Colonial Williamsburg Digital Library

Archaeological

The foundations discovered on the site gave the first and most important basis for the design of the Mary Stith Shop. These foundations (18" in thickness and apparently those of a small brick house or shop) were located on the northern part of Lot 17; they roughly paralleled the Duke of Gloucester Street line and were setback about 3½ feet from this. The east foundation wall was about 23 feet west of the east lot line. The length of the front wall of the foundations was about 27 feet but the 5 rear wall was 10" shorter, so that the side walls (approximately 19'-8" in width) were not quite parallel. Nearly centered on the west foundation wall were the foundations of a chimney, 8'-3" wide, and projecting 3'-0" from the face of the west wall. What were apparently the foundations of a porch extended about 4'-0" to the rear of the south foundation wall at the south-east corner. A vaulted brick drain, 2'-10" wide and about 3'-0" high, cut through these porch foundations, penetrated the south foundation wall, ran slightly on the diagonal across the basement and emerged from the north wall of the house at a point about 4'-0" from the east end of the buildings. The foundations of a chimney of earlier date overlapped the east wall of the shop. The chimney served what was apparently an older building some what smaller in size (15'-11" x 21'-11 ¾") than the shop (Herbert S. Ragland, in charge of the excavations, believed this building to have been built between 1699 and 1724); traces of the foundations of this building were found a short distance east of the east foundation wall of the shop. (For further information on the foundations see archaeological survey drawing for Block 10, Area C).

DESIGN CHARACTERISTICS OF SHOP

The building as reconstructed is of brick since the wall thickness of 18" represented the foundations of a brick structure. Its length, 27'-0", and depth, 19'-1", are based upon and are approximately the size of the foundations discovered on the site. The 6 chimney as reconstructed follows the size and location of the old chimney foundations; its center line is about 2" north of the building center line as was the case with the original foundations. A shed-roofed porch, 4'-0" deep and 8'-8" long, was built on the position of the foundations discovered at the south-east corner of the house.

The reconstructed shop is a story and a half in height with an A roof whose slope is about 48°. There is a single room on the first floor with a hallway suggested only by the lowering of the ceiling of the eastern ^end/of the room.¹ A U-shaped stair to the second floor starts along the east wall and a stairway to the fully-excavated basement runs under this. An enclosed rear entrance vestibule gives access to the basement stair. The second floor consists of a single bedroom occupying the western half of the building, a bath, two closets and the upper part of the stairway.

The northern facade of the building has been designed to suggest the front of an 18th century shop, with two doorways, one of which, at the center of the elevation, presumably represents the entrance to the shop proper, and the other, to the east of this, the access to the stairway and the upper floor of the building. The door opening is spanned by a segmental brick arch. An oriel shop window supported on wood brackets projects from the wall at the right of the center door. This window and the center door are protected by a hood with a 7 continuous cornice.^* Three hip-roofed dormers with 8-light windows penetrate the roof of the second story. The middle dormer is located on the axis of the center doorway and the others are arranged symmetrically about this.

The feature of the western gable end is the outside chimney which, from a massive base, rises with two slopes to a T-shaped shaft surmounted by a rich cap. This facade is unbroken by openings.

Due to the sloping terrain the rear facade is several inches higher than the front. The three dormers of the front are repeated in their same relative positions at the rear. The openings of the first floor, a rear entrance doorway under the porch at the south-east corner, and two 8-light windows of the same size as the dormer windows, are centered on the dormers above. Beneath the windows and on their axes are two basement windows provided with vertical-barred grilles.

The eastern elevation has two windows, an 8-light double-hung window similar to those at the rear, centered in the northern half of this facade and a 6-light casement on the second floor at the center of the gable.

All of the window openings located in the brick walls of the building, as well as the south-east and north-east door openings are 8 spanned by segmental brick arches.^* The main entrance doorway on the center of the front facade has, on the other hand, a flat arch of rubbed brick. The brickwork of the house is further enriched by the use of rubbed brick at the building corners, at the jambs of the first floor windows and the gable window, and along the rakes of the gables.

