Part 4 (1/2)
While the white man sometimes copied the Indian in his construction, it is significant that when the colonists landed in 1607, the Indian, for his part, was already employing several types of English medieval construction, which he had invented and acquired independently of European contact. Although we have already cited most of these types, we list them again, in order to give the Indian credit, where credit is due: palisaded walls with moats, and pale fencing; puncheoning with wattles; central hearths with roof louvres for smoke; thatched roofs; and timber-framing with wattle-and-daub panels. How can anyone belittle the technical accomplishments of the Indian by calling him ”savage,”
when in at least five building methods he equalled the white man bringing the English Medieval Style to these sh.o.r.es? Our English ancestors _originally_ lived in smoky buildings with the central open hearth in the middle of the great room; in seventeenth-century Virginia the Indian did likewise. The difference was in timing.
ii. THE COUNTRY HOUSE
In the seventeenth century, the English rural homestead was usually placed along the great Bay, the Chesapeake, or upon one of its tidewater tributaries. Back of such a seat, or on either side of it, there stretched the outhouses, generally arranged in rows or around courtyards. The water served as the princ.i.p.al highway, and the plantation depended upon it. Certain Indian paths, it is true, were turned into narrow lanes for carts, in order to reach the interior, like the oldest ”road” in Virginia, which, as we have seen, extended from Jamestown to Middle Plantation, now Williamsburg.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A Type of 17{th} century Virginia Plantation ”Carotoman,” Lancaster Co.]
The variety and number of properties which the prosperous land-owners possessed is revealing, by giving us a glimpse of the economic and architectural life of the times. Besides the mansion-house there were offices, kitchens and bake houses, slave quarters, school houses, dairies, barns, stables, granaries, smoke houses, spring houses, and dovecots.
There were servants' dwellings, spinning houses, smithies, tan houses, bin houses, well houses, hogsties, cornhouses, and guest houses. For the gardens, sometimes called ”hortyards,” there were summerhouses, greenhouses, and arbors. Then there were bloomeries and ironworks, wharves for landing goods, called ”bridges,” warehouses, windmills, watermills, sawmills, gla.s.sworks, silkhouses, brick and pottery kilns, lime kilns, saltworks, and blockhouses.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Green Spring Pottery Kiln c. 1646]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Two Va. Outhouses Bin House Jamestown (Author's Reconstr'ns)]
For all intents and purposes such grandiose estates were self-sustaining. Those goods not produced in Virginia came generally from England and were usually landed upon the wharf in front of the plantation-dwelling. That the kitchen outhouse was frequently placed at a distance from the dining room was primarily due not to cla.s.s or color distinction, but to the medieval custom of carrying food across the service courtyard.
Very often throughout the seventeenth century, especially on the Eastern Sh.o.r.e of Virginia, the kitchen building was tied to the main abode by a colonnade--a pa.s.sage with columns--or by a curtain--a covered pa.s.sageway.
That these edifices in their wooden parts were painted, when the owner could afford paint, is proven by the record of importations of large quant.i.ties of color pigments and oils to make paint. Many of us today think that the early Virginia building was white, but colors like gray and tan were common. When the owner could not bear the expense of painting, he left his house bare or ”whited” it with good white lime--that is, used whitewash.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SOME OCCUPANTS OF 17TH-CENTURY VIRGINIA HOMES ATE FROM BOWLS LIKE THIS ONE, FROM JAMESTOWN A scraffito or scratched slipware bowl with one handle. Height 3-5/8”, dia. 8-3/4”. _Photo, author._ (See page 21)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: A MEDIEVAL ”PYRAMID” CHIMNEY IN VIRGINIA So large is the fireplace of this one-bay dwelling that you can burn an eight-foot log within it. Great ”weatherings” taper the chimney towards the stack, which is freestanding as protection against fire.
