The evolution of local architecture, of course, not only mirrors the social and economic development of the colonies but also presents numerous edifying variations within the confines of New England which show how strongly the course of architectural growth in the new land was influenced by conditions locally prevalent in the old home. It can oftentimes be seen how the artisans from one particular place in England perpetuated certain idiosyncrasies of craftsmanship within limited Colonial areas and that those peculiarities are found nowhere else. In both its economic and purely technical aspects, the mode of domestic architectural expression devised in Colonial New England has many admirable features to commend it and is due partly to native Yankee mother wit and shrewd practicality quickened by the spur of necessity, and partly to the spirit of true British conservatism and attachment to long-established custom, a spirit that was strong in the early Puritans and often determined their actions in spite of themselves.
A brief survey of seventeenth-century manners and men, within the bounds of New England, will greatly assist us in forming an intelligent appreciation of the houses erected in this pioneer period. The log-cabin of the first few years of colonisation we need scarcely consider, for the rude huts erected at first were merely temporary shelters, were soon replaced by more substantial structures, and were not really representative in any sense. The houses built as soon as the colonists had an opportunity to become accustomed to their new environment and get their economic bearings, reflected a condition of society in which a modest degree of simple comfort, resulting from rigorous thrift, rewarded the majority while prosperous affluence fell to the lot of comparatively few. Well built dwellings were comfortable but not pretentious. They were apt for all ordinary domestic requirements but, save in exceptional cases, there was no approach to luxury. They usually had rooms enough for all essential purposes but rarely were any special or extra rooms set apart for distinctive uses, with the exception of the parlour or “best room,” which often held the best bed and served variously as state bedroom for most honoured guests, repository for the most treasured household gods and the choicest items of domestic equipment and, finally, as the gathering place for the more worthy visitors at times of weddings, funerals or other important occasions.
The number of bedchambers provided in most cases would nowadays be deemed totally inadequate for the people to be accommodated and, to cite only one instance thoroughly typical of innumerable others, the members of the Revere household, if we may believe the statistics of tradition, must have been packed away at nights in sardine-like and most unsanatory proximity, or else some of them slept in the cellar or on the roof. This was well on towards the latter part of the eighteenth century, too, when habits in this particular had certainly not fallen below the standards of the seventeenth century. Besides the members of the Revere family, there were various apprentices and domestics, all of whom found shelter beneath the roof of this typical seventeenth-century house. It was no uncommon thing for two or three children or young persons to sleep in one bed and there was often more than one bedstead in a room. Truckle or trundle beds for children were frequently put in the bedchambers of their elders, while indentured servants and apprentices oftentimes slept in the kitchen, or else master and mistress slept in the tempered atmosphere of the kitchen fire and underlings took to the frigid regions above. Wherever the kitchen was put into commission as a sleeping apartment, there was the folding or “let down” bed or slawbank, which Mrs. Earle describes as “an oblong frame with a network of rope. This frame was fastened at one end to the wall, with heavy hinges, and at night it was lowered to a horizontal position, and the unhinged end was supported on heavy wooden turned legs which fitted into sockets in the frame. When not in use the bed was hooked up against the wall, and doors like closet doors, were closed over it, or curtains were drawn over it to conceal it.” What though the sleeping arrangements of the seventeenth century, and indeed of much of the eighteenth century, for that matter, would often have called forth the sharp condemnation of a modern tenement house inspector, the colonists, nevertheless, made shift to get along in tolerable comfort and raise large families of children, with a due regard for the amenities of life, who became the most exemplary of citizens.
If the kitchen was sometimes used as a sleeping room, it was almost universally used as a living room. It was the vital point of the household whence radiated all domestic energies. It was spacious and was made as bright and cheerful as it could possibly be. Around the great open fireplace, where the cooking was done, centred all in-door activities from carding, spinning and weaving to corn husking. Here the family circle, eldest in places of greatest comfort, children and servants about the outer edge, gathered in the firelight of the long winter evenings; here the neighbour or chance traveller was entertained, and here lads and lasses, in the full glare of family publicity, did much of their courting, sometimes whispering their sweet nothings, from opposite sides of
Copyright, Detroit Publishing Co.
PAUL REVERE HOUSE, STREET FRONT, AFTER RESTORATION.
Built 1676.