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Colonial, Cape Cod, Federal – We think of these as typical New England home styles.

How did these styles come about?
How did the lifestyle and folkways of the first settlers influence their lives and their communities? ¹     

If you will permit me, I’d like to take you on a trip back in time and across an ocean.  What was going on in Europe and particularly England that compelled hundreds of families to endure an arduous and expensive journey and leave their homeland forever?  Let’s consider how religion formed the people, how their villages formed their families, and how their belief in a plural form of society contributed to making Massachusetts and its inhabitants who they were in the 17th century and, to a surprising degree, who they are today.     

Religion:
At the time of the death of Queen Elisabeth I in 1603, the Church of England was dominant in the religious life of every English town.  James I succeeded her and maintained the role of the Anglican Church and the suppression of those who sought to purify religious practice; the Puritan followers of John Calvin and other reformers.  James’ support of the royally appointed episcopacy of the Anglican Church particularly rankled the Puritans who strongly held to a Presbyterian system of church polity; rule by the elders of the church.      

Plymouth Colony

This was the backdrop for the departure of the Plymouth Pilgrims to the new world and their formation of a community dominated by Puritans and organized via an agreement freely signed by themselves upon their arrival.

One difference which set the Pligrims apart from the Puritans of the Great Migration (1629-1640) was the addition to these 59 Pilgrims of 43 people called “Strangers” who were not Puritans but rather personal servants, indentured servants, or adventurous pioneers seeking fortune not freedom. 

As we all remember from our history lessons, the first winter was harsh. However Samoset had visited Plimouthand helped secure a treaty with the Wampanoag Indiansand subsequent ships eventually arrived withsupplies and more settlers.  By 1630 there were about 300 settlers and by 1643 some 2,000 lived in the colony.   This is in stark contrast with the booming population of the Massachusetts Bay Company at the same time – 80,000 men, women and children!   We’ll learn of their settlement next.

James I was, in turn, succeeded by his son Charles I in 1625.  At this point things went ever more badly for the Puritans.  All Puritans were purged from the Church of England.  By 1629 Charles dissolved Parliament thus removing from authority the Puritans remaining there.   Seeing little opportunity in England, the Puritans, mostly from East Anglia, brought about the “Great Migration”.     

The area in red and pink comprises East Anglia

The region of England known as East Anglia is comprised of the eastern counties of Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk. It was, at the time, the most  densely populated and urbanized part of England.  These counties were major producers of woolens and other cloth goods.  In these counties, unlike much of the rest of England, Puritan zeal was dominant and the congregations were strong.  In fact, a circle of 60 miles radius drawn around Haverhill at the intersection of Suffolk, Essex and Cambridge includes the area from which most New England families immigrated during the 1629-1640 period.  

Organized by gentlemen and persons of the middle of English society (later called the Winthrop Fleet after the first governor,) the first year of this migration saw seventeen vessels travel to Massachusetts.  By 1640, just eleven years later, 80,000 English men women and children had arrived on board 198 vessels.  The Massachusetts Bay Company had as its stated purpose the conversion of the native population.   

Massachusetts' Seal

Their seal featured an Indian holding arrows pointing down in peace (submission?) and speaking these words; “Come over and help us.”  The role of religion is evidenced by the fact that most adult settlers in most Massachusetts towns joined a Congregational (Calvinist) church during the first settlement generation.   

Society: 
The founders of Massachusetts came here in families unlike any other major ethnic group in American history up until the 19th century.  For example in one group of 700 from Norfolk and Kent counties just 6% were not part of a family group.  In another group only 12% were not affiliated with a family.  A popular ballad of the period celebrates these connections:  

Stay not among the Wicked,
Lest that with them you perish,
But let us to New-England go,
And the Pagan people cherish . . .  

The social rank of these settlers was quite uniform vs. later colonies in Virginia.  Few members of the aristocracy joined the Winthrop fleet and these all left within a few years.  11% of the male heads of households in the first 11 years of settlement were listed as “gentlemen.”  The majority were yeomen, husbandmen,artisans, craftsmen, merchants and traders.  Less than 25% were servants and these also travelled with the families they served.  A contemporary list shows less than 5% of the population were laborers.  Interestingly, for a group that relied on the land to supply their needs, less than one-third of the settlers had previously been employed in agriculture.  

Nearly 75% of immigrants paid their own way which amounted, for a family of six, to about one year’s income.  Two-thirds of adult males could sign their own names vs. one-third in the mother country.  

