The Architecture of Colonial America

by Harold Donaldson Eberlein

For the sake of contrast, both historical and architectural, it will not be amiss to quote Captain John Smith’s account of the first Virginia place of worship so that we may fully realise the strides of progress made from the feeble Jamestown beginning in 1607. He says: “This was our church till we built a homely thing like a barne, set upon cratchets, covered with rafts, sedge and earth; so was the walls. The best of our houses [were] of like curiosity; but the most part far much worse workmanship, that neither could well defend [from] wind nor raine. Yet we had daily Common Prayer, morning and evening; every Sunday two sermons; and every three months the Holy Communion, till our minister died; but our prayers daily with an Homily on Sundaies we continued two or three years after till our preachers came.” The words “till our preachers came” mean, of course, the successors of the Rev. Mr. Hunt who had accompanied the expedition.

In tracing the history of the older parishes and congregations, it is the rule rather than the exception to find two or three successive houses of worship erected, as the means and growing numbers of the people made it possible or expedient, to replace former structures of meaner fabric which seem to have been regarded from the outset as merely temporary gathering places, meant to serve only until worthy edifices could be undertaken. Some of the earliest churches were merely block houses or forts, occasionally surrounded by stockades, proclaiming the ready physical as well as spiritual militancy of the worshippers within their walls, but these were abandoned so soon as the increasing prosperity and a greater sense of security from attacks by hostile savages warranted a more peaceful and comfortable type of building for religious purposes.

Of course, in the several parts of the Colonies, the character of the buildings erected for religious uses indicated the prevailing local ecclesiastical organisation. In the South, especially in Virginia and Maryland, where the Church of England was the recognised dominant body and Church and State were closely allied, we find the churches conforming to English ecclesiastical traditions. In the Middle Colonies, where religious liberty was freely permitted, we find a greater variety including the structures peculiarly adapted to the worship of the Church of England, Quaker meeting houses and the buildings designed to accommodate the different German sects. In theocratic New England, while Church of England edifices were to be met with now and again, the simple meeting house type, agreeable to the congregational form of worship, everywhere prevailed.

And now let us glance for a moment at the manner of people who frequented these churches Sunday after Sunday. We shall find among them the extremes of both worldly pomp and ostentation, on the one hand, and humble simplicity, on the other, as they went to the weekly discharge of their religious duties. Our Colonial forebears, however democratic some of them may have been in religious principle or however much some of them may have decried set ceremonial forms, were, almost without exception, great respecters of persons and in no way did they more fully display this common failing—it is just as prevalent in kindred forms at the present day—than in their methods of seating the congregations according to the accepted worth or dignity of the individual members.

In the South, the lords of the manors or the squires, just as in England, had their great square pews in the chancel or, perhaps, a whole transept would be reserved to their exclusive use for their family, dependants or tenants as was the case, for example, in Christ Church, Lancaster County, Virginia, where Robert (“King”) Carter, at whose charge the edifice was built, made such a reservation. The “King’s” own high panelled family pew, just before the pulpit, had a brass rail around the top from which hung damask curtains on all sides except that opposite the pulpit. This screened the occupants, when standing up, from the gaze of the rudely inquisitive.

Upon the removal of the seat of the Virginia government from Jamestown to Williamsburg, in 1699, Bruton Parish Church became the “court church” of the Colony and “official distinction was recognised and emphasized” in the order of seating. The historian of the parish, writing of the present building, which was completed in 1715, says: “To His Excellency the Governour and His Council of State was assigned a pew elevated from the floor, overhung with a red velvet canopy, around which his name was emblasoned in letters of gold, the name being changed as Spotswood, Drysdale, Gooch, Dinwiddie, Fauquier, Lord Botetourt and Lord Dunmore succeeded to office. In the square pews of the transepts sat the members of the House of Burgesses, the pews in the choir being assigned to the Surveyor General and the Parish Rector, while in the overhanging galleries in the transept and along the side walls of the church sat the Speaker of the House of Burgesses and other persons of wealth and distinction, to whom the privilege of erecting these private galleries was accorded from time to time.”

In city churches, because of the greater number of important folk, questions of precedence in seating were more perplexing than in the country. At Annapolis in St. Anne’s, in Christ Church at Philadelphia and also in the “court churches” in New York and Boston the Royal Governours’ pews were marked by appropriate symbols of the majesty of state, the royal arms carved in walnut that once hung above the Lieutenant Governour’s seat being still preserved at Christ Church in Philadelphia. The lesser dignitaries sat in due order becoming their station.

In New England it seems to have been the general custom in the earlier period for the men to sit on one side of the church and the women on the other. Afterwards, families sat together. In order to avoid bickering and contention about the order of precedence it was not an unusual thing to appoint a committee to “dignify the meeting.” The members of these committees were changed from time to time “in order to obviate any of the effects of partiality through kinship, friendship, personal esteem or debt.” A second committee was appointed to seat the members of the first committee according to their proper rank. In her charming book, “The Sabbath in Puritan New England,” Alice Morse Earle says:—

“Sometimes a row of square pews was built on three sides of the ground floor, and each pew occupied by separate families, while the pulpit was on the fourth side. If any man wished such a private pew for himself and family, he obtained permission from the church and town, and built it at his own expense. Immediately in front of the pulpit was either a long seat or a square enclosed pew for