Plate 89
Plate 90
APPENDIX A
Building Agreements in Seventeenth-Century Massachusetts
Few seventeenth-century agreements to erect buildings in Massachusetts have been preserved. The following, with two exceptions, have been gleaned from court records where originally they were submitted as evidence in suits at law. They are of the greatest interest in connection with present day restoration work as they preserve detailed information of indisputable authority in relation to early building construction in the Bay Colony. The gable window, the second story jet, the stool window and casement sash, the catted chimney and the treatment of the inner and outer walls of the house have much curious interest at the present time. These architectural features long since fell into disuse and only here and there has a fragment survived. Two centuries ago the towns in New England must have presented an appearance most picturesque to our twentieth-century eyes. The dwellings seem to have been studies in projecting angles, strangely embellished with pinnacles, pendants and carved work. The unpainted and time-stained walls, the small windows and elaborate chimney tops, the narrow and curiously fenced ways, winding among the irregularly placed buildings, all contributed to the quaintness of the picture. The following agreements between builder and owner should help to solve some of the debated problems of this bygone construction that now confront those interested in the preservation and restoration of our early New England dwellings.
Contract To Build the First Meetinghouse in Malden, November 11, 1658
Articles of agreement made and concluded ye 11th day of ye ninth mo., 1658, betweene Job Lane of Malden, on the one partie, carpenter, and William Brakenbury, Lieut. John Wayte, Ensigne J. Sprague, and Thomas Green, Senior, Selectmen of Malden, on the behalf of the towne on the other partie, as followeth: