The Architecture of Colonial America

by Harold Donaldson Eberlein

Seen from without, the State House is a most satisfying piece of Georgian work. The north front, pierced by a single door and eight broad windows on the lower floor and an unbroken range of nine windows on the upper, has a convincing charm of combined dignity and simplicity. The doorway is severely plain and of proportions characteristic of the date at which the edifice was built. The wide muntins of the small paned windows, the well spaced string courses, and the oblong panels of blue marble beneath the windows of the upper floor, diversify the surface and impart a grace that quite prevents the impression of dumpy stodginess that less carefully managed Georgian façades sometimes give. A white balustrade, running the length of the building and set where the pitch of the roof breaks into a much flattened gambrel to form a deck, affords an additional note of grace and lightness comporting well with the triple chimneys with arch-joined tops at each gable end.

The contrast between the deep red brickwork of the tower, carried one stage above the cornice of the body of the hall, and the white wooden superstructure for the clock, surmounted by an open cupola over the bell, is striking and particularly effective viewed from the south on a sunny morning in winter or early spring, when everything is fretted with a laced pattern from the bare branches of the surrounding trees. In the second stage of the south side of the tower, immediately above the door, is a Palladian window that has always compelled admiration. The crushed capitals of the pilasters and dividing pillars, though perhaps rude in line and execution, are delightfully suggestive of the weight and solidity of the tower above them. Grotesque heads and faces as ornaments for keystones were not very extensively used in our Colonial Georgian architecture, but over the windows on three sides of the uppermost brick stage of the tower are faces that for pathos of expression can quite match those on the tower of Christ Church that lift their seemingly sightless eyes alike to sun and snow and blinding rain. Though noticed by few among the thousands that daily pass by, they are worthy of attention. Masques or grotesque heads are also used in one or two other places, such as the over-door carving in the interior of the building.

The warm tone of the walls is especially pleasing. Years and weather, yes, and dirt, have imparted an exceedingly mellow tinge to the hard burned brick laid in courses of Flemish bond, and although the glazed black headers, found in so many old houses, are of rare occurrence, the hue of the Colonial bricks is peculiarly rich. Relieved as the masonry is by trimmings of native bluish marble and pencilled by weathered mortar joints, the walls have a wonderful quality of texture and colour.

Although the triple-arched arcades and low, hip-roofed buildings on either side of the State House are new, they are restorations and conform to the provisions of the original plan. That plan called for such structures, and they were begun several years subsequent to the commencement of work on the main portion of the State House, but gave place at a later date to the hideous barracks, devised to meet the exigencies of public business, which endured till the last wave of restoration happily removed them.

The State House was designed to accommodate the legislative and executive branches of the Provincial government. The great east room, to the left of the door on entering, was intended for the use of the Assembly. In this room the Declaration of Independence was signed and in this room, also, eleven years later, the Constitutional Convention sat and framed the Constitution of the United States. Whether the west room, across the corridor, and communicating with it by three large open arches, was originally meant for the Supreme Court of the Province is uncertain, but, at any rate, it was in time appropriated to that purpose. The second floor has a long gallery running the full length of the building along the north side facing Chestnut street, and this apartment has been variously designated as “The Long Room,” “The Banqueting Hall” and by sundry other titles. Facing the south are two smaller rooms, separated by a spacious hallway or lobby, which also opens into the Long Room. One of these lesser rooms seems to have been intended for the use of the Governour’s Council.

Although the date of the building of the State House was 1733, its completion was not accomplished till eight years later. This fact probably accounts in some measure for the affinities of detail in the interior woodwork with the second Georgian type, alluded to in the chapter on Georgian architecture in Philadelphia and the neighbourhood. The doorway on the Chestnut street front, both by its proportions and its severe simplicity, belongs rather to the first type of Georgian as exemplified by Stenton, Hope Lodge and Graeme Park. Inside the building, however, we find the egg and dart moulding, modillion brackets carved with acanthus leaves, ornate cornices with triglyphs, dentils and mutules, fluted pillars and pilasters with ornate Roman capitals, rosettes, elaborately wrought modillion brackets under the treads of the stair, deeply panelled soffits and jambs, ornate pediments above doors and overmantels, and all the other details characteristic of the second Georgian period. In addition to being exceedingly elaborate, the woodwork of the State House is executed in a masterly manner and marked both by boldness and an unusual degree of grace.

At the extreme east and west ends of the

FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON, 1741.