Colonial Homes in North Carolina

by John V. Allcott

MAPS OF COLONIAL TOWNS—TOWN PLANS

A map of a town shows streets and broad avenues crossing and interlacing in some pattern, wide or narrow lots in rows along streets, and buildings which are placed at the front or deep within the lots. Such matters make one section of a town look different from another and are part of the design or the plan of a town.

Lewis Mumford, a man who has a great interest in cities and towns and who has written a number of books on them, considers a town as a work of art. He believes that just as a picture is a work of art, and a house is a work of art, so is a town. The design of a town—the arrangement of streets and lots—expresses the ideas of the people about the right framework in which a good life can be lived.

For our study of colonial towns we are fortunate in having beautiful maps of ten North Carolina towns, all made by the surveyor Claude Joseph Sauthier. The Hillsboro map, [figure 3], is one of these drawings. Sauthier traveled over North Carolina between 1768 and 1770, surveyed and made maps of Bath, Beaufort, Brunswick, Edenton, Cross Creek (now Fayetteville), Halifax, Hillsboro, New Bern, Salisbury, and Wilmington. The drawings were commissioned by Governor Tryon; most of them have found their way to the great British Museum, in London.

FIGURE 3. SAUTHIER’S “PLAN OF ... HILLSBOROUGH,” 1768.

The majority of the buildings shown on the maps have disappeared. The maps thus enable us to see—what otherwise we could never see—North Carolina towns as they once were. Sauthier did make occasional mistakes; and some details (for example, the design of a flower garden) are not to be read as literal fact; but for the most part the drawings may be studied as aerial photographs. By great good fortune they were made at the right time for us, and have survived.

To get some general ideas about colonial towns, we will look at the map of Hillsboro. Our remarks about this map reflect observations of Dr. Mary Claire Engstrom, scholar of 18th-century subjects, and a vice-president of the Hillsboro Historical Society. The Sauthier map of Hillsboro, dated October 1768, was made after the spring uprising of the Regulators in that town and immediately following Governor Tryon’s arrival there in September. From this it may be suspected that, in commissioning the map, Governor Tryon had military thoughts in mind. Hillsboro—the danger spot—was the first map in Sauthier’s series of ten maps. The others were made as he travelled with Governor Tryon.

The little town is shown on the Eno River in the wooded land of Orange County. The big star at upper left shows north, south, east, and west, and one notes that the town seems to be laid out “properly” on these directions. Roads leading to neighboring towns are carefully marked. There are the Roads from Salisbury ... to Virginia ... to Halifax ... to New Bern ... to the Quaker Settlement ... to Cross Creek. At lower left is “Oakaneetche Mountain,” a great hump of earth overlooking Hillsboro. Another of the Occoneechee mountains is seen at the edge of the map. The Occoneechee Indians were one of several Indian tribes in the area. Today, boy scouts in this part of Orange County belong to the Occoneechee Council. They sometimes have camporees at the Hillsboro race ground, not far from the “Race Ground” marked on our map. This Race Ground lies neatly within a bend in the Eno River, as though the river wanted to mark out this area of flat land for such special use. Scattered here and there outside the town are farms. The rectangular plots of farm land are clearly marked, and the farm houses and secondary buildings are placed at corners convenient to the road.

For a better view of the actual town itself we look at an enlarged section of the map, [Figure 4]. Buildings are indicated by small rectangles which have heavy outlines on two sides—the right side and the lower side. These two heavy lines may be regarded as a shadow cast by the bulk of the building. They are a convention used by Sauthier to show bulk or mass. The various rectangles which are shown within gardens also employ this same thick-thin line convention, suggesting a mass of green foliage rising above the surrounding paths.

The buildings marked “A,” ... “B,” ... “C,” and so on, are identified under corresponding letters listed under “Reference” at the upper right of the total map. “A, Church” is toward the northern part of the town, removed from the business area below. In assigning to the Church the “A” (number one) position on his list, Sauthier pays respect to the idea of the primacy of the spiritual order over civil law. At “A” is a rectangle containing a number of crosses. This seems to suggest a fenced-off cemetery. One does not find an actual church building, but a church did exist on this ground shortly after Sauthier’s visit.

FIGURE 4. DETAIL FROM SAUTHIER’S PLAN OF HILLSBOROUGH.

“B, Court House” is located close to the crossing of two wide streets—those two main streets from which roads lead off to the other towns of the Colony. The courthouse was a “plain, barn-like structure.” The present and very famous Old Courthouse, dating from near the mid-19th century, stands near this site.

“C” marks the jail. The word jail used to be spelled gaol, but Sauthier spells it goal. It is shown within a small rectangle, perhaps indicating a fenced-in yard. The jail may possibly have been a new structure, for Dr. Engstrom has discovered that about six months before Sauthier’s visit a former jail, at another location down town, was sold to a private individual to use for business purposes. The new jail was probably not an impressive building, perhaps only a log cabin, but Sauthier thought it important to note that the town had this institution to take care of wayward people. Incidentally, the jail seems a little wayward itself, having strayed into the otherwise clear, wide street. When the jail was built that street was perhaps just a well worn path, and the jail may have been erected hastily without careful checking of stakes for the street. In other colonial towns (for example, in the placement of the church at Bath) it sometimes seems as though buildings are incorrectly placed. The Hillsboro jail, for many years in the general position shown, has recently been moved back to a less assertive site.

“D, Market House,” directly at the main intersection and adjacent to the courthouse, is shown as square. The “X” inscribed within this square perhaps indicates that the market had a pyramidal, four-sided roof. The building may have had open sides, like markets in certain other colonial towns. The open market building is an idea brought from Europe. Other buildings around this main intersection were stores or warehouses. At the southwest corner was Johnston and Thackston’s store where Edmund Fanning, the Clerk of Court and a Tory leader, took refuge from the Regulators in 1770.

At “E, Mills” there are curious parallel straight lines which can be read as canals. The mills, probably with water wheels, are built over the canals. Where the river widens out at the left there may have been a dam to hold back the flow of water in the river, and force it through the canals. The curious marks on the canals could be gates.

The mills are the last structures identified on the map. Sauthier does not mention the Commons, a field set aside for pasturing of the cattle owned by people in a colonial town. On some of his other maps he identifies such places as Tann Yard, ... School House, ... Tobacco Store, ... Windmill.

The homes shown in the map are all built near the street. Behind are fields or gardens divided into orderly plots. Most of the buildings are simple rectangles in shape. Occasionally a building has an irregular shape, perhaps meaning that an original rectangular structure was given an addition. Similarly, lots with irregular shape may indicate additions or subdivision of an original tract.

By way of contrast to the Hillsboro town plan, [Figure 5] is a drawing of Grenoble, a medieval French city. This drawing is reproduced from The Culture of Cities, by Lewis Mumford. The winding streets are natural paths that have become fixed as streets. Some curving streets mark the location of early town walls, removed as the town grew and as larger encircling walls were erected. Mr. Mumford speaks of this kind of town as having a natural circular plan, with irregular blocks dictated by topography and the original circular wall.

FIGURE 5. MAP OF GRENOBLE, FRANCE, FROM The Culture of Cities BY LEWIS MUMFORD.

When American colonial towns like Hillsboro were founded, the streets and lots were laid out in advance. The uniform rectangular lots were easy to measure and ideal for fixing sale prices and for the assessment of taxes. Later expansion of the town could also be orderly. The idea of the colonial gridiron town speaks of “modern” men and their institutions, as opposed to medieval men.

