Virginia Architecture in the Seventeenth Century Part 6

From the foregoing it is obvious that the main body of the "St. Luke's"

church preceded the Tudor Style and is "Decorated" Gothic. The tower has Jacobean tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. At the same time it is erroneous to call this church "Gothic Colonial." What a mixture! In style it is English Gothic, that is, Gothic of England. It is as much Gothic as "Westminster Abbey" or "Wells" or "Yorkminster." What a mult.i.tude of errors is covered by that word "Colonial."

Recent research done at "St. Luke's" has uncovered the original, chamfered, timbered trusses and horizontal tie-beams, which were exposed in the nave; traces of the original gallery at the tower end of the nave which appears to have had bal.u.s.ters of oak; the old winegla.s.s pulpit; and the enclosed porch or vestibule in the first storey of the tower.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lis...o...b..Park Chapel Soulbury England c. 1350 A Source for "St. Luke's," Virginia]

Let not the reader think that most Virginia churches in the seventeenth century had towers. Such buildings were usually simple rectangles, occasionally with a porch attached to the long side on the south, in the approved English parish church manner.

Giving an idea how an early church was constructed is revealed in the building specifications of the "Second Hungars Church" (1680), in Northampton County--an edifice which was contemporaneous with old "St.

Luke's." Specifications can be pretty dry reading, but this one had a humorous touch or two. It appears that the church wardens contracted with the builder to put up a timber-framed parish church forty feet by twenty, with wall plates ten feet high. Wall plates, by the way, are timbers upon which rafters rest. Of "substantial substance," the framing was to be oak, and the foundation to be locust blocks of wood. The walls and roof were to have planks or clapboards. It is interesting that the upper edge of the roof planks were to be let, or set, into the rafters for strength and tightness. The inside of the church was also to be planked in order to seal off the walls of the "Old Church,"--the "First Hungars Church,"--which seems to have been incorporated, at least in part, in the second shrine. The planks covered the barrel vault, which was called "Arches," situated beneath the roof. Nails, planks, and food were to be furnished to the builder.

One of the excellent contract provisions was that the contractor was to take over no additional work elsewhere, or to leave the works, except upon some great occasion, for a week or two at the most. Upon completion of the job he was to receive ten thousand pounds of tobacco and to have the help of a hand able to work an axe for the s.p.a.ce of a month.

The foremost example of Jacobean Style in early ecclesiastical work was the "Second Bruton Church," Middle Plantation, now Williamsburg. It was completed in 1683--that is, soon after "St. Luke's,"--and has been completely demolished. Excavations of its brick foundations revealed that it possessed b.u.t.tresses on its long sides and at the back. The inside measurements were sixty feet by twenty-four. The main west door--there was no tower--and the chancel door on the side were to be, with minor variations, the sizes of the doors of the Brick Church of 1647 at Jamestown. An old drawing shows that the "Second Bruton Parish Church" had curvilinear gables of the type found at "Bacon's Castle,"

and the western rose window was flanked by scrolls which were probably formed of hand-cut brick. Both of these features are Jacobean.

Another early doorway, which is plain, round-headed, and of rubbed brick, stands at the "Merchant's Hope Church," Prince George County, and in style it seems to bolster the theory that at least a portion of the existing shrine is of the seventeenth century.

Some believe that brick "Pungoteague Church" on Eastern Sh.o.r.e, originally erected on a cross plan, with a mansard roof, was seventeenth-century in date, but it is the part of wisdom to accept G.

C. Mason's belief for valid reasons that the pile was constructed as late as 1738.

That some of these parish churches in Virginia had interiors which were richly furnished is evident from the description of the builder's work on one of them, the frame "Poplar Spring Church," (1677), Gloucester County. Father Time has unfortunately done away with this shrine, but we do know that its walls and ceiling were lathed and plastered, and that the chancel, fifteen feet long, was to be divided from the nave by a wooden _rood screen_--a "Screen to be run Crosse the church," and to have "ballisters."

