Ibid. The location of this masonry wall in the basement and its extension upward to the second floor made it possible for the original house to have the floor joists set lengthwise with the house instead of front-to-back. The joists were thus anchored in the outside walls at each end of the house and in the center wall running midway through the house.
Walter Macomber, interview held July 16, 1968, at Green Spring Farm. Mr. Macomber’s description of these shingles is as follows: “This shingle is something I helped develop for Williamsburg. We never did use it extensively, but it was made ... in Richmond [by] a man named Hendricks.... It’s made of concrete reinforced with two or three wires to the length of it.”
Ibid. This stairway was also reversed when it was moved into the library. As it originally stood in the hallway, the stairway ran upward from front to rear of the house, and a stairway to the basement was constructed underneath so as to run down to the basement from the rear to the front of the house.
A second stairway between the first and second floors was also installed in a new staircase constructed in the new kitchen (west) wing built in 1942.
Ibid. Transcript of Mr. Macomber’s description of the library is as follows: