth century architects could well compare with the difficulties encountered in some instances by their twentieth century successors. Work on the State House was indeed begun and vigorously pushed forward by Hamilton so far as he was able, but there were all sorts of obstructions to be surmounted and drawbacks and hindrances to be set aside. There were grumbles and growls from influential people who were either wholly opposed to the undertaking or else dissatisfied with the site. There were hostile criticisms of the plan adopted, there were strikes among the workmen, there was, at times, a lack of competent labour, there were wranglings about the necessary funds to pay the costs—everything, in short, combined to retard progress and Judge Hamilton died in 1741 before his plans were fully executed. Although the date of the erection of the State House is given as 1733—the greatest portion of it was built then—its completion, as just stated, was not achieved till eight years later.

Another amateur architect of the period, deserving of mention, was Joseph Brown who was born in Providence in 1733 and died there in 1785. After acquiring a comfortable fortune in a manufacturing business, he devoted himself to the pursuits towards which his tastes for science inclined him. He was particularly interested in electricity and had a comprehensive knowledge of the subject; he was likewise proficient in mechanics and astronomy and held a professorship in Brown University, of which institution he was also a trustee. Of his ability in the architectural field, the First Baptist Church in Providence, erected in 1775, and various houses bear witness.