Home Life in Colonial Days | Page 4

leather hinges
instead of iron.
In the upper half of the door were two round bull's-eyes of heavy
greenish glass, which let faint rays of light enter the hall. The door
opened with a latch, and often had also a knocker. Every house had a
porch or "stoep" flanked with benches, which were constantly occupied
in the summer time; and every evening, in city and village alike, an

incessant visiting was kept up from stoop to stoop. The Dutch
farmhouses were a single straight story, with two more stories in the
high, in-curving roof. They had doors and stoops like the town houses,
and all the windows had heavy board shutters. The cellar and the garret
were the most useful rooms in the house; they were store-rooms for all
kinds of substantial food. In the cellar were great bins of apples,
potatoes, turnips, beets, and parsnips. There were hogsheads of corned
beef, barrels of salt pork, tubs of hams being salted in brine, tonnekens
of salt shad and mackerel, firkins of butter, kegs of pigs' feet, tubs of
souse, kilderkins of lard. On a long swing-shelf were tumblers of
spiced fruits, and "rolliches," head-cheese, and strings of sausages--all
Dutch delicacies.
In strong racks were barrels of cider and vinegar, and often of beer.
Many contained barrels of rum and a pipe of Madeira. What a
storehouse of plenty and thrift! What an emblem of Dutch character! In
the attic by the chimney was the smoke-house, filled with hams, bacon,
smoked beef, and sausages.
In Virginia and Maryland, where people did not gather into towns, but
built their houses farther apart, there were at first few sawmills, and the
houses were universally built of undressed logs. Nails were costly, as
were all articles manufactured of iron, hence many houses were built
without iron; wooden pins and pegs were driven in holes cut to receive
them; hinges were of leather; the shingles on the roof were sometimes
pinned, or were held in place by "weight-timbers." The doors had
latches with strings hanging outside; by pulling in the string
within-doors the house was securely locked. This form of latch was
used in all the colonies. When persons were leaving houses, they
sometimes set them on fire in order to gather up the nails from the
ashes. To prevent this destruction of buildings, the government of
Virginia gave to each planter who was leaving his house as many nails
as the house was estimated to have in its frame, provided the owner
would not burn the house down.
Some years later, when boards could be readily obtained, the favorite
dwelling-place in the South was a framed building with a great stone or

log-and-clay chimney at either end. The house was usually set on sills
resting on the ground. The partitions were sometimes covered with a
thick layer of mud which dried into a sort of plaster and was
whitewashed. The roofs were covered with cypress shingles.
Hammond wrote of these houses in 1656, in his Leah and Rachel,
"Pleasant in their building, and contrived delightfull; the rooms large,
daubed and whitelimed, glazed and flowered; and if not glazed
windows, shutters made pretty and convenient."
When prosperity and wealth came through the speedily profitable crops
of tobacco, the houses improved. The home-lot or yard of the Southern
planters showed a pleasant group of buildings, which would seem the
most cheerful home of the colonies, only that all dearly earned homes
are cheerful to their owners. There was not only the spacious mansion
house for the planter with its pleasant porch, but separate buildings in
which were a kitchen, cabins for the negro servants and the overseer, a
stable, barn, coach-house, hen-house, smoke-house, dove-cote, and
milk-room. In many yards a tall pole with a toy house at top was
erected; in this bird-house bee-martins built their nests, and by bravely
disconcerting the attacks of hawks and crows, and noisily notifying the
family and servants of the approach of the enemy, thus served as a
guardian for the domestic poultry, whose home stood close under this
protection. There was seldom an ice-house. The only means for the
preservation of meats in hot weather was by water constantly pouring
into and through a box house erected over the spring that flowed near
the house. Sometimes a brew-house was also found in the yard, for
making home-brewed beer, and a tool-house for storing tools and farm
implements. Some farms had a cider-mill, but this was not in the house
yard. Often there was a spinning-house where servants could spin flax
and wool. This usually had one room containing a hand-loom on which
coarse bagging could be woven, and homespun for the use of the
negroes. A very beautiful example of a splendid and comfortable
Southern mansion such as was built by