The sick servant, too, might not be cared for, especially if quite ill and likely to die, as he was not considered worth the physician's bill. Often the slaves were treated better than the servants, for the slaves were property while the servants were freed at the end of four years. Later laws were enacted in the colonies for the protection of the servants and cruel punishments prohibited. There were plenty of instances of fair treatment of servants by masters and sometimes even they were treated quite kindly and generously.
The Home.
It was natural for the early settlers to imitate the dwellings of the native inhabitants, and so wigwams were used by them. They made them of bark or of plaited rush or grass mats or of deerskin, all placed over a frame, or even they might simply pile brush about the frame, and in the far South these frames were covered with layers of palmetto leaves. In the Middle and Southern states, with their milder climate, these wigwams sometimes were left open on one side—the "half-face camp"—the fire being built in front of the opening. Sometimes this half-face camp was made more substantial by being built of logs, and again in some cases it was only a booth, with sides and roof of palmetto leaves.
The early settler did have one implement which became wonderfully useful to him, which was the ax. He soon learned to use this in making for himself and family a more permanent dwelling-place, the log cabin. At first the log cabin was of round logs, notched at the ends, and fitted together at the corners, roofed with logs or with bark on poles, having a door of rough slabs and hung on wooden hinges or straps of hide, and if a window, with a shutter similar to the door, and without floor or loft. Then came a floor of rough puncheons hewn out with ax and the cracks between the logs were chinked with pieces of wood and daubed over with clay. A chimney was made at one end out of sticks of wood with ends crossed and held together with clay and well plastered inside with clay, called in New England, a "katted" chimney. It was not very long till better houses were built. The logs were hewn and squared, clapboards were made for covering, and oiled paper was used in the windows. Then came the use of boards and stone and brick and plaster and nails and, later, paint and glass, and some substantial houses were built. There grew up a style of home for the different parts of the country, corresponding to the needs of each section and, no doubt, aided by imitation of the old country, as, in the South, in Pennsylvania and neighboring parts of New Jersey and Delaware, with the Dutch in New York and in New England.
The most notable Southern home was that of the wealthy planter, which would seem to have been fashioned somewhat after the old English manor. This Southern home was in a spacious home-lot or yard, with a large lawn in front and usually with fine trees about it. There was a large, pretentious house, the home of the owner, and grouped about it were more or fewer smaller buildings, as, kitchen, overseer's house, negro cabins, stable, coach-house, hen-house, smoke-house, dove-cote, milk-room, tool-house, brew-house, spinning-house, and not far away, a cider-house.
The Quakers and Germans of Pennsylvania and neighboring parts were quite different people from the Southerners and lived quite a different life. The manor style of home did not exist with them. The country houses were substantial but not pretentious, made of hewed logs and some of stone or brick, while the barns were large, sometimes vast. By each house was a clay oven and nearby a smoke-house. There was usually a small building enclosing a spring, known as the spring house, for caring for the milk and butter and other things during warm weather. Often there was no shade about the dwelling-house, being open to the sun.
In New York the homes took the form of those the Dutch were used to back in Holland. The houses were built near the sidewalk with the gable-end to the street, the top of the gable showing in corbel-steps. They were built of brick, or at least the gable-ends were, imported from Holland, and the date of erection and the owner's initials were shown by bricks of different colors from the others. The roof was quite steep and at first thatched but later tiles were used, and with a metal gutter projecting well out into the street. There was a weather-vane at the top of the house, which might have been a horse, lion, goose, or fish, but the prevailing fashion was a rooster. The front door was usually divided in the middle horizontally, making an upper and a lower half, hung on leather hinges and, later on, heavy iron hinges, and in the upper half were placed two bull's-eyes of heavy greenish glass. Often the front door had a knocker of iron or brass. The Dutch farmhouse was similar to the town house, as described above, but the cellar was built more carefully as it was necessary to be cool in summer and warm in winter to care for the great supply of food that was stored in it. After the English came to New York, the Dutch styles were changed to English styles and the houses of the landed gentry became quite similar to those of the Southern planters.
After the primitive sheltering as described in the first paragraphs under this section, "The Home," the people of New England built log houses, as in the other colonies, and for near a half century, there was scarcely any house larger than a cottage. These houses were thatched and had the katted chimneys. Oiled paper was used for admitting light, glass coming into use later. Paint was not used at all at first and very little used for quite awhile, either without or within the house.
After half a century, particularly in the older settlements in New England, they began to build larger houses—many of two stories and also an attic story. In building these the second story was made to project a foot or two out over the first story and the attic story also projected out over the second story, which was like their old homes in England. Later came another form of house, which was almost peculiar to New England. In this the house was two and a half stories in front, with a sharp gable, then with a long slope back to a low story. The low back part of the house was called the "lean-to" or linter. A later style of house was that with the gambrel roof, in which the upper part of the roof was of a rather flat slope and then there was a change to quite a steep slope for the lower part of the roof. There was usually a chimney in the center of these larger houses, of whatever style of house, made of stone or brick. "Some of the dwellings of the rich were very commodious; the house of Eaton, the first governor of New Haven colony, had nineteen fire-places, and that of Davenport, the first minister of New Haven, had thirteen."[225]
In the very early times of the colonists there was but little furniture in their homes and that of the rudest kind. As wealth came to them and their houses grew in size and splendor, the furniture increased in amount and value. The following well portrays this.