FORD MANSION, MORRISTOWN, N. J. 18TH CENTURY.
Headquarters of His Excellency General Washington during the Winter of 1779-80.
DOORWAY WITH HOOD, LYNN-REGIS. 1897.
which played its part in the American Revolution, and where any one might suppose there would be more that had survived the menaces of commercialism. This is the case at Morristown, New Jersey, where the Ford mansion ([see Plate XXXV]) is a lone patriarch whose simple lines make a neighboring and hideous Franco-American roof constructed during our Reign of Terror—the seventies—all the more ugly and exasperating. Then there are some towns like Litchfield, Connecticut, whose claims for Colonial architecture are hardly warranted. There are but two good exemplars in Litchfield to see, and but two indifferent hotels to stop at. As a friend of mine expresses it: “When I dine at one I always wish I had dined at the other.” The two good examples are, namely, Professor Hoppin’s house ([Plate XXIX]) and the Demming house ([Plate XXXIV]), standing nearly opposite on North Street. They have both been altered and enlarged, and are therefore so much injured. The fronts of each are happily intact. Modern amplification often makes me wish I could borrow the efficacious sign that used to hang upon the wall of an old saw mill, across which was rudely inscribed the impressive legend: “Don’t monkey with the buzz-saw!” Only, for my purposes, I should omit “the buzz-saw,” substituting therefor “this house.” I sincerely believe a great deal of good could yet be accomplished in that way, or, rather, much evil averted.
A number of celebrated relics properly belonging to this chapter, which is already overstepping the limits assigned to it, I have failed to mention. The foregoing form but a very imperfect list of living representatives of the grand epoch. Still, taken each as a type, they fairly cover the historic period cited. My selections present houses variously constructed of stone, of wood, of brick, and of stucco. They are all original designs, original as the times and the conditions which prevailed in the colonies suggested or permitted—original as the literary styles of authors are dissimilar and original, for every art has its grammar, its glossary, and whatever transcends is not art, but aberration. It ought to be entirely unnecessary for me to say this; but I have lately been confronted with a startling misapprehension upon this point even among architects.
MORRIS HOUSE, PHILADELPHIA.