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Historical Background

Architecture

Almost coincidental with the opening of the 18th century, Renaissance architecture finally reached the American Colonies. This "severely formal" adaptation of the classic Roman orders and design, born in Italy in the 15th century, first appeared in England around 1570 and reached its mature phase there 50 years later. The timelag of 130 years before it spread to the Colonies is a measure of the economic and social gap between the mother country and her offspring.

Colonial Renaissance architecture, influenced directly by that of the late Stuart period in England, became known as Georgian after the advent of the Hanoverian dynasty. Its general features included a balanced design; the use of classic orders to embellish doorways and entrance facades; predominantly brick construction, laid in Flemish bond (although the wood-building tradition was so strong in New England that many of the finer Georgian mansions there were clapboarded); low-pitched roofs, frequently hipped; sheathed and highly finished interiors; and such treatment of the entrance hall as to make it a room of major importance. After midcentury the Late Georgian style evolved, with such features as the projecting central pavilion, giant pilasters at the corners, small entrance portico, larger windowpanes, roofs pitched progressively lower, balustraded roof decks, and dado interior decoration with wallpaper above paneling.

Although adapted from English antecedents, "Georgian architecture in America was singularly free from either the practice or the doctrine of exact imitation." Professional and amateur American architects, and the humbler carpenter-builders who augmented the work of the few architects, all felt free to disregard their handbooks on occasion, "in accordance with necessity, invention, or taste." [4] Many illustrations and descriptions of their work are found in part II of this book.

William Buckland designed the Hammond-Harwood house at Annapolis, Md., shortly before his death in 1774. (National Park Service)

Only a score of professional and amateur American architects are known by name for their work during this period. Among the professionals were James Porteus, of Philadelphia; John James of Boston; Peter Harrison, of Rhode Island; John Hawks, of North Carolina; Thomas McBean, of New York; William Buckland, of Virginia and Maryland; and John Ariss, who appears to have confined himself entirely to Virginia. Notable in the category of architect-builders (where Buckland may also be placed), was James Wren, another Virginian practitioner. In recent years the name of Joseph Horatio Anderson has emerged as a designer with his own corps of craftsmen. He is believed to have been a Philadelphian, though his known work is located in Annapolis and vicinity. Among amateur architects the roster at Philadelphia is an imposing one: Drs. John Kearsley and William Shippen, Andrew Hamilton, Samuel Rhoads, Samuel Blodget, and Robert Smith. Noted amateur architects elsewhere were Richard Munday, of Newport, R.I.; Joseph Brown and Caleb Ormsbee, of Providence; Henry Caner, of New Haven, Conn.; Gov. Francis Bernard, of Massachusetts; Richard Taliaferro, of Williamsburg, Va.; and the painters, John Smibert and John Trumbull. To George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, architecture was an avocation and a gentlemanly pursuit. Both Mount Vernon and Monticello evolved under the watchful eyes of their masters, following a number of remodelings and continuing refinements.

In Charleston, S.C., the typical 18th-century dwelling was Georgian, but with a certain southern flavor. A disastrous fire in 1740 caused the assembly to specify nonflammable future construction. Charleston became a city of brick houses, faced with tinted stucco and covered with red tile roofs, unlike any other colonial metropolis. Many were "double houses" of typical Georgian design; others were of that peculiarly Charleston type called the "single house," standing "with its shoulder to the street," only one room in width and having a long piazza on one side.

Not all 18th-century American architecture was Georgian, by any means. The cultural lag between England and the Colonies had its parallel within the Colonies. A progression from the seaboard to the frontier, or from top to bottom of the economic scale, would bring to view more humble dwellings—less durable, smaller, and of more antique design. Of these the best known was the log cabin, apparently introduced in New Sweden in the mid-17th century, but reaching its present familiar role of a frontier home a century later through its popularity among the Scotch-Irish frontiersmen.

Robert Brewton House, built about 1730 by Miles Brewton for his son. It is the earliest accurately dated example of the Charleston "single house." (National Park Service)