The Architecture of Colonial America

by Harold Donaldson Eberlein

WHO lived in our old houses and what manner of men they were, we fortunately know. At any rate it is an easy matter to find out. Who planned and built those houses we do not, as a rule, know nor will the most careful search and enquiry always bring to light even the name of the architect or, if they do succeed in doing so much, the information gained is generally so meagre that it does but whet the appetite for more. However, regardless of what we may or may not be able to learn of the designer of this or that house or public building, we shall be quite safe in attributing the design of early American structures to the agency of one or the other of three classes of men. This triple division consisted, first, of amateur architects; second, of carpenter architects and, last of all, of professional architects. In this grouping, the professional architect is given the last place because he was least frequently represented. The first and second classes were by far the most numerous and some of our best eighteenth century buildings, houses, churches and other public structures alike, are the results of collaboration between them.

We shall not be far wrong in ascribing seventeenth century buildings, almost without exception, to the capable and resourceful craftsman who not only preserved conscientiously the traditions he had learned as an apprentice or journeyman in the Mother Country and faithfully perpetuated them by his practice as a master carpenter or joiner in a new land but also showed himself possessed of ready wit and keen perceptive faculties by the alacrity with which he modified and adapted traditional methods and precedents to new conditions and requirements of climate and environment. So far as he could consistently do so, he held by preference to tradition in plan, methods of construction and choice of materials. When necessity or common sense, however, dictated a departure from established usage he was quick enough to follow the promptings of expediency and devise satisfactory substitutes for the deficiencies of past practice. Hence were originated local types without any conscious attempt on the part of the agents to be original.

The methods followed by the seventeenth century American builder showed a close relationship with the practices of mediæval joiners and masons. Furthermore, these early workmen showed an all-round mastery of their own craft, an intelligent understanding of related crafts and a thorough knowledge of the properties and uses of materials that their modern successors would do well to emulate. They respected their calling and took a proper pride in the excellence of their craftsmanship. Hence the work of their hands, however plain and simple, still possesses a dignity and honest beauty that plainly proclaim how they put their hearts into what they were doing and, at the same time, command our reverence and admiration. The old buildings have lasted so well and assumed such an atmosphere of grace because the artisans acted upon the principle that what was worth doing at all was worth doing well and set much store by honest workmanship instead of regarding their occupation as a job to be got through with at a maximum of wage for a minimum of time spent in labour. They got the best out of their materials because they knew and respected the peculiar qualities of their materials. Whether English or Dutch, Welsh or Swedish, the handiwork of these seventeenth century builders, wholly without pretence as it was, expressed faithfully the aggregate of the contemporary phases of the domestic architecture in the countries whence they came and also evidences both the beginnings and development of our own several vernacular manifestations, all of which, to a certain degree, were obscured and discounted by the expansion and increasing popularity of eighteenth century Georgian modes. To the carpenter-architects of the seventeenth century we owe a great debt of gratitude for their faithful preservation of time-honoured tradition in plan and manner of building so that we may easily trace our architectural lineage, for the intrinsic excellence of the structures they erected and the lessons they can still teach us in craftsmanship but, most of all, for the honesty and sincerity of the vernacular forms they developed, forms created by ready ingenuity in response to local needs and void of all pretence and hollow affectation. These forms, one and all, are full of vitality. Their very fitness for the conditions they were designed to meet in the neighbourhoods where they were evolved and the successful event of their application to modern demands for characteristic and informal domestic architecture drive home the extent of our present debt to the forgotten and nameless architect-carpenters of a by-gone generation.

With the dawn of the eighteenth century it becomes easier to connect buildings and the names and personalities of those that designed them. When we are not able to say with certainty that such a structure was designed by such a man, we know, at least, that there were then living in the different cities men of acknowledged architectural attainments, that their work is to be seen in this house or that church as a matter of indubitable record and that there is a strong presumption that their influence is to be traced in the design of houses or public edifices where there is no documentary evidence to support attribution to an individual architect.

One of the earliest personalities known to us in a distinctly architectural connexion is James Portius “whom William Penn induced to come to his new city to ‘design and execute his Proprietary buildings.’” He was “among the most active of the Carpenters’ Company and, at his death, in 1736, gave his choice collection of architectural works to his fellow members, thus laying the foundation of their present valuable library.” This Carpenters’ Company of Philadelphia was the organisation that, at a later date, erected its gild house, known as Carpenters’ Hall, where the Continental Congress for a time held its sessions. It is still in an excellent state of preservation and still houses the collection alluded to. The skill of the resident artisans of early Philadelphia was of no mean order, as their handiwork amply attests to-day, and, in 1724, the master carpenters of the city “composed a gild large and prosperous enough to be patterned after ‘The Worshipful Company of Carpenters of London,’” an organisation founded in 1477. Unfortunately we cannot with certainty ascribe any buildings now standing to the plans of James Portius. We can only make conjectures. It is highly probable that Penn’s house, which originally stood in Letitia Court until its removal to a site in Fairmount Park, was designed and erected by the Proprietary’s architect. The Manor House at Pennsbury was also, in all likelihood, designed by him or at least carried out under his superintendence. It is a source of never ending regret that it was allowed to fall into a state of utter decay and was then demolished. Had it been preserved, we should now have an invaluable addition to the architectural treasures of our country and an interesting commentary upon the work of one of the earliest architects known to have practised his profession in the Colonies.

