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which the settlers brought with them - so intimately associated with the English feeling for home Architecture. they appear to have allowed themselves early

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to gratify in full proportion to their means. Coddington had built a brick house in Boston, before he went thence to found his colony.1 The New-Haven people were thought to have "laid out too much of their stocks and estates in building of fair and stately houses;"2 and Isaac Allerton, who went among them from Plymouth, "built a grand house on the creek, with four porches." " The Reverend Mr. Whitefield's house at Guilford, part of the

were a hundred and sixty families of worshippers, the town voted to "have the meeting-house lathed upon the inside, and so daubed and whited over, workmanlike." (Lamson, Sermon preached October 31, 1858, &c., 32.) A meeting-house, built according to the approved model of the second age of New England, when a more fastidious taste had been developed, had a roof of pyramidal form, crowned with a belfry. Accordingly the bell-rope hung down to the centre of the floor, and the sexton stood halfway between the principal door and the pulpit to do his office of summoning the people together. As far as I know, the only meeting-house on this model that survives is that of Hingham, built in 1681. Another, which stood long within my recollection, was that of the First Church in Boston, occupying the spot in Washington Street (then Cornhill) where now stands Joy's Building.

1 See Vol. I. 328, note 4. Hubbard, 334.

Stiles, History of Three of the Judges, 65.

Whitefield's house was built in 1639. I suppose there is no doubt that it is the oldest house in the United States, now standing as originally built, unless there be older at St. Augustine in Florida. By the kindness of

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merchant Curwin's, at Salem, and others which it is not so certain were built before the confederation, still remain

following representations of the interior exhibit accurately the dimensions of the rooms, windows, and doors, the

thickness of the walls, &c., on a scale of ten feet to the inch. The single dotted lines represent fire-places and

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First Floor of Whitefield's House.

Second Floor of Whitefield's House.

to attest the resources and taste of their proprietors. Nor were the furniture and other appointments of rich

doors. The double dotted lines represent windows. In the recesses of the windows are broad seats. Within the memory of some of the residents of the town, the panes of glass were of diamond shape.

The height of the first story is seven feet and two thirds. The height of the

second is six feet and three quarters. At the southerly corner in the second story there was originally an embrasure, about a foot wide, with a stone flooring, which remains. The exterior walls are now closed up, but not the walls within.

The walls of the front and back of

Attic of Whitefield's House.

the house terminate at the floor of the attic, and the rafters lie upon them. The angle of the roof is 60°, making the base and sides equal. At the end of the wing, by the chimney, is a recess, which must have been intended as a place of concealment. The interior wall has the appearance of touching the chimney, like the wall at the northwest end. But the removal of a board discovers two closets which project beyond the lower part of the building.

I learn from Mr. Smith that at least three other stone houses were built at the first settlement of Guilford. 6

VOL. II.

Whitefield was a man of good property; but it may be doubted whether his house is a specimen of the best that were erected at an early period. When Gorton and his company were conducted to Boston, in 1643, "the Governor [Winthrop] caused the prisoners to be brought before him in his hall, where was a great assembly." (Winthrop, II. 142.) Gov. Coddington's house in Newport, believed to have been built about the year 1650, was standing till 1835. From a sketch made of it in that year, a photographic representation was taken, of which

men's convenient dwellings deficient in a corresponding luxury. To the marriage settlement of John Winthrop the elder, when he wedded a third time, there is attached an inventory of the property of his bride, which indicates a somewhat sumptuous domestic establishment. At Governor Eaton's death, when money was worth three times

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But houses of such pretension as these belonged only to the richer sort. The dwellings of the generality of the people were not of materials sufficiently durable to admit of their being known at this day through actual specimens. At the very earliest period, it was necessary for the great body of the emigrants to be content with any sort of shelter from the weather. After a while, when saw-mills furnished timber and boards, and shipments of salable articles brought plenty of iron from abroad, the villages began to consist of frame-houses. In the interval between these two periods, the settlers, it is

probable, made themselves comfortable in log-houses, of a construction similar to those which are still seen in new settlements, wherever made in the United States. Josselyn says (Account of Two Voyages, &c., 20) that there were "not above twenty or thirty houses" at Boston, at the time of his visit in 1638. He was not an accurate witness, but he could not possibly have intended to say that Boston had only thirty dwellings at that time. By "houses" he must have meant such as had timber frames, or walls of stone or brick. Johnson (Wonder-Working Providence, 174), in or about 1650,

as much as now, his wearing-apparel was inventoried at fifty pounds sterling, and his plate at a hundred and fifty pounds; and "Turkey carpet," "tapestry coverings," and "cushions of Turkey work," were among the articles of show which helped him to maintain "a port in some measure answerable to his place." 1

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