Note medieval ”black-diapered” brick pattern in gable. _Photo, author._ (See page 22)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: REMNANTS OF A MEDIEVAL VIRGINIA STOREHOUSE The foundation of the ”Bin House,” Jamestown, excavated by the National Park Service. The two brick bins have concave floors below the original main floor level. _Photo, author._ (See page 36)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: A TYPE OF MEDIEVAL CORNICE IN VIRGINIA Unlike the later box cornice, to which we are accustomed, the cornice of this dwelling of about 1670 has exposed and rounded beam ends, which are pegged to a tilted plate, on which the rafters rest. Note corbel of overlapping bricks which stops cornice. _Photo, author._ (See page 37)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: A MEDIEVAL ”HALL-AND-PARLOR” HOUSE IN JAMES CITY COUNTY The ”Warburton House” or ”Pinewoods” of about 1680 has segmental-arched openings, ”T”-chimneys, and chimney caps with mouse-tooth brickwork, a decoration which seems to have come into fas.h.i.+on about that time. A rear wing has disappeared. _Photo, author._ (See page 40)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”SWEET HALL,” A MEDIEVAL ”T”-PLAN HOME IN VIRGINIA This old seat of the Claibornes in King William County, dating from about 1695, has very tall ”T”-stacks, with ”weatherings” or slopes above the ridge, and with heavy, ornate caps. The dormers and porches are later. _Photo, author._ (See page 41)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: CLAY ROOFING PANTILES FROM THE FIRST STATE HOUSE, JAMESTOWN The left-hand tile, nearly complete, has a ”n.o.b” at one end to catch on the roof strips. It was pieced together by Mr. John T. Zaharov, and is the _first_ pantile ever found in the United States. The paper arrow at right marks cemented overlap. _Photo, author._ (See page 48)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: ONE OF THE MOST HISTORIC SITES IN THE UNITED STATES Much of our knowledge of 17th-century Virginia life and art comes from Jamestown foundations. This interesting ”complex” of ruins reveals William Sherwood's house cellar of c. 1677-80, and in the immediate foreground, a fireplace hearth of the ”Governor's House,” probably built in the 1620s, and occupied by Sir George Yeardley. _Photo, author._ (see page 49)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: A JAMESTOWN LATTICE CAs.e.m.e.nT AS IT CAME FROM THE GROUND This medieval window, with the diamond panes or ”quarrels” knocked out, came from the ”Double House on the Land of Thomas Hampton,” and is drawn restored in _Jamestown and St. Mary_'s. Note pane of gla.s.s standing upon a Dutch brick. _Photo, author._ (See page 67)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: TWO UNUSUAL JAMESTOWN STRAP-HINGES The right-hand hinge, broken, probably came from a wagon-box or chest.
(See page 68)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: A BRa.s.s SWORD HANDLE FROM THE JAMESTOWN MUD Found in three pieces with the blade missing, this cavalier's sword is ornamented with _putti_ and other decorations. _Photos, author._ _Courtesy, Antiques Magazine._]
The most significant aspect of the medieval rural abode in Virginia was its regular course of development from the simple, one-room-and-garret cottage--what an English bishop in 1610 called a ”silly cote,” a hut of ”one bay's breath”--to the stately and elegant Georgian mansion of the eighteenth century. Even so, it may not be unequivocally declared that all the simple dwellings were constructed first and all the complex ones later. At the same time, we find that often the homes with more than two downstairs rooms and a central pa.s.sageway were constructed in late seventeenth-century times. Further, the country lodging for the most part was only one-storey-and-loft high. The full two-storey domicile was the exception.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Floor Plan of a Medieval One-Bay House (c. 1670) in Va.]
The elementary hut of one bay, such as we have noted as having been prevalent in the Cottage Period of the first thirteen years, was the earliest type of substantial house-form in the Old Dominion; it had a ”hall,” which was the ”Great Room”--not a pa.s.sage,--a dining room, and a kitchen, all rolled into one. The garret with sloping ceilings, perhaps reached by a stepladder or narrow, winding, ”break-your-neck” staircase, was usually a cold, unheated, cramped s.p.a.ce for sleeping.