Membership in a church was expected if not mandatory. The church of choice was Congregational and the election to membership was not guaranteed.  After 1635, a candidate, and both men and women joined separately, had to appear before a group of elders and demonstrate adherence to Calvinist doctrines, the attainment of a godly life and show experience of a spiritual conversion.  The spiritual basis of their society was fully shared by all members of the community.  

Calvinist/Puritan beliefs of the time included five core elements: depravity, covenant, election, grace and love.  

Depravity was the concept that the sin of Adam totally corrupted natural man. Evil was a real presence and there was a cosmic struggle between darkness and light.  No evil or atrocity ever surprised them.  

The Puritans founded their belief in covenant on the book of Genesis.  God offered salvation without preconditions but with many obligations; the contract with the Almighty.   This is not prominent in the writing of Calvin but became of high importance to the people of Massachusetts.  

Calvin taught a doctrine of limited atonement. Christ died for the elect few not for all mankind.  

Grace was the “motion of the heart”.   Grace was the concept that one who was elect could feel an “ecstatic intimacy with the divine.”  To the Puritans this was “soul liberty.”  

Most difficult for us to grasp today might be their concept of love.  They believed that they were obliged to love one another as God loves each of them.  This was a love that allowed and even encouraged the exchange of loving praise as well as loving admonitions.  

Climate: 
The seventeenth century saw a little ice age; with ocean temperatures 5 degrees colder than today.  The growing season in New England was limited to the five months between killing frosts, two months shorter than in the plantations of Virginia.  The climate was wet with 40 inches of precipitation a year vs. East Anglia’s 25.  Additionally the land was often poor. The coast was mostly rocky shoals or marshes with few large inland rivers.  

These factors contributed to the prevalence of family farms and the absence of large tracts of land tilled by servants or slaves.  The cold was a hardship but reduced summer illnesses that killed many infants children elsewhere. While there were several efforts to introduce slaves from Africa by non-Puritan adventurers, the high frequency of death from pulmonary infections made slavery impractical.  In fact average rates of mortality in Massachusetts fell below most other places in the Western world.  (I should point out that the first settlers comprised a variety of age groups in the same distribution as their home in East Anglia except for those over 60 who were mostly absent. This lack of an elderly population might account for some of the reduction in death rate.)  

Architecture:  

Birthplace of John Adams

It really did require that I go over all of the preceding to build a foundation for this next part of the story.  Hopefully you’ll agree.  

The earliest settlers adopted the vernacular architecture of the east of England, rare in areas of England outside of the southeast of the country, contributing the the unique look of our New England homes.

The home on the left was built in 1681 in what was then Braintree, MA and was the birthplace of John Adams.  The “saltbox”; style is common in New England but actually comes to us from East Anglia where it derived from a common building technique.  The roofs in that area are typically “twelve pitch” (a rise of 1 inch for a run of 12 inches.) Such homes feature a massive central chimney, a central entrance to a rectangular floor plan with two rooms on either side and smaller rooms upstairs.  Over time a kitchen lean-to was built on the back of these homes and the roof was extended along the original rear roof line creating what came to be called a salt box style.    

Cape Cod Home Style

Another style brought from eastern England is what we now call the Cape Cod.  It was developed by cottagers who built small sleeping quarters over their simple one story homes.  Like the two story salt box, they were typically sheathed with clapboards and sometimes shingles and also featured a central chimney and entry.  Dormer windows did not appear in these homes until much later.   By the way, the use of the name “Cape Cod” to refer to these homes is usually attributed to the president of Yale University who visited the area in 1800 and chronicled his travels.  For more on this style, please read an earlier blog entry.  

Summary:

The settlers of Massachusetts were, for the most part:

• of similar social and economic rank
• from the same area in the east of England 
• tradesmen and merchants; not principally farmers
• people who lived in hamlets and small villages in small houses near roadways
• not large landowners but rather owned small family farms
• resisted central authority whether it be royalty or bishops  
• members of the Congregational Church who elected members to their ranks
• self-governing with direct, local involvement in their community

By the completion of the Great Migration in the 1640’s much of the culture and folkways of our area were well established. The Massachusetts town meeting owes its independent character to the neighborhood structure of East Anglia and the Congregational, egalitarian form of community organization prevalent in Massachusetts at the time.  The homes of our area directly copy the home styles of the settlers’ homes in England.  In short, towns such as Hingham retain much of the character of their earliest years and, not surprisingly, are among the favorites of visitors from England today.

¹  The material in this post is based on an excellent history of British colonization of America.     

Please buy this book!

Please read Albions Seed, Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer.