National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

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NPS Form 10-900-a - 0MB Approval No. l02400188-86United States Department of the InteriorNational Park ServiceNational Register of Historic PlacesContinuation SheetPropertyname Clement Weaver - Daniel Howland House, Kent County, P.1.Section number 8 Page 13Cull, set to work on the house sometime in 1937, presumably for ownerEllswworth Gale.Norman Morrison Isham 1864-1943 was an architect practicing inProvidence, Rhode Island where he taught architecture at Brown Universityand the Rhode Island School of Design, serving as head of PISD’sArchitecture Department from 1912 until 1920 and again from 1923 until1933. Ishahm was the first serious student of Rhode Island’s and southernNew England’s "first period" houses and public buildings. In such booksas Early Phode Island Houses with Albert F. Brown, Providence 1895 andEarly Connecticut Houses with Brown, Providence 1900 , he carefullystudied and sketched building techniques and forms used by seventeenth- andeighteenth-century housewrights. In his studies, where he advocatedpreparation of "accurate measured drawings" and collection of "scientificdata," Isham not only laid the groundwork for all subsequent research onearly New England houses, but he also documented many period houses whichhave since vanished from the landscape. -Isham directed or consulted on numerous restoration projects in RhodeIsland, several of which involved archaeological excavations as a method ofcollecting scientific data, and much of our current understanding of RhodeIsland’s early architecture has been informed by Isham’s work in the firstquarter of the twentieth century.Unfortunately, the location of records of Isham’s analysis andrestoration decisions for many of these projects, including the ClementWeaver House, is presently unknown. Isham is known to have visited otherearly houses in East Greenwich, and his notebooks contain pencil sketchesand measurement of plans and details, but there seems to be no record ofany specific restoration recommendations.The "colonial ruin" must have proven to be quite a challenge. HABSphotographs, from 1931 though 1940, and other contemporaneous accounts,give some idea of the work involved. On the exterior, the house received anew wood shingle roof and framing repairs where necessary; the north entryportico was rebuilt; double hung window sash were repaired or replaced withcasement windows where evidence existed; and existing shingle sidingappears to have been replaced by clapboards, as indicated by 1photographs from the period, 2 a note on Isham’s sketch plan, "oldclapboards under this roof on main house," in the south ell addition, and3 the clapboards themselves which are in relatively good condition and ofan early form, fastened with rosehead nails.
NPS Form 10-900-a 0MB Approval No. 102400188.88United States Department of the InteriorNational Park ServiceNational Register of Historic PlacesContinuation SheetPropertyname Clement Weaver - Daniel Howland House. Kent County, P.1.Section number 8 Page 14On the interior, the north room was restored bringing it back to itsoriginal dark, sheathed, minimally-lit form; the great room was alsorestored, including uncovering of the framing and opening and rebuilding ofpart of the fireplace; and elsewhere selected restoration occurred whereappropriate.It is largely as a result of Ishamn’s restoration work that theClement Weaver House is clearly read as a seventeenth century house today.Relatively few houses were constructed during the seventeenth and earlyeighteenth centuries; of the perhaps two dozen serving Rhode Island housesconstructed before 1700, fewer still have escaped extensive alteration,both during the colonial period and later. The Clement Weaver Housereached its essential form by about 1700; subsequent modifications to therear of the house and addition of the south ell appear to have occurredprior to 1750. With the removal of most later eighteenth- and nineteenthcenturychanges, the house reveals design elements typical of seventeenthcentury architecture: such as its massive chimney, period framing, squareor horizontal casement windows, and in addition contains distinctive designvariants, notable the unusual double staircase. The Clement Weaver Housethus stands as an important record of the past as the oldest house in EastGreenwich and one of only a few seventeenth-century houses remaining inRhode Island.
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National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

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