The Stith Shop has a number of points of resemblance to the Greenhow-Repiton Brick Office in Williamsburg. Both are brick buildings with projecting end chimneys. Both have A roofs, and the slopes of these are nearly alike, that of the Greenhow-Repiton Office being 50° and the slope of the Stith Shop roof being 48°. The sizes of the two buildings are remarkably similar, the Greenhow-Repiton Office being 26'-6" long and 18'-4" deep and the Stith Shop having a length of 27'-0" and a depth of 19'-1". Both buildings have a single room on the main floor with a stairway running along a side wall to the story above. The exteriors of both are enriched by rubbed brickwork at the building corners, 9 along the rakes of the gables, and at window jambs and beads (although the arches of the Greenhow-Repiton windows except for the basement windows, are flat rather than segmental). The openings of the two buildings do not correspond, however, in number, size and location, and the Greenhow-Repiton Office has two dormers front and rear instead of three. The latter also has a watertable which is absent in the Stith Shop.

A comparison of the Stith Shop with the Wishart House, a small brick dwelling in Princess Anne County, is also warranted, chiefly by two points of resemblance. The latter building is somewhat larger than the Stith Shop (its dimensions are 32'-3 ¾" by 20'-8") and it has two rooms on the main floor. The chimneys of the two buildings (there is one at each end in the case of the Wishart House) are almost precisely similar in design, although the Wishart chimney is laid up partly in English and partly in running bond, while the Stith chimney is laid in Flemish bond (see sketch on following page). Both chimneys have T-shaped shafts and the caps with their triple row of projecting courses of brickwork with a plaster band and brick necking below, are identical in design. A second element of similarity in the two houses in the small shed porch, with roof supported by a pair of square columns, with sides champfered for about 2/3 of their height. Though the Wishart porch is believed to be a late addition it may well 10 be a replacement of an earlier similar porch.

FRONT VIEW AND PART SIDE VIEW--
T-SHAPED CHIMNEY-WISHART HOUSE
SHAPE OF CHIMNEY AND CHIMNEY CAP FOLLOWED IN
DESIGN OF CHIMNEY OF MARY STITH SHOP, CONCEIVED AS
A BUILDING OF APPROXIMATE PERIOD OF WISHART HOUSE

The will of Mary Stith is almost our only documentary source of information concerning the buildings on Colonial lot 17. In this will Mary Stith devised three buildings to her slaves, viz. "My dwelling house," "my house in the yard called the tin shop" and "my house on the main street called Woods Shop.^*" There was no difficulty about the 11 location of the tin shop since the foundations in "the Yard" at the rear of the present shop and along the east boundary of the lot were obviously those of the tin shop; consequently the tin shop or forge was restored on these foundations. The dwelling house was doubtless located on Duke of Gloucester Street as were other Williamsburg dwellings, while the will definitely placed the "Woods Shop" along the street. Two sets of adjacent foundations were discovered, as was noted above, along the street on the northern boundary of the lot. It is possible that one of these was the dwelling and the other the Woods Shop. That they may have been standing there at the same time is suggested by the fact that the Frenchman's Map shows at the position of the excavated foundations are elongated building whose approximate length is that of the combined foundations and whose depth is very nearly that of the west foundation. (The Frenchman's Map also clearly indicates an outbuilding at the rear of this building in the position of the tin shop foundations). There might therefore have been reason to reconstruct two buildings along the street front of Lot 17, assuming one to have been the dwelling and the smaller one the shop. That the building represented by the smaller of the two foundations was not reconstructed may have been due to the fact that little was known about it; only the chimney foundations and incomplete traces of its walls existed. The foundations of the larger building, on the other hand, were complete, making its reconstruction more feasible.

DUKE OF GLOUCESTER ST.

The west building having been chosen for reconstruction, it remained to decide whether to make it a dwelling or a shop. It could be reasoned that the building of the dwelling would have preceded that of the shop, and that the older of the two adjacent buildings had therefore been the dwelling (judging by its size, it had probably been a single room house.) The need for a shop would very likely have made itself apparent later, so that the more recent of the two buildings had probably been the Woods Shop mentioned in the will. Considerations such as these might well have been the basis for the reconstruction of the west building as a shop.