Figures [6], [7], and [8] suggest planning ideas found in early North Carolina towns. [Figure 6], recalling Hillsboro, could be called a plan for an inland town. In our diagram two slightly wider streets mark a crossing at the center of the town. The dot in the center of the crossing is to indicate the placement of the courthouse. Such placement is not what we saw at Hillsboro, but is shown on several of the Sauthier maps of North Carolina towns (for example, Salisbury and Wilmington). This was a good arrangement, for the courthouse, symbol of the civil law and order of the area, might be seen from a long way off as the town was approached from various directions. However, the early towns which began with the courthouse astride the main crossing generally found later that this location impeded the flow of traffic. Consequently, some courthouses have been moved from their original sites, allowing traffic to flow across the intersection. Pittsboro, however—although a relatively late colonial town, having been laid out in 1785—still has its courthouse in the central position.

[Figure 7], to suggest the plan of a port town, seems like half of the inland plan, above. A principal street of the town runs along or near the water. It might be called Water Street, as at Bath.

[Figure 8] indicates an idea found at Salem, laid out in 1765, and elsewhere in the American colonies. A central square is left open and principal town buildings are built around it. At Raleigh, laid out in 1792, the square is very large, and contains the State Capitol. A central green belonging to the people, a place in which they might gather, is still a pleasant reminder of community life and order in those towns which possess them.

FIGURE 6.

FIGURE 7.

FIGURE 8.

Since colonial days our old towns have changed much. In the 19th century mills and warehouses dwarfed the original buildings. The railroad, that glamorous invention of the industrial revolution, appeared in the towns, bisecting them. Especially in the 20th century, faster change and “progress” have all but obliterated the charm of old towns. Downtown streets become impossibly congested. Old residential areas are invaded by filling stations and supermarkets. In a free country a man can buy a beautiful old home, blast it out of existence, and erect an unsightly factory over its ruins. Such “progress” has blighted and disfigured many towns. But townspeople are becoming horrified by this, and now there are citizen committees which bring about zoning laws under which the plans for the use of land and for new buildings must be approved. Some towns have Planning Boards, with a Planning Director in charge, who think not only of the present but also of the far future. At the University of North Carolina there is a Department of City and Regional Planning; it trains young men and women for positions in planning.

CHAPTER II
A Visit to a Colonial Home

FIGURE 9. CONJECTURAL SKETCH OF THE PALMER HOUSE, BATH.

After looking at maps of North Carolina and its towns, we visit a colonial home to see what it is like. The Palmer-Marsh house in Bath is chosen for this purpose because it offers exceptional possibilities for the kind of visit we want to make.

[Figure 9] is a sketch of the big, sturdy house, its out-buildings, orchard, and gardens which, taken together, look like a self-sufficient farm. Our sketch of the surroundings is an estimate, based on the plan of the “Col. Palmer” property seen in Sauthier’s 1769 map of Bath ([figure 10]). The map shows the Palmer property “down town” on Water, or Main Street, which runs along Bath Creek, the house being placed directly on this business thoroughfare. The front room of the house was planned for business purposes, and so it has its own door to the street. Thus the chimney, which ordinarily would have been on this end wall, has been moved around the corner to the side. The house, thought to have been built in 1744, was sold to Colonel Palmer in 1764, just a few years before Sauthier came to Bath.

FIGURE 10. (BELOW), COL. PALMER’S HOUSE, SEEN IN A DETAIL FROM SAUTHIER’S “PLAN OF BATH, 1769.”

Of the four out-buildings in a group, a well house is in the foreground. The drawing shows the well covered by a square, open-sided structure with pyramidal or hipped roof. The other square building with hipped roof is a smoke house—where meat was hung and smoked. A smoke house which exists today on the property is thought to contain the wood frame of this original structure. Of the two out-buildings with ordinary gable roofs, one could be a dairy and the other a barn. At the back of the property are the extensive gardens and the orchard—represented in such charming fashion on Sauthier’s map. We know that in 1911 the yard of the house was full of pear, apple, and other fruit trees, the descendants, perhaps, of the original trees in the orchard.

In the 19th century porches were added to the house ([figure 11]); but the porches have recently been removed during a project to restore the house to what it originally was ([figure 12]). The juxtaposition of these two photographs brings the above ideas forcibly to our attention. It is important to know that almost every colonial house has undergone changes during the years, and to know the meaning of conscientious restoration.

