So many people have expressed surprise when told of the unbroken persistence of the half-timber tradition that it will be in order to mention specific instances which, however, may be regarded as typical of many other buildings of contemporary date. For much painstaking and scholarly investigation in this field, and for much accurate restoration, the public is indebted to Joseph Everett Chandler, of Boston, whose restorations of numerous historic buildings have won him well deserved esteem and confidence.[A]
[Illustration: DOTEN HOUSE, PLYMOUTH, MASS. BUILT 1640.
Very early type with low eaves and central chimney.]
[Illustration: NARBONNE HOUSE, SALEM, MASS.
The long slope of roof on one side shows persistence of old English tradition.]
An intact example of Pennsylvania Colonial, of Welsh workmanship.]
SOUTH FRONT OF WYCK, GERMANTOWN, PHILADELPHIA. 1690.
Pennsylvania Colonial type with German influence apparent.]
It was the writer’s privilege to see the old Bake House in Salem just after it had been rescued by private generosity from impending demolition and moved to its present site hard by the House of the Seven Gables. In the course of making necessary repairs and restorations, the clapboard casing had been entirely removed and it was possible to see fully the whole structural scheme. The timbers and pugging were as just noted. Although the windows were, at that time, of the sash type, with small panes, the traces were clearly visible of alterations that had been made at an earlier date, probably somewhere about 1720, when the sash window rose into high favour and was generally substituted for the leaded casement with small diamond-shaped panes. The timbers gave unmistakable evidence that the window apertures in the sides of the house had originally been wide enough to accommodate a range of casements and that they had been neither so high nor so low as the sash or double hung windows that took their places. In other words, the timbers showed that the apertures had been narrowed to a considerable extent and, at the same time, extended both upwards and downwards.
Inside the house, the heavy oak studs, when the laths and plaster were torn off, showed chamfered corners, usually stopped at the ends with a stop that was thoroughly mediæval in character and might be found duplicated in the beams of trussed roofs in any old building in England dating from the sixteenth century or earlier. The tops of the studs, in some cases, showed a peculiar splay outward at the sides and rough notching by way of ornament. Surely here were touches of mediæval English workmanship that had been perpetuated in the new land by a workman who had served his apprenticeship in an English village where all the old joinery traditions were preserved intact.