In the medieval English church the rood screen is the name given to the chancel or choir screen when it supported the "rood," a large cross. It was customary to build such a screen in three parts: a base comprising panelled walls as high as the pews, a middle section with a row of wood bal.u.s.ters set closely together, and a top part of pierced woodwork--that is, traceried work--and heavy cornice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Elements of the Typical Medieval Church in Va.]

At "Poplar Spring Church" there were double pews built on each side of the chancel ab.u.t.ting the rood screen. Also set against the rood screen was another double pew, this one between the pulpit in the nave and the screen. The rest of the pews in the church, on both sides of the aisle, were double and had panelled backs. The pulpit itself was hexagonal and a three-decker affair. There was a six-foot s.p.a.ce permitted for the reading desk, set eighteen inches above the floor, and for the pa.s.sage into the pulpit. Half way up were the minister's pew and desk. The church was also the proud possessor of a flowered, crimson, velvet pulpit cloth, a silver communion service, and a drawing of cherubim, presumably upon the altarpiece.

Although it was customary to place wainscoted pews within the chancel, the "Second Lynnhaven Church," of 1692, Princess Anne County, had also in the chancel several benches, which were used by the parish poor.

That all seventeenth-century churches in the Old Dominion were not of brick or wood is shown by the "Second York Church" (1697), now Grace Church, Yorktown, which was constructed of native marl.

The Transitional Style of architecture, which, as we have seen, greatly influenced rural dwellings from about 1680 to about 1730, is marked in the Virginia church chiefly by the doorway designs. The earliest motif of a brick doorway is that plain, round-arched one on the entrance to the Jamestown Brick Church belfry. By 1700, brick doorways were becoming transitional: a good example is that at "Ware Church" (perhaps 1715), Gloucester County, which is flanked by brick pilasters and an arch bounded by a shallow hood--the whole made up of rubbed or gauged brick.

One of the most curious doorways of transitional vintage is the main south entrance to "Yeocomico Church" (1706), Westmoreland County. The door head consists of three brick arches in relief with stucco tympanums or fillings. Of the three, the top arch rests upon the other two--much in the manner that small arches cl.u.s.ter inside a large arch in some English Gothic doorways. But the "Yeocomico" door has the flavor of transitional experimentation.

Apropos of this same "Yeocomico" church, the door itself is a heavy battened door which is Tudor, and which is believed to have been taken from an earlier church (1653) on the same site. At all events, the long vertical panels on the exterior of the door are reminiscent of those at "Christ's Cross," New Kent County, already described. But the "Yeocomico" entrance has an additional medieval feature: a small door or "wicket" within the big door--a feature common to buildings of the Middle Ages abroad.

Most early Virginia churches possessed parsonages, usually on the glebe land and therefore known as "glebes." We have already cited, as an example of the Transition, the "Abingdon Glebe House" (c. 1700), Gloucester County, erected with balancing pavilion wings. Another interesting glebe was specified in 1635 for erection on Old Plantation Creek in Northampton County. Such a building appears to have been of the "hall-and-parlor" variety with a chimney at each end and with a study "outshut" and a b.u.t.tery "outshut" off each chimney. On the front was an "entry," the familiar little enclosed square porch, and at the rear were a "Kitchinge" and a "Chamber." In size this parsonage was to be forty feet by eighteen, and there were nine feet to the "wall plates," upon which the rafters rested. One could almost make an accurate restoration drawing of this glebe house from the description. But it must have been typical of the minister's house of that day, and the building of a "study" perhaps indicated that religion was then based on learning.

v. STATE HOUSES AND OTHER PUBLIC BUILDINGS

From the records we may learn of many kinds of public buildings, even though their actual remains have disappeared above ground. We know, for instance, of the Tavern or Ale-house (1660) of Thomas Woodhouse at Jamestown, where at one time were made the laws of Virginia. We are cognizant of the Eastern Sh.o.r.e tavern of 1697 where John Cole was licensed to keep an "ordinary" and to retail liquors near the Court House. We have heard of the "quartering house" of 1670 in Accomack County, which was a kind of tourist home for one-night stop-overs. We learn that there were many courthouses in seventeenth-century Virginia, like that of 1690 in Northampton County, which is sketchily described as having one exterior chimney and as being twenty-five feet long. Jails there were, too, like the Westover Prison and Stocks of 1643, which were probably constructed by Theoderick Bland. In Accomack there stood in 1674 a "logg'd" prison, fifteen feet by ten. At Westover, it may be noted, was also a "Brew house."

