Who Designed Our Old Doorways?
From a paper written by Frank Smith
and read before The Dover Historical
Society in 1920
There are no existing examples of the doors
made by the first Colonial settlers. From
the very nature of the case we know, however,
that the doors built by Henry Wilson, James
Draper, Andrew Dewing, John Bacon, Nathaniel
Chickering, Thomas Battelle, Eleazer Ellis,
and Ralph Day, the first settlers in the
town, were made from green wood which naturally
warped and shrunk. The cracks admitted wind,
snow and rain and for protection the skins
of the bear, the deer, and perhaps lesser
animals, were hung to curtain these rude
doors, and protect the family from the elements.
In this connection we will review the building
of homes in Dover. While clay suitable for
brick making was found in the river and
brook bottoms of the town, yet previous
to the close of the nineteenth century,
brick was never used for building purposes,
except in chimneys and the brick ends of
the houses of John Brown and Ebenezer Smith
on Farm Street, both of which houses are
still standing. Several attempts at brick
making were made in the years long since
passed but building in Dover was from the
first of wood because it was everywhere
found and lent itself to the design and
workmanship of the local carpenters.
“These men were masters of their crafts
and moreover were men of artistic sense”.
So it is an interesting question as to whom
we are endebted for the simple beauty found
in several Dover doorways.
In some of the early houses there was the
button door, consisting of two or three
vertical planks nailed firmly to a solid
backing of horizontal boards held together
by rough hand made nails. I remember such
doors in Dover houses which always looked
to me as though they were made to keep the
Indians out.
The evolution in building is well illustrated
in the reproduction of the James Draper
house on Springdale Avenue in the Genealogical
History of Dover. We find this style of
house, the low one story cottage giving
place to the two story lean-to, early in
the eighteenth century, as illustrated by
the Joseph Draper house on Farm Street and
still standing. The first houses were simple
rectangular lines. Their doorways opening
arranged for convenience. They were openings
offering passage through outside or inside
walls.
When the two story design was adopted, there
was often an element of beauty introduced
in the front door, which is well illustrated
in the front door in the Caryl Parsonage
and the pictures that have been preserved
of the Whiting-Williams Tavern which was
built in 1761.
These traces of beauty we are told are found
in houses all the way from Maine to South
Carolina, which fact argues some common
origin for them. The early homes, as already
said, were of simple rectangular lines and
carried out Lord Bacon’s saying that:
Houses are built to live in and not to look
on, so that these old type houses are in
demand today for occupancy by persons of
good taste. Now that the Caryl Parsonage
has been bequeathed to the town, to remain
in the custody of the Dover Historical Society,
it is hoped that we shall sometime see it
put in thorough repair even to the old martin
house under the eaves.
The early architects in this country, like
early surgeons, were all men of other callings.
Washington and Jefferson were statesmen;
Thornton and Bulfinch-physicians; Alexander
Hamilton a lawyer; and Simbert a portrait
painter; yet these men were the leading
amateur designers, before the Revolution,
who did the best work in architectural design.
Peter Harrison, who designed Kings Chapel
in Boston, was an architect of standing
but he was born and educated in England.
The best illustration of Thomas Jefferson’s
ability as an architect is found in the
design of the University of Virginia, with
its serpentine walls, long rows of one story
dormitories, which extend for a long distance
on either side of the campus. When visited
some years ago by President Eliot, it was
pronounced by him the most beautiful campus
in the United States. It certainly is unlike
any other college campus.
The carpenters who designed our doorways
got their suggestions from books on carpentry
published in England, of which Langley was
the leading author. His books appeared at
various times from 1726 to 1756. They were
intended for the use of carpenters and gave
measured drawings of columns, pilasters,
architraves, etc. It has been found by those
who have made a study of old doorways that
selections were made from these publications
by the local carpenters who followed the
designs with exactness or modified them
to suit their own tastes and judgment. “They
knew the importance of proportions and their
work shows their close attention to this
feature vital in all good architecture”.
A recent writer has said: The leading architects
of the present time can produce nothing
in doorways superior to many of those produced
by master artisans of the eighteenth century,
and few give to the matter of proportions
the careful attention that was given by
the carpenter builders of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries.
We know that Hezekiah Allen, the first carpenter
of the town, was the chairman of the Committee
for building the meeting-house in 1748.
I have always suspected that the doors to
the meeting-house were more ornamental than
the town seal would suggest; the central
figure of which represents the first meeting-house
of the town, drawn in its exact proportions.
The Draper House, on Farm Street, built
in 1724, was without doubt designed and
built by Hezekiah Allen. The town is to
be congratulated that this old house is
still standing and has recently been put
in excellent repair. The house, in style
and proportions, is much like Mr. Allen’s
own house, built about the same time on
Pegan Hill, which was removed only a few
years ago when the late Mr. Fuller built
a new house on the site. As the style of
doorway in the Whiting-Williams Tavern,
built in 1761 is different from the doorway
of the Caryl Parsonage, built in 1777, it
is fair to assume that they were not the
work of the same carpenter. I incline to
the belief that Hezekiah Allen built the
tavern doorway and that Ralph Day built
the one in the old parsonage. Hezekiah Allen
was not living at the time the parsonage
was built while Ralph Day, one of Mr. Caryl’s
deacons, was in his prime as an active citizen
and carpenter of the town. It is known that
Ralph Day built the Fuller House on Strawberry
Hill Street in 1756, (John A. Sullivan house)
and continued as the carpenter of the town
for many years thereafter. Other interesting
doorways are found in the homes of Jabez
Baker, on Dedham Street and William Tisdale
on Walpole Street but these designs must
be credited to the carpenters of a later
period. The front door in Dr. Evans house
on Farm Street, the home of Fisher Allen,
was built in 1808. When the house was remodeled,
some years since, the door was taken out
and set in one of the buildings connecting
the house and barn. This doorway was designed
by Daniel Mann, the son-in-law of Mr. Allen,
who previous to 1835 was for forty years
the leading builder in Dover.
It is hard to account for an entire absence
of knockers on the old doors of the town.
Hardware has been been termed “the
jewelry of the house” and little if
any has been found in Dover houses in the
shape of brass hinges, latches and knockers.
Surely the knocker is a symbol of welcome
and it always a pleasure to think of the
hands that lifted it. The absence of a hardware
store may account for this neglect but surely
the latch-string was always out to welcome
guests. The Dover Historical
Society
PO Box 534
Dover, MA 02030
info@doverhistoricalsociety.org |