forty feet in length and eighteen or twenty in breadth.[1] Christopher Branch of Henrico County, a planter in comfortable circumstances, who died in the latter part of the seventeenth century, gave directions in his will that there should be erected for his son a residence twenty feet long and sixteen wide, and for his grandson a dwelling to be made up of four series of boards five feet from end to end. The house in which he himself lived was twenty feet in length and fifteen in width.[2] Richard Ward of Henrico left instructions that a dwelling twenty feet wide and thirty feet long should be built for his son. Five chimneys were to be erected.[3]
It is quite probable that the residences of the ministers represented the average dimensions of the dwelling-houses in Virginia at this period of colonial history. In 1635, there was erected in one of the parishes of the Eastern Shore a wooden parsonage, forty feet in width, eighteen feet in depth, and nine feet in the valley. A chimney was raised at each end. An apartment was attached to the main structure on either side, one being used as a study, the other as a buttery.
The number of rooms in the dwelling-house of this century varied with the size of the structure; thus the residence of Governor Berkeley at Green Spring was divided into six apartments, while that of William Fitzhugh contained twelve or thirteen. The Stratton dwelling-house in Henrico had three chambers above and one below stairs, a hall, kitchen, and pantry. The kitchen was probably
- ↑ Records of York County, vol. 1638-1648, p. 318, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Records of Henrico County, vol. 1677-1692, p. 209; Ibid., original vol. 1697-1704, pp. 192, 195.
- ↑ Sometimes the specifications called for one inside and one outside chimney. Records of York County, vol. 1691-1701, p. 205, Va. State Library.