It is most important to remember that some considerable degree of architectural knowledge or, at the very least, some substantial cultivation of architectural taste and discrimination seems to have been considered an indispensable part of every gentleman’s education in the eighteenth century. Consequently it is not surprising to find that some of our native amateur architects possessed knowledge and ability by no means contemptible. Architectural appreciation was favoured by the fact that not a few of the sons of the wealthy and well-to-do were sent to England to complete their education and usually spent some time afterwards in travel on the Continent. Such broadening influences naturally tended to stimulate and aid the development of architectural taste and, as a certain amount of dexterity in drawing was highly esteemed and practised as a polite masculine accomplishment, a considerable number of men were fitted, to a far greater degree than the majority of so-called well educated people nowadays, to translate their architectural preferences into a form sufficiently intelligible for the master-carpenter to work from in putting an idea into a tangible shape.

It is not to be inferred from the foregoing that a large number of men of substance and leisure for the cultivation of polite accomplishments were capable of producing a set of measured drawings, such as professional architects prepare, to turn over to a contractor for execution. They were not. But the division of functions was altogether different. The client, as he would now be termed, showed a more intelligent and constructive appreciation of architectural principles in a proportionately larger number of cases than he does at the present day. He formed a definite conception of what he wished and was capable of conveying his desires lucidly by means of drawings or rough sketches to the head workman charged with the actual task of construction. As the average client was better informed and thought more clearly upon matters architectural than the client of later times, so, on the other hand, the master-carpenter of the eighteenth century was infinitely more capable than the average artisan of like rank to-day. He was not only a skilled master-mechanic, competent to translate rough draughts and sketches into carefully prepared working drawings, but he was also a person of some architectural education and taste and endowed with a nice perception and valuation of architectural merits and proprieties. He was materially aided in his work by a number of valuable and explicit architectural books with measured drawings of whose assistance he did not hesitate freely to avail himself. Furthermore, he still retained a sympathetic respect for his materials and a conscientious appreciation of worthy craftsmanship, inherited by tradition from his mediæval predecessors and wholly apart from modern commercialism. Pride in his calling impelled him to the closest personal supervision and painstaking interest. He would be content with nothing short of the best.

The amateur architects were no mere dabbling dilettanti, flirting with a polite and amiable penchant for architectural amenities. The best of them, and those that left the most impressive memorials of their talent and skill, were, as we shall presently see, busy men of large affairs and serious interests. They, as well as the master-carpenters, were thoroughly conversant with the best architectural books of the period and often had a fair showing of them on the shelves of their own libraries. More than one of them left standing orders with their London booksellers to send them, upon publication, such volumes as were most worth while. Another factor of their fitness is also to be reckoned. It was not unusual for them to possess training and experience as surveyors. Indeed, it was almost imperatively necessary for large landowners to have a knowledge of surveying in order to look properly after their interests. This training gave them an insight into the practice of making accurate measurements and draughting and the effect of such practical and exact education was not without its weight when they addressed themselves to designing buildings.

One of the most striking and eminent figures among the eighteenth century amateur architects was the Honourable Andrew Hamilton, “the day-star of the American Revolution,” as Gouverneur Morris styled him, sometime Attorney-General of the Province of Pennsylvania, Provincial Councillor, Speaker of the Provincial Assembly from 1729 and for a number of successive years afterward and, above all, illustrious jurist and pleader, whose defence of Peter Zenger, the New York printer, in 1735, redounded to his fame both in England and throughout the Colonies. He was a man of exceptional and varied attainments, of catholic cultivation and outlook and endowed with remarkable elegancy of taste. Amid all the distractions and pressing concerns of an exacting legal and public career and the many demands involved in the successful management of a large private estate, he nevertheless found time to devote a good measure of attention to architectural diversions and left an enduring monument to his talents in that direction in the State House in Philadelphia.

The history of the plan for the State House is peculiarly interesting for the light it sheds on contemporary conditions. Determined to erect the State House, a committee of three was appointed by the Assembly, in 1729, to procure suitable plans. Two members of this committee prepared plans for the new building, namely Andrew Hamilton and Dr. John Kearsley, to whom further reference will be made in a following paragraph. Dr. Kearsley, it is true, had achieved considerable reputation as an architect by the plans that he had devised for Christ Church, but Hamilton was not supposed to have any aptitude in that direction. He was a lawyer, much occupied in the public business of the Province. It seems, however, that he had mastered some architectural knowledge while in London where, like so many other illustrious lawyers of the Middle and Southern Colonies, he received his training in the Inns of Court. Being a man of remarkable and sterling ability, combining with his wide versatility and breadth of view a fund of initiative and force, he generally pushed to a successful completion any matter to which he addressed himself. His plan, a rough draught on parchment, which is still to be seen in the collection of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, was submitted to the Assembly and chosen. For assurance of the excellence and soundness of his judgment, one has only to turn their eyes to the fabric of the State House.