BRICKWORK

Since this is a reconstructed building, not an existing one restored, considerable emphasis has been placed upon precedent used by the architects in reconstructing it. Design features can in all cases be traced to eighteenth century buildings. The design source for the dormers, windows, chimney cap, brickwork, and other details are noted, which served as models in recreating the original aspect of the house.

The decision to rebuild the house with brick resulted from the discovery that the excavated foundations were 20" in thickness.² This heavy wall indicated a superstructure of brick. The existence of a basement with a chimney that extended beyond the face of the west end was also revealed.

There was no water table, possibly because of the small size of the building and its relatively lesser importance. In the rebuilding, all concealed foundations were made of concrete. All brickwork above the ground is of brick reproduced by Colonial Williamsburg by use of the brick burning methods of the 18th century. The excavated brick size averages 8" x 3 ¾" x 2 ¾" and the color is a tan-red with a color range tending toward buff red, rather than the deeper red of the Bruton Parish Church tower. All brickwork visible above the grade level, including that of the chimney, is laid with Flemish bond.

Rubbed brick appears as a flat arch above the central door of the street facade, and as single row segmental arches over the windows and the other two doors. The use of rubbed brick at the angles 15 of the house, chimney and windows is discussed elsewhere in this report.

EXTERIOR WALLS

The exterior brick walls of the Stith Shop have been described under Brickwork, and elsewhere in this report. It may be added that these walls are 1'-0" thick and are furred, and plastered on metal lath on the inside.

EXTERIOR TRIM

Since the house is a reconstruction all of the exterior trim is new.

DORMERS

As has been stated previously the building has 6 hipped dormers, 3 at the front which line up with 3 at the rear. The roofs of these dormers have the same slope as the roof of the shop (ca. 48°). The sides of the dormers are faced with diagonal flush beaded boards of random widths, and the dormers are roofed with round-butt asbestos cement shingles arranged in fan-tail fashion. Original dormers of this hipped or snub-nose type were used on Main Farm, near Williamsburg and the Moore House, Yorktown (gambrel-roofed houses), and on the John Blair and Moody Houses in Williamsburg.³ The latter are A-roofed houses in which the dormer roof slope is the same as the slope of the main roof.

For dormer sash, see under Windows.

PORCH

Mention has already been made of the leanto porch on the south side of the building at the south-east corner. Attention was called to the fact that the porch is similar to a leanto porch of uncertain date found on the Wishart House in Princess Anne County. Its posts, two free-standing and two engaged against the brick wall, are similar in general design to those of the Wishart House and also to the rear porch columns of an 18th century house (Bel-Mede) moved from Isle of Wight County to Williamsburg by 20 Mr. Thomas Thorne. (An original example of one of the Bel-Mede columns is now in the collection of antique details being assembled by the Architectural Department.)

The Mary Stith porch post has a square-sectioned base about 3 feet high and a square cap or top 6" in height. The edges of the intervening portion of the post are not champfered as in the case of the Bel-Mede column but are provided with a recessed quarter-round which terminates at its base in an incised "hook" or "spur". The precedent for this treatment of the column edge are the free standing columns of the State House at Annapolis, from which the entire detail was copied.

The porch is 9'-0" in width and 4'-2" in depth. It has a wood floor supported on a brick foundation. A wood stoop with a single tread gives access to the porch at its center. At the western side of the porch a doorway leads to the vestibule at the South-east corner of the interior. The triangles at either side of the porch between the roofs and the wall are covered with 7/8" flush beaded boards.

Beneath the projecting flooring at the porch edge a wood fascia board is used which conceals the wood framing of the porch floor. This (continued on the following page) FASCIA BOARD WITH CUT-OUTS
EAST & WEST ENDS OF PORCH 21 fascia or apron has a cyma mold at the top and a ½" bead at the bottom. Along the front face of the porch this fascia board is unbroken, but on each of the sides there are three cut outs, for air circulation, of the shape seen in the accompanying sketch. The precedent for this detail is an apron at the mill at Providence Forge. This apron is the bottom board of the flush beaded sheathing of the mill and has cut outs which were copied in the design of the apron of the Stith porch.

