The doorway of the early Dutch houses was not a feature of any architectural pretension. It was approached by one or two steps only, as the houses were close to the ground, and sometimes a small platform, or a stoop with settles on either side, gave an inviting appearance indicative of the hospitality within. The doorway was rectangular without attempt at adornment further than occasionally a narrow transom with small, square lights. Even this was often lacking. The Dutch door divided in the middle shared the honours with solid, undivided batten doors. Both types were in common use, although preference was given the Dutch or divided door for the main entrance and the corresponding back entrance at the opposite end of the hall.
As the Dutch Colonial style developed in the eighteenth century more attention was paid to the adornment of the entrance and about the time of the Revolutionary War, which made the Colonists more fully aware of each other’s presence and served to spread and popularise ideas, we find that Georgian _motifs_ were borrowed and adapted to local needs with a broad freedom of treatment that imparted a good deal of individuality to them and removed them at times almost altogether from the Georgian category from which the first inspiration had sprung. Up to this time the Dutch Colonial type had been singularly free from the working of outside influences and had developed independently along lines suggested by its inherent qualities. But even after this infusion of Georgian feeling the treatment was so typical and original that the newly introduced and adapted _motifs_ were perfectly congruous with the parent stock upon which they had been engrafted.
Finally, in making the survey of the distinctive exterior features of the Dutch Colonial style, it should be remembered that the dormers, which so frequently appear, were not characteristic of the earliest dwellings but were a later development dictated by expediency when it was found desirable to use more fully the attics for sleeping rooms than was customary in the earliest houses, where all the light necessary was admitted from the gable ends and where the attics were storerooms and workshops for domestic operations such as weaving and spinning, often carried on by the slaves.