In the 19th century the house was “modernized” in several ways. The porches were a very natural addition, especially for hot Carolina summers. The shutters were removed because they were considered archaic. In the windows the small 18th century panes of glass were replaced by larger panes available in the 19th century. Also, the street façade of the house was made more up-to-date, as can be seen. The gable projects emphatically and has two horizontal strips at the lower corners. The gable suggests (vaguely) a pediment on a Greek or Roman temple. (A pediment is the low triangular gable end of a classical temple). Note that the supports of the side porch also are classical; they are clean, elegant Doric columns. The classical ideas mentioned above were popular in the post-colonial period.

FIGURE 11. THE PALMER HOUSE BEFORE RESTORATION.

FIGURE 12. AFTER RESTORATION.

By contrast, the restored house of today is much closer to what is characteristic of the earlier 18th century in North Carolina. The whole street façade of the house registers in the viewer’s mind as one simple plane, without strong overhang at the top, and without any suggestion of a classical pediment. It is interesting to note that the design and color of the restored shutters are based on one old red shutter found in the attic of the house.

[Figure 13] shows the back of the house, with its famous double chimney, an unusual feature rarely found. The windows in the chimney give light to closets on the first and second floors. In the plan of the first floor, [figure 14], it may be seen how a closet is placed between two bedrooms, serving one of them. On the floor above, the closet serves the bedrooms on the other side, thus demonstrating a desire to play fair with bedrooms on both sides of the house.

At the front of the house is the room planned for business. At various times through the years it was used for store, courtroom, and parlor. In the center of the house is a large hall room; it has two outside doors, and an open stairway to the second floor. The dotted line (· · ·) indicates a great, central beam used in the construction of the house, having the exceptional length of 51 feet. The dashed line (- - -) indicates the former location of a partition; the back bedrooms were lengthened at the expense of the hall. In the recent restoration of the house the location of the original partition was discovered, and it has been restored.

If one compares the plan of the house in [figure 14] with that shown on the Sauthier map, [figure 10], it is seen at once that the general proportions are not the same. Sauthier made a mistake; he got the main facts, but was unable to take time to measure every single building he showed.

FIGURE 13. PALMER HOUSE, SHOWING FAMOUS CHIMNEY.

FIGURE 14. PALMER HOUSE, PLAN.

[Figure 15] shows an interior of the Palmer house. Glance at the plan, [figure 14], and see how this room fits within the total house. Notice the great beam running across the ceiling and, parallel with it, the beam at the side wall. Notice also that the side entrance door is framed at the right by a post which rises to the ceiling. Such exposed beams and posts suggest the wood skeleton of the house. Skeletal structure is concealed in most colonial homes that remain today, but is found occasionally as here in the Palmer house. More will be said later about exposed construction and about interiors.

FIGURE 15. PALMER-MARSH HOUSE, INTERIOR.

Our visit to the Palmer house has provided a glimpse into modern, careful restoration. The house was restored by the Historic Bath Commission, in co-operation with The Beaufort County Historical Society, and with assistance from the Historic Sites Division of the North Carolina Department of Archives and History. The restoration project included much more work than we have shown. For example, archaeological study of old foundations in the yard around the house revealed various uses of the basement and the existence of a 19th-century outside dining room and kitchen, as was common during this later time.

CHAPTER III
Kinds of Construction

Log Houses, Houses with a Wooden Frame, Brick and Stone Houses

Much of the special charm of a colonial home lies in its structure so quaint and different from the construction used in homes of our day. Some colonial homes are “log cabins,” others have a wooden frame or skeleton, and still others are made of brick or stone. Sometimes a builder could choose his materials and kind of construction. At other times and places a builder had little or no choice of materials and was limited to using the simplest tools and construction methods. In order to understand the meaning of colonial architecture one looks carefully at structure.