Unpretentious as most of the houses in the Colony were in the seventeenth century, it is found that there is not infrequent use in different records of the expression the “Great House,” which was so familiar among the negroes in later times, when the planters had accumulated large wealth and exhausted much of it in erecting residences of fine proportions. When James Knott, in 1632, leased a part of the public lands laid off in Elizabeth City by the Company some years before its dissolution, he obtained the privilege of holding not only the fifty acres included in the temporary grant, but also the house standing upon the tract and “commonly called the Great House.”[1] It is evident from this that the expression did not have its origin with the slaves, but was probably transmitted from England. That it was in use, was no certain evidence that many large mansions were to be found in the Colony, since it was relative in its significance. There were also references to the planter’s residence as the “Manor House.” The typical dwelling of Virginia in the seventeenth century—and innumerable examples of the same kind have survived to the present day—was a framed building of moderate size with a chimney at each end. The early records of the eastern counties show the manner in which these houses were erected, and the outlay their construction entailed. Reference by way of illustration may be made to a few instances which have thus been preserved. In 1679, Major Thomas Chamberlayne, one of the most prominent citizens of Henrico, entered into an agreement with James Gates, a carpenter of the same county, by the terms of which, Gates was required to prepare the frame of a house that was to be forty feet in length and twenty
- ↑ Va. Land Patents, vol. 1623-1643, p. 133. The residence of Mr. Sparks in Lancaster is also described in the records of that county as the “Great House.” See original vol. 1690-1709, pp. 19, 20.
