ARCHITECTURE OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA.
The architecture of the New World is an echo of that of the West of When the great continent was discovered, the Renaissance was in the fulness of its power, but the growth of the new colonies was too slow to permit of the erection of numerous buildings at that date. This was the case even with the earlier Spanish colonies, whose older cathe drals and large buildings for the most part bear the stamp of the baroque decadence. Still more is this the case with the structures built during colonial days in what is now a part of the United States.
The Earliest Structures of the British colonies were contemporaneous with the Stuarts in England, but those were the days of constant strug gle for a bare existence, and such structures as Governor Henry Bull's house at Newport, Rhode Island, " Captain Kidd's" house at Conanicut, and the Cradock house, or "Old Fort," at Medford, Massachusetts, have an antiquarian rather than an architectural interest, though they are substantially built. The dwellings of the seventeenth century—in New England, at least—had the chimneys and gable-ends nearly always con structed of stone, while the sides and ends above the line of the roof plate were framed of heavy oak rudely squared and covered with coarse stucco and split shingles, as in Governor Coddington's house at New port, Rhode Island. In the parts of Pennsylvania which are situated upon the easily-split Arch can schists, stone was the usual building-mate rial, and has continued to be so in the country districts of Eastern Penn sylvania, though in the cities it is superseded by brick.
Eighteenth on, in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, the dwellings of New England were constructed almost entirely of framed wood covered with thick clapboards with beaded edges, and brick began to take the place of stone in the chimneys. At this period the gambrel, or broken-backed gable, came into use, and continued in favor for a hundred years or more.
Gambrel advantage of this form of roof is that it secures lofty and well-shaped rooms, while providing also a loft above—features which it shares with the mansard, or French, roof. It is, in fact, a
mansard on two sides of the house, terminating in a gable with two different rakes at each end. The gambrel was fully accepted as an architectural feature and adorned with dormers and a cornice, as in the Banister house at Newport, Rhode Island. The hipped roof also came in at about this time, but the earlier examples were only partially hipped at the ends, the upper portions of which stood up as small gables.
The Colonial of the better class was, after the first part of the eighteenth century, often constructed of brick, but even then the mouldings and cornices were invariably of wood. The entrance had usually a pilaster on each side, with an entablature and a pediment above, while the projecting eaves had a wooden cornice often adorned with deutils and niodillions, and the roof, often hipped, was low-pitched. Many even of the larger houses in New England continued to be built of wood, but in Philadelphia brick, usually laid Flemish bond—that is, with alternate headers and stretchers, the former often distinguished by their black color, and thus forming a pattern in the red brick—was the common material.
Throughout many parts of Eastern Pennsylvania stone, as has been said, was in common use, either left rough or more commonly covered with plaster. Quoins iu brick, stone, or plaster were usually con tinued clown the main angles. A projecting pent-house, or miniature roof, flat-ceiled, was a favorite addition to the lower floor of the plain but substantial country houses. The roofs were usually shingled; there was often a seat on each side of the doorway. The plan of the colonial house of the better class was extremely simple, consisting in the main of a ball ten or twelve feet wide, with an ample staircase on one wall, and of two square rooms opening from each side of the hall. The staircase was the most elaborate part of the house, and the hall, as well as the principal rooms, was panelled to a moderate height. Sometimes the parlor was wainscotted from floor to ceiling, but more often the chimney-piece only was panelled to the ceiling.