The churches of this period include a number of interesting designs, especially pleasing in the forms of their steeples. The “Old South” at Boston (now a museum), Trinity at Newport, and St. Paul’s at New York—one of the few built of stone (1764)—are good examples of the style. Christ Church at Philadelphia (1727–35, by Dr. Kearsley) is another example, historically as well as architecturally interesting (Fig. 218); and there are scores of other churches almost equally noteworthy, scattered through New England, Maryland, Virginia, and the Middle States.
DWELLINGS. These reflect better than the churches the varying tastes of the different colonies. Maryland and Virginia abound in fine brick manor-houses, set amid extensive grounds walled in and entered through iron gates of artistic design. The interior finish of these houses was often elaborate in conception and admirably executed. Westover (1737), Carter’s Grove (1737) in Virginia, and the Harwood and Hammond Houses at Annapolis, Md. (1770), are examples. The majority of the New England houses were of wood, more compact in plan, more varied and picturesque in design than those of the South, but wanting somewhat of their stateliness. The interior finish of wainscot, cornices, stairs, and mantelpieces shows, however, the same general style, in a skilful and artistic adaptation of classic forms to the slender proportions of wood construction. Externally the orders appear in porches and in colossal pilasters, with well designed entablatures, and windows of Italian model. The influence of the Adams and Sheraton furniture is doubtless to be seen in these quaint and often charming versions of classic motives. The Hancock House, Boston (of stone, demolished); the Sherburne House, Portsmouth (1730); Craigie House, Cambridge (1757, Fig. 219); and Rumford House, North Woburn (Mass.), are typical examples.
FIG. 219.—CRAIGIE (LONGFELLOW) HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE.
In the Middle States architectural activity was chiefly centred in Philadelphia and New York, and one or two other towns, where a number of manor-houses, still extant, attest the wealth and taste of the time. It is noticeable that the veranda or piazza was confined to the Southern States, but that the climate seems to have had little influence on the forms of roofs. These were gambrelled, hipped, gabled, or flat, alike in the North and South, according to individual taste.
PUBLIC BUILDINGS. Of public and monumental architecture this period has little to show. Large cities did not exist; New York, Boston, and Philadelphia were hardly more than overgrown villages. The public buildings—court-houses and town-halls—were modest and inexpensive structures. The Old State House and Faneuil Hall at Boston, the Town Hall at Newport (R.I.), and Independence Hall at Philadelphia, the best known of those now extant, are not striking architecturally. Monumental design was beyond the opportunities and means of the colonies. It was in their churches, all of moderate size, and in their dwellings that the colonial builders achieved their greatest successes; and these works are quaint, charming, and refined, rather than impressive or imposing.
To the latter part of the colonial period belong a number of interesting buildings which remain as monuments of Spanish rule in California, Florida, and the Southwest. The old Fort S. Marco, now Fort Marion (1656–1756), and the Catholic cathedral (1793; after the fire of 1887 rebuilt in its original form with the original façade uninjured), both at St. Augustine, Fla.; the picturesque buildings of the California missions (mainly 1769–1800), the majority of them now in ruins; scattered Spanish churches in California, Arizona, and New Mexico, and a few unimportant secular buildings, display among their modern and American settings a picturesque and interesting Spanish aspect and character, though from the point of view of architectural detail they represent merely a crude phase of the Churrigueresque style.