Also from the records we find mention of the Salt Works of 1676 owned by Daniel and Anne Jenifer and of Darby's Grist Mill of 1668, both in Accomack County; and of the Windmill of 1642 constructed jointly by John Williams and Obedience Robins, "chirugion," in Northampton County.

The Gla.s.s House or Factory of 1608 near Jamestown is one building which we do know something about, because of excavations by the National Park Service. It had originally a dirt floor about fifty feet by thirty-seven--a large area. Upon this floor were built three crude stone furnaces and a pot kiln. There was probably an open-walled timber structure with a pitched roof over the large floor and with louvres for the thick smoke to escape through the roof. There is not the slightest evidence for the use of crucks in the present off-site reconstruction of this great pile.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COUNTRY-LUDWELL-THIRD STATE HOUSE BLOCK Author's reconstruction from _Jamestown and St. Mary's_ showing four residences and the first American state house to be built specifically as a State House or Capitol.]

When we take up the subject of State Houses, we have an excellent example in the "Third State House" at Jamestown, which, as heretofore noted, formed part of the "Country-Ludwell-State House" block of five buildings a little up river from the Brick Church of 1647. Only the foundations of the "Third State House" remain, but from them and from the references in the Virginia records we know pretty much how the edifice looked originally. And it is noted as the first structure in the United States erected as a legislative seat.

Built about 1662 and burned in 1676, the "Third State House" was a medieval cross-house possessing close a.n.a.logies to "Bacon's Castle" in the general neighborhood, and it rose two full storeys and garret high.

There was no bas.e.m.e.nt. The main facade, facing the south and the main body of Jamestown, had a porch and porch chamber, and at the back was a tower which held the stairway--an area which in that day was known as a "Stair Case." In size, the stair tower was about the same as that of the "Brick State House of 1676" in St. Mary's City, Maryland, a cross-building which postdated the Virginia structure by only about thirteen years.

The interior of the "Third State House" must have been impressive.

Downstairs were a s.p.a.cious waiting room and a Court House Room, in which the Governor and his Council met and in which at times Provincial Courts were held. Upstairs were another waiting room and the a.s.sembly Hall or House of Burgesses. The little porch chamber on the second floor was used by His Majesty's Secretary of Virginia, until he was ordered to work in the eastern garret.

The four great rooms in this pile--two down and two up--had huge fireplaces on their long sides. The downstairs fireplaces could burn nine-foot logs. All the ceilings had girders and joists exposed.

After the conflagration of 1676 set by Nathaniel Bacon, the building was rebuilt (1685) on the same site, probably using what brick walls were still standing, to become the "Fourth State House." It is believed that in the rebuilding there was not much change in the design. But it was only natural that some of the rooms should have new uses, so that we find that the lower waiting room was fitted into a Secretary's Office by placing a strong part.i.tion under the "second girder" and, because of dampness, by raising the floor two feet up from the ground. To keep persons from breaking in to steal the record books of the Colony in the small storage room next to the Secretary's Office, the windows were barred with iron and had board shutters half an inch thick, with cross-bars.

[Ill.u.s.tration: In 17{th} C.--Va., builders used to scratch their initials on plaster. From J'town.]

Virginia may well be proud of the design of this "Third State House" at Jamestown, which has recently been the subject of a special restoration study for the Commonwealth by this writer. That legislative seat, built nearly three hundred years ago, was dignified, handsome, impressive, and in fine scale. Through its portals pa.s.sed in those days the chief figures of the Dominion. Its mullioned and diamond-pane windows, its pantile roof, and its porch and porch chamber gave the fabric a strong medieval flavor.

It is unfortunate that the "Fourth State House" burned on October 31, 1698, through an accident. What kind of an accident the records do not state. Was it a faulty flue, an overturned sconce, or carelessness in lighting a tobacco pipe? We shall probably never know. But the very next year the early capital, Jamestown, which had flourished for ninety-two years, was abandoned in favor of Middle Plantation, "nigh his Majesties Royall Colledg of William and Mary."