WINDOWS

There is a total of 13 windows in the Mary Stith Shop, the location of which have been given previously. Of these the most striking is the oriel shop window which projects from the north face of the building. The remaining windows comprise the following: 6 dormer windows, 3 first floor windows, 2 basement windows and a window in the gable of the east elevation.

SHUTTERS

No shutters were used in the reconstruction of the Mary Stith Shop.

GENERAL NOTES

Although the Mary Stith Shop is an exterior restoration, the architects sought to reproduce eighteenth century woodwork and plan features. The chimney pieces, floors and wall surface, while new, have been given the appearance which such features would have had in the house of a Williamsburg resident of moderate means.⁷

No use was made of old and original doors, mantels, floor boards, or trim.

FLOORS

The floors are of rift yellow pine, approximately 7/8" in thickness, of random width, varying from about three to seven inches. As a finish, floors were scraped and sanded and then given a polished wax surface.⁸

STAIRCASE

The east end of the house is occupied by the stairs. These rise from the basement and continue in two flights to the second floor.

The stairway from the ground floor to the second floor level is of the type described as having an open stair shaft, around which there are straight runs of steps. There are sixteen risers in the flights of steps from the ground floor to the floor above. The steps to the basement have only nine risers.

The width of the principal stairway is 3'-4 ¾", measured from the rough wall to the center of the handrailing. The basement stairway is narrower, namely, with a width of 2'-8 ¾" from wall to the rail center.

The newel posts and railing, for the two stairs, are of the utmost simplicity. They are alike in design and size.

The posts measure 3½" x 3½" and have no beaded angles, but have a cut away curve at each angle of the top. The plank-like rails are two in number, one for the hand, the other as a guard. These have a ½" beaded mold at the lower edges.

The precedent for this type of railing is the original stair railing of the Travis House, Williamsburg. A secondary design source followed by the designer is the stairway of a tobacco warehouse at Urbanna, Virginia.

BASEBOARD

There is neither cornice nor chair railing as features of the interior woodwork. A baseboard 5" in height was installed to conform with the usual practice. This base has a ½" beaded top edge.

MANTELS

The living room mantel is a reproduction of an antique mantel that was stored in the warehouse.

It consists, in its design, of a double molded frame that surrounds the plaster facing to the fireplace, at top and sides. Above this frame there is a plain 13" wide board frieze, topped by a molded mantel shelf.

MT PRODIGAL
GLOUCESTER CO.
MANTEL SURROUND

The bedroom mantel has no molded frame for the fireplace. It is faced with wood and has a slight molded edge that rises to the mantel shelf. This shelf is nothing more than a board with a rounded edge, supported at each end by a 1" board bracket. This kind of mantel shelf is fairly frequent for kitchens and bedrooms of Virginia. An example is found at Chelsea on the Pamunkey River, King William County. For details of this and the living room mantel, see Working Drawings, Sheets 100 and 206.

INTERIOR TRIM

There is an almost complete absence of trim surrounding interior windows and doors. For doorways to the outside, the trim consists of the 1¼" casing, again with the familiar beaded edge.

Trim for doors #100, and 103 consists of a 2½" x 1 1/8" pine board, unmolded, but with a ½" bead at its edge towards the door opening. Doors 4, 100 and 102 have trim that is the same, excepting that its width is 3".⁹

2ND FL. DOOR TRIM

The doors, for which this simplified trim is the frame, are all of the "batten-type". These doors are fashioned with 3 boards, varying in width and having a beaded edge, joined together by battens. The battens are attached with 29 wrought iron nails, clinched on the batten side. Details of all doors are shown on sheets 203 and 211.¹⁰

DOOR SCHEDULE ¹¹

HARDWARE¹²

PAINT SCHEDULE AND COLOR

Exterior woodwork (trim) is painted white, same as Wythe House, No. 696.

Exterior Doors, painted with burnt umber color, #168, like Wythe outbuildings.

Interior woodwork 1st floor, including handrailing and baseboard, #316.

First floor walls, painted white to simulate whitewash.

Second Floor

Bedroom trim painted #328, Satin

Bedroom Walls white like whitewash.

Bedroom Fireplace face - unpainted.

Bedroom Baseboard #328. Satin.

Second Floor Hall

Same as 1st Floor.

Bathroom - Woodwork and walls white with gloss finish.