Genealogical notes of Barnstable families - citizen hylbom blog

SENEALOGIOAL XOTES OF BARNSTABLE FAMILIES. 203
such as have been described as first built in Scituate. No log
houses were built, because the timber was not adapted to such use.
Saw mills had then been erected, and hand sawed lumber was not
expensive. Houses of one story about 20 feet square, with
boarded walls, and a thatched roof, were put up for £5, equal to $20
in silver money.*
As the better class of substantial frame houses cost only 20 or £25,
the industrious and the prudent were in a few years provided with
comfortable residences, fully as comfortable as many of the more elegant
structures of the present day. They were all built, except the
fortification houses, in one style, two stories high, about 20 by 26
feet square on the grouud, with very sharp roofs, because a flat roof
covered with straw or thatch could not shed water. The posts were
twelve or fourteen feet long, the lower story finished about seven
feet in the clear, and the upper about six. They all fronted due
south, and the great room or parlor occupied the southeast corner.
This room was usually about 16 feet square, and was occupied for a
kitchen, dining room, and parlor. A bed often occupied the northeast
corner, and the looms the southeast. The sills were hewn from
the largest trees of the forest, and projected into the room forming a
seat on the south and east side. The floor was laid on sleepers that
rested on the ground, and it came up even with the lower part of the
sill, so that on entering the front door, which was at the southwest
corner, you stepped down about a foot. The fireplace was on the
west side, and occupied the whole space from the doorway to within
about a foot of the north side of the room, and was usually four feet
deep. The fire was kindled in the center, leaving ample chimney
corners (a luxury now unknown) where the younger members of the
family had comfortable seats in cold weather, and could gaze at the
stars through the ample flue. The oven opened into the back part
of the fireplace on the left hand side. The place of the mistress of
the house was on the right hand side, near the low suttle in the cor- ,
ner. The master's place was a large armed chair or round-a-bout
placed directly in front of the fire. The fashionable now discuss the
merits of furnaces and patent stoves ; but if you have a plenty of
wood, and want to enjoy good health, and take comfort in cold winter
weather, build an old-fashioned fireplace—there is no stove equal
to it.
The rear of the lower floor contained a small room at the northwest
corner having a small fireplace, and was sometimes called the
kitchen, but rarely occupied for that purpose. A small room, sometimes
occupied as a bedroom and sometimes for other purposes, was
on the east, and at the northeast corner a narrow pantry or closet, in
which was a trap-door opening into the cellar.
The second story was divided nearly in the same-manner as the
»This was the price paid William Chase for building the old Hallet house which has
been described.