Three years before the destruction by fire of the "Fourth State House,"

the foundation of the "Sir Christopher Wren Building" of William and Mary College was laid down (1695). The shape of the great structure was to have been a quadrangle in the best English tradition of the Middle Ages. Colleges in Britain, as early as the 1200s, were in their general equipment much like monastic establishments, grouped about an arcaded cloister, and were halls of residence for communities of teachers and students.

But in Williamsburg the Wren Building was slow to get started, and has in truth never been completed in the form of a rectangle. By 1705, the year of the first fire, only the front facade and half of the north side had been completed. Consequently, for all intents and purposes, the edifice is an eighteenth-century structure, in spite of its earlier foundation, and belongs more to Cla.s.sic Williamsburg than to the former era. In more than one respect it paved the way for the Virginia Georgian.

For all that, the style of the original building may be said to be Transitional, with Georgian details, like modillions in the cornice. The main facade, one hundred and thirty-six feet long, is distinguished by a "break-front" or projecting bay on the center, crowned by a steeply pitched gable--the motif being repeated on the courtyard side. According to an old drawing of 1702 the entrance facade had in the center two balconies, one above the other, over the great, arched, front doorway.

The hipped main roof is crowned by a "tower" or cupola.

The arrangement of the main roof on the quadrangle side is unique: there is on each side of the central gable a row of hipped roofs. In the early days in Virginia there must have been many a building with a similar row. It is possible that the "First State House" itself had three hips contiguous to one another instead of the three gables which we have drawn herein. At any rate, in order to see existing parallels one has to visit the Bermudas, the Bahamas, or even Great Britain herself.

V

THE RICH HERITAGE OF ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS

Although it is true that the vast majority of English buildings in Virginia during the seventeenth century were simple and unadorned, constructed by plain people, there was a large number of structures which had ornate or costly details and exquisite furnis.h.i.+ngs. What is known about these interesting features is still largely unknown to Virginians, and it is the purpose of this chapter to make mention of some of them.

The richest details known to a seventeenth-century building in the Old Dominion appear to have once upon a time decorated the ceiling of the Great Hall of "William Sherwood's House," built about 1677-80 in Jamestown. The dwelling was a small, brick, storey-and-garret residence built on top of and across the foundation ruins of the old "Governor's House," already described. Mr. Sherwood's Great Hall, seventeen feet by sixteen in size, was rented in 1685 by the Government of Virginia and used as a Council Room by His Majesty's Governor and Council.

Now for the discovery. It was in the excavations of 1935 in Sherwood's neat, brick bas.e.m.e.nt, and in the area immediately surrounding that cellar, that more than fifty thousand fragments of plaster were retrieved. There are still some who do not believe that this plaster work came from Sherwood's House; but like "Kilroy," this writer was there and can vouch for its coming from Sherwood's. In fact we have charts showing exactly where each important fragment of plaster was found, and at what depth below the ground.

At any rate, some of the plaster was colored or frescoed, and much of it was moulded. There were two particular pieces of plaster with raised letters upon them: on one the letters "VI," on the other the letter "Y." What did they mean? This writer invited Mr. Singleton Moorehead, of the Williamsburg Restoration, down to Jamestown Island to view the letters, and he immediately identified them as belonging to the "Garter"

of the Royal Arms of Great Britain. In quoting what the Garter states, we have underlined the Jamestown letters, thus: "HONI SOIT Q_VI_ MAL _Y_ PENSE." Translated, the words mean, "Evil be to him who evil thinks."

There is no doubt that Mr. Moorehead was correct. The tail of the "Q" in "Q_VI_" showed plainly, and the blank s.p.a.ce in front of the "_Y_"

indicated that it was a letter by itself. But with the Garter in hand we could identify the other important plaster finds--the masks, roses, leaves, the lion, the hand-and-book, and the ribs, which ordinarily divide a large plaster composition into separate panels--as part of the Royal Coat of Arms.