The Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. George Francis Dow
myself had some deer skins, spread upon the floor to lie on, and we were, therefore, quite well off and could get some rest."[10]
These travelers also spent a night at a Quaker's house near where a gristmill had been erected on a creek above the falls at what is now Trenton.
"Here we had to lodge: and although we were too tired to eat, we had to remain sitting upright the whole night, not being able to find room enough to lie upon the ground. We had a fire, however, but the dwellings are so wretchedly constructed, that if you are not close to the fire, as almost to burn yourself, you cannot keep warm, for the wind blows through them everywhere. Most of the English and many others, have their houses made of nothing but clapboards, as they call them there, in this manner: they first make a wooden frame, the same as they do in Westphalia, but not so strong, they then split the boards of clapboard, so that they are like cooper's pipe-staves, except they are not bent. These are made very thin, with a large knife, so that the thickest edge is about a little finger thick, and the other is made sharp, like the edge of a knife. They are about five or six feet long, and are nailed on the outside of the frame, with the ends lapped over each other. They are not usually laid so close together, as to prevent you from sticking a finger between them, in consequence either of their not being well joined, or the boards being crooked. When it is cold and windy, the best people plaster them with clay. Such are most all the English houses in the country."[11]
The only type of log construction in use in New England in the early days existed in garrison houses built as a protection against the Indians. In every instance the logs were carefully hewed square, to make a close fit against each other, and never notched at the ends, sometimes halved at the corners of the structure, but usually dove-tailed into each other at the ends in medieval military manner. Several of these garrison houses still exist and although afterwards used as dwellings, at first they were built as forts.
What happened at the Plymouth Colony after the Mayflower came to anchor? The wind blew very hard for two days and the next day, Saturday, December 23, 1620, as many as could went ashore: "felled and carried timber, to provide themselves stuff for building," and the following Monday "we went on shore, some to fell timber, some to saw, some to rive, and some to carry; so no man rested all that day."[12] Bradford writes "that they builte a forte with good timber" which Isaac de Rasieres described in 1627 as "a large square house, made of thick sawn planks, stayed with oak beams." The oldest existing houses in the Plymouth Colony are built in the same manner and some half dozen or more seventeenth-century plank houses may yet be seen north of Boston. Moreover, when the ship Fortune sailed from Plymouth in the summer of 1621, the larger part of her lading consisted of "clapboards and wainscott," showing clearly that the colonists soon after landing had dug saw pits and produced boards in quantity suitable for the construction of houses and for exportation.
The first settlers in the Massachusetts Bay brought with them mechanics of all kinds, well equipped with tools, and it is altogether probable that these workmen plied their trades on this side of the Atlantic exactly as they had been taught through long centuries of apprenticeship in England. The houses of that early period, still remaining, all resemble similar English structures. Upon arrival, however, the need for shelter was imperative, and all sorts of rude expedients were adopted. Deacon Bartholomew Green, the printer of the Boston News-Letter, related that when his father arrived at Boston in 1630, "for lack of housing he was wont to find shelter at night in an empty cask," and during the following winter many of the poorer sort still continued to live in tents through lack of better housing. When Roger Clap arrived at Charlestown in 1630 he "found some Wigwams and one House … in the meantime before they could build at Boston, they lived many of them in tents and Wigwams."
John Winthrop, in his Journal, writes that "the poorer sort of people (who lay long in tents) were much afflicted with scurvy and many died, especially at Boston and Charlestown." He also makes several references to English wigwams. In September, 1630, one Fitch, of Watertown, had his wigwam burned down with all his goods and two months later John Firman, also of Watertown, lost his English wigwam.
Edward Johnson, in his Wonder-Working Providence, mentions the rude shelters of the first settlers. "They kept off the short showers from their lodgings, but the long rains penetrated through to their disturbance in the night season, yet in those poor wigwams they sang Psalms, praise and pray their God till they can provide them homes which ordinarily was not wont to be with many till the earth by the Lord's blessing brought forth bread to feed them, their wives and little ones."
The Rev. Francis Higginson, in his New-Englands Plantation, printed in 1630, describes the wigwams built by the Indians living at Salem as "verie little and homely, but made with small poles prick't into the ground and so bended and fastened at the tops and on the side, they are matted with boughes and covered with sedge and old mats." It seems likely that when the English built themselves "English wigwams," they copied the small structures built by the Indians, especially as mats suitable for covering might be obtained from the Indians by barter, and old pieces of sailcloth doubtless might be obtained from the shipping stores. It seems unlikely that an Englishman living in one of these structures during the winter season would be content to allow the smoke from his fire to find its way out through a hole in the roof in the Indian fashion. It is more likely that a fireplace, built of stones or bricks, would be constructed at one end of an "English wigwam." A door in hewed frame, with wooden hinges, probably was installed as a suitable substitute for the Indian mat lifted upon entering. The floors in these English wigwams undoubtedly would be covered with rushes or straw, following the custom in English cottages at that time.
Edward Johnson, the town clerk of Woburn, writing in 1652, relates of the first settlers that "after they have thus found out a place of aboad, they burrow themselves in the Earth for their first shelter under some Hill-side, casting the Earth aloft up on Timber: they make a smoaky fire against the Earth at the highest side, and thus these poore servants of Christ provide shelter for themselves, their Wives and little ones."
Alonzo Lewis, the historian of Lynn, writing a century ago, states that some of the first settlers in that town made shelters for themselves and families by digging caves into the hillsides. On the bank of the Connecticut River above Hartford, is the Loomis Institute, on the grounds of which is the site where the men from Dorchester, Mass., in 1635, constructed their first dwellings, which were dug into the river bank. The bank itself composed three walls of the shelter and the front was a framing of boards with a door and a window. The roof was thatched with river sedge. The last of these long abandoned dugouts was filled in as recently as 1926.
At Concord, Mass., the early settlers dug cellars in the earth which they spanned with wooden spars and then covered with turf. A more detailed description of such shelters is found in a report made in 1650, by the Secretary of the Province of New Netherlands:
"Those in New Netherlands and especially in New England who have no means to build farmhouses at first, according to their wishes, dig a square pit in the ground, cellar fashion, 6 or 7 feet deep, as long and as broad as they think proper, case the earth inside with wood all round the wall, and line the wood with bark of trees or something else to prevent the caving in of the earth, floor this cellar with plank and wainscott it overhead for a ceiling, raise a roof of spars clear up and cover the spars with the bark or green sods, so that they can live dry and warm in these houses with their entire families for two, three or four years, it being understood that partitions are run through those cellars which are adapted to the size of the family. The wealthy and principal men of New England, in the beginning of the Colonies, commenced their first dwelling houses in this fashion."[13]
The frequent references to the English wigwam seem to indicate that some such temporary construction was usual among many of the colonists at the outset. Settlers were living at Salem as early as 1626 and Endecott, with a considerable immigration, arrived in 1628. Marblehead, just across the harbor, was settled early and yet when John Goyt came there in 1637, he "first built a wigwam and lived thar till he got a house."[14] The rude buildings also put up by planters at Salem must have been looked upon at the time as temporary structures for they had all disappeared before 1661.[15]
When Governor Winthrop arrived at Charlestown in 1630 with the first great emigration, he found a house or two and several wigwams—rude shelters patterned after the huts