The framed houses of Massachusetts Bay, 1625-1725 9780674316805, 9780674316812

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Introduction (page 1)
I The English Background (page 3)
II First Shelters and Indigenous Building Forms (page 18)
III The House Plan (page 22)
IV The Builders and Their Resources (page 40)
V Assembly and Rearing of the House Frame (page 52)
VI English Regional Derivations and Evolutionary Trends (page 95)
VII The Chimney (page 118)
VIII Exterior Finish (page 126)
IX Interior Finish (page 158)
X Toward an American Architecture (page 202)

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The Framed Houses of Massachusetts Bay

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Is the reduction from a three-unit to a two-unit structure, also observable in Suffolk at this period,

. related to the introduction of the chimney and an increase in vertical space accommodations, elim-

inating the need to expand laterally? Or does it reflect the relegation of service rooms to subsid-

iary outshots? Certain it is that by the turn of , the seventeenth century the central-chimney hall/parlor farmhouse in East Anglia was firmly

. Po |ee| — — — — |to established as a distinct building Whatever | |— the—answer these questions as theyform. affect En-

|| .| || :| || || :two-room, | glish developments, we shall soon learn why the .central-chimney plan—without a || || || || || || preferred third unitsystem or service bay—quickly became the in NewEnglishman England when | | | | | | | | ine the transplanted in we hisexamNew

|ro|| !| as| |_ plan | World environment. type, the single-room house, which was carL————~~—~———~—~——~--~-4F | | &/------—-~-—-—-——~—--——1 We must consider one further closely related

|| || |ried to America by the earliest settlers, existed tL | | side by side with the house of two-room, central-

|| |: |!| HZ HT | chimney plan, and in numerous cases also a | | | achieved two-room status through a process of |. | | UP | | elongation. Such houses in New England are, sig| | | || || || || nificantly, like many ofon thethe earlier English ! | | indistinguishable outside fromhouses, those

—————————— which were of two-room plan at the outset. The | single-roomaplan form has received scant atten- _ as) Fer tion from English scholars. Owing, perhaps, to its

Figure 4. Mayflower Cottage. Ground-floor plan, original § sleeping room, seems implicit in the alteration of | utter simplicity, and also to the fact that few early

house. (Lean-to rooms not delineated.) these small houses: a sign both of increased opu- —_ examples have survived, the structural characterlence on the part of the occupants and of the de- _ istics and statistical incidence have not been Speculation about the origins of the two-room __ cline in the importance of the hall as the centre of | studied extensively. Their once-common exisplan involves a more intensive study of the vari- household activities.””> The evidence of enlarge- tence, however, is well documented from con-

ous ways in which modest English houses were ment discloses a variety of solutions, but the temporary sources.’ Further, the immediate and enlarged during the period of the Housing Revo- lateral addition of a parlor to the simple hall widespread appearance of such humble houses lution. A substantial part of the answer may even- _ house with service bay seems to have dictated a at Massachusetts Bay would indicate that the tually be found in medieval Suffolk dwellings more or less uniform placement of the chimney form was perfectly familiar to the first English setamong the many small houses without cross- — stack on axis between the two principal rooms of __tlers. Indeed, of eighty-five Lincolnshire probate wings which consisted initially of but two units— the improved structure (figure 5). Often the new ‘inventories recorded for the year 1572, twentyhall and service—under one continuous roof. parlor block with two full stories was higher than — three can be interpreted as reflecting houses of Thorough analysis of a number of examples that the remainder of the building, proclaiming at a one-room as against only seventeen of two-room were increased in size during the sixteenth and glance the changes which had taken place (figure plan, nearly all of them hall/parlor houses. By seventeenth centuries in response to changing 6). But there are many cases where a major inter- —- 1635 there were only nine one-room plans in consocial conditions has revealed that “the pos- nal alteration is concealed from the outside” (fig- _ trast to fifteen examples having two rooms.”® It is

session of a parlour, as a combined living-and- ure 7). easy to see in these statistics a reflection of im-

| | The English Background 7

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