Home Life in Colonial Days | Page 7

later,

said: "Well! Archer has set us a fine example of expense,--he has laid
one of his rooms in oil." This sentence shows both the wording and
ideas of the times.
There was one external and suggestive adjunct of the earliest pioneer's
home which was found in nearly all the settlements which were built in
the midst of threatening Indians. Some strong houses were always
surrounded by a stockade, or "palisado," of heavy, well-fitted logs,
which thus formed a garrison, or neighborhood resort, in time of danger.
In the valley of Virginia each settlement was formed of houses set in a
square, connected from end to end of the outside walls by stockades
with gates; thus forming a close front. On the James River, on
Manhattan Island, were stockades. The whole town plot of Milford,
Connecticut, was enclosed in 1645, and the Indians taunted the settlers
by shouting out, "White men all same like pigs." At one time in
Massachusetts, twenty towns proposed an all-surrounding palisade. The
progress and condition of our settlements can be traced in our fences.
As Indians disappeared or succumbed, the solid row of pales gave place
to a log-fence, which served well to keep out depredatory animals.
When dangers from Indians or wild animals entirely disappeared,
boards were still not over-plenty, and the strength of the owner could
not be over-spent on unnecessary fencing. Then came the double-rail
fence; two rails, held in place one above the other, at each joining, by
four crossed sticks. It was a boundary, and would keep in cattle. It was
said that every fence should be horse-high, bull-proof, and pig-tight.
Then came stone walls, showing a thorough clearing and taming of the
land. The succeeding "half-high" stone wall--a foot or two high, with a
single rail on top--showed that stones were not as plentiful in the fields
as in early days. The "snake-fence," or "Virginia fence," so common in
the Southern states, utilized the second growth of forest trees. The
split-rail fence, four or five rails in height, was set at intervals with
posts, pierced with holes to hold the ends of the rails. These were used
to some extent in the East; but our Western states were fenced
throughout with rails split by sturdy pioneer rail-splitters, among them
young Abraham Lincoln. Board fences showed the day of the sawmill
and its plentiful supply; the wire fences of to-day equally prove the
decrease of our forests and our wood, and the growth of our mineral

supplies and manufactures of metals. Thus even our fences might be
called historical monuments.
A few of the old block-houses, or garrison houses, the "defensible
houses," which were surrounded by these stockades, are still standing.
The most interesting are the old Garrison at East Haverhill,
Massachusetts, built in 1670; it has walls of solid oak, and brick a foot
and a half thick; the Saltonstall House at Ipswich, built in 1633;
Cradock Old Fort in Medford, Massachusetts, built in 1634 of brick
made on the spot; an old fort at York, Maine; and the Whitefield
Garrison House, built in 1639 at Guilford, Connecticut. The one at
Newburyport is the most picturesque and beautiful of them all.
As social life in Boston took on a little aspect of court life in the circle
gathered around the royal governors, the pride of the wealthy found
expression in handsome and stately houses. These were copied and
added to by men of wealth and social standing in other towns. The
Province House, built in 1679, the Frankland House in 1735, and the
Hancock House, all in Boston; the Shirley House in Roxbury, the
Wentworth Mansion in New Hampshire, are good examples. They were
dignified and simple in form, and have borne the test of centuries,--they
wear well. They never erred in over-ornamentation, being scant of
interior decoration, save in two or three principal rooms and the hall
and staircase. The panelled step ends and soffits, the graceful newels
and balusters, of those old staircases hold sway as models to this day.
The same taste which made the staircase the centre of decoration within,
made the front door the sole point of ornamentation without; and equal
beauty is there focused. Worthy of study and reproduction, many of the
old-time front doors are with their fine panels, graceful, leaded side
windows, elaborate and pretty fan-lights, and slight but appropriate
carving. The prettiest leaded windows I ever saw in an American home
were in a thereby glorified hen-house. They had been taken from the
discarded front door of a remodelled old Falmouth house. The hens and
their owner were not of antiquarian tastes, and relinquished the
windows for a machine-made sash more suited to their plebeian tastes
and occupations. Many colonial doors had door-latches or knobs of

heavy brass; nearly all had a knocker