The home of the average New Englander in the late seventeenth century was a wooden dwelling of two stories built around a brick chimney containing large fireplaces. In Rhode Island and in parts of Connecticut, where shale abounded, the chimney was built of stone and not infrequently the house, in whole or at one end, was also so constructed. The roofs of these houses were covered with wooden shingles usually split from pine logs and shaved smooth by hand on a shingle horse. The outside walls of the well made house were covered with clapboards, also smoothed on the shingle horse. For many years these clapboards were made from oak, but as this wood has a tendency to warp and pull itself free from fastenings, by the year 1700, its use for that purpose had very generally been replaced by pine. Outbuildings and the poorer class of dwellings were not covered with clapboards or only the part next the road, for the New Englander believes in "putting his best foot forward." Such buildings were covered with "weatherboards" or plain boarding that lapped at the lower edge.
The windows in these houses were filled by casement sash containing glass set in lead cames. The glass was usually diamond shaped, but sometimes four by six inch lights were used. This glass was imported from England and came packed in cribs, but much of it came in sheets already leaded and was cut to size by "glaziers" upon demand. Early in the eighteenth century sliding-sash windows were introduced, probably about 1710, but it was a long time before existing casements were entirely given up. One Saturday afternoon in July, 1714, lightning struck the house of Colonel Vetch in Boston. He had bought the dwelling not long before and Judge Sewall records in his diary that at the time of the storm "the Work of Transformation was not finished" to make the building fit for the occupancy of Madam Vetch. The lightning played various tricks with the house, doing considerable damage, and among other details the Judge mentions that it "lifted up the Sash Window and broke one of the squares" of glass.17 Colonel Vetch was presumably a man of substance for he afterwards became Governor of Nova Scotia, and he is likely to have "transformed" his recently purchased house into the latest fashion of lighting.
On the other hand, Judge Sewall, the Chief Justice of the highest court in the Province, had casements in his Boston house at a time, ten years later, when his daughter Hannah died, for he records in his Diary that "Boston will not have her put into the Cellar [it was in August when she died]; so she is only remov'd into the best Room. And because the Casements were opened for Coolness, Boston would watch all night." This entry in the ancient diary not only preserves the fact that the Judge's house had casement windows, but it also makes allusion to the old-time custom of watching with the dead body and the interest that the town of Boston had in the bereavement of the Judge.
In 1722, Benjamin Franklin in his Boston newspaper, was satirizing the extravagancies of New England housewives in "new Glazing their Houses with new fashion'd square Glass." Diamond glass had seen its day, however, and forty years later "Windows set in lead, suitable for Hot-Beds" were advertised in the newspapers, a sure sign of discarded sash. On the other hand, a hardware shop was advertising "sheet and diamond glass" as late as 1766, probably to meet the demands for repairing old casements.
The exterior of these early houses was seldom painted, in fact it was well into the nineteenth century before the outside of houses in country towns were usually painted. A diarist who rode into Boston in 1804 comments on the dingy appearance of the houses and the general lack of paint and about the same time a Salem man met with success in business, whereupon he painted his house with the result that his associates rather sneeringly remarked: "Sam is feeling his oats; he's begun to paint his house."
The paint first used on the exteriors of New England houses was usually of a dark red color called, both then and now, "Indian red." Red ochre was used and commonly was mixed with fish oil. The Indians had "paint mines" where they had found red earth and doubtless these "mines" were utilized, particularly in adjacent locations. One of these paint mines was located near what is now Augusta, Maine, and in that part of New England formerly existed, long before the coming of the European, an Indian race that used this red earth so freely that by ethnologists it has been termed the "red paint culture."
So runs the present-day tradition of Indian red in New England. In point of fact, however, red earth was brought from the East Indies long before the settlement of the American Colonies, hence the name "India red," by which it was advertised in the Boston newspapers in the mid-eighteenth century. In 1766, John Gore, "at his Shop at the Sign of the Painter's Arms in Queen Street," Boston, advertised a stock of oils, paints, brushes, etc., just imported from London. He had linseed oil by the barrel or smaller quantity, boiled oil, nut oil, turpentine oil and turpentine varnish. Among his white colors, were Spanish white and French halk, – whatever that may be. Red was a color that was in demand for he carried red head, Spanish brown, India red, purple red, Venetian red, Vermillian, drop hake, carmine, umber and rose pink. Under yellows, he listed King's yellow, Princess yellow, Naples yellow, spruce yellow, stone yellow, English ochre, Orpiment-pale and deep, Dutch pink and brown pink. The blues were ultramarine, ultramarine ashes, Prussian blue of various sorts, calcined smalt, strowing ditto, verditer blue and powder blue.
Gore also sold crayons in sets and canvas for portrait painting in half-length cloths, kit-kat and three-quarters length. He carried "Colours prepared for House and Ship Painting," best London crown glass for pictures and "Water Colours ready prepared in Shells."18
Two years later he advertised chariot glasses, genteel looking-glasses and Wilton carpets and also announced that he did coach and carpet painting in the best and cheapest manner.
At how early a date was paint used on the exterior of a New England house? Who can solve the problem? Undoubtedly it was on a house owned by some merchant having a direct contact with England. It is an established fact that the Andrews house, built in 1707-1710, in the country town of Topsfield, Mass., was painted Indian red at the time it was built, or soon after, but only on the trim – the window frames, corner boards, etc. The clapboards and weather-boarding at the easterly end, remained unpainted until long years after.
The inside finish of town houses owned by well-to-do people, probably was painted at a comparatively early date, at least, one or two rooms in a house. "A large Fashionable Dwelling-House" in Boston, "about 1¼ miles from Charlestown ferry" was advertised to be sold in 1734. It had eight "fire rooms" – that is, rooms with fireplaces. The entries and two of the rooms were "beautifully Wainscotted and laid in oil" and four were "handsomely Painted."
In 1753, George Tilley, a Boston shop keeper, advertised his house for sale. It contained "eight rooms, seven of them fire-rooms, with a Number of convenient Closets and a good Cellar, four of the said Rooms is cornish'd, and the House is handsomely painted throughout; one of the Rooms is painted Green, another Blue, one Cedar and one Marble; the other four a Lead colour, the Garrets are handsomely plaistered; the House has twenty Sash-Windows to it and is pleasantly situated on Pleasant Street, near the Hay-Market."19
But such glory did not exist in other parts of the same town and certainly not in the country. Rufus Choate, the lawyer, was born in a house in Essex, Mass., built in 1725 by an ancestor who was popularly called "Governor Choate." He was a man in comfortable circumstances and built for himself a house of ten rooms having good panelling in four of them. None of the finish on this house was painted until well after 1825 or a century after it was built. This paint has now been removed and the old white pine finish is revealed in all its natural beauty of varying shades of reddish brown, effectively contrasting with the whitewashed walls. Natural wood finish, laid in oil, was quite the common thing in the ordinary New England dwelling, until after the people had recovered from the financial exhaustion of the Revolution.
The plastered walls were usually whitewashed which was quite in keeping with the Puritan character that covered with limewash the beautiful mural decorations of the English churches at the time of the Commonwealth. Families of wealth covered their walls with hangings brought from England. Peter Sergeant died in 1714, possessed of a "suit of Imagery Tapestry hangings" in his