American historic carpentry defines the historic methods with which wooden buildings were built in North America since European settlement. Several methods were used to form the wooden walls, and the types of structural carpentry are often defined by the wall, floor, and roof construction such as log, timber framed, balloon framed, or stacked plank. Some types of historic houses are called plank houses, but plank house has several meanings which are discussed below. Roofs were almost always framed with wood, sometimes with timber roof trusses. Stone and brick buildings also have some wood framing for floors, interior walls and roofs.
Background Building methods were passed down from a master carpenter to an apprentice verbally, through demonstration, and through work experience.Noble, Allen George. Traditional buildings a global survey of structural forms and cultural functions. London: I.B. Tauris, 2007. 7. Print. Designs, engineering details, floor plans, and methods were time tested and communicated through rules of thumb rather than scientific study and documents. Each region of the world has variations on traditions, tools and materials. The carpenters in the New World based their work on their traditions but adapted to local materials, climate, and culture. Immigrants to America were from all parts of the world so the history of American carpentry is very diverse and complex, but it is only four or five centuries old, a fraction of the history of many other regions.
Definitions Carpentry is one of the traditional trades but is not always clearly distinguished from the work of the joiner and cabinetmaker. In general, a carpenter historically did the heavier, rough work of framing a building including installing the sheathing and sub-flooring and installing pre-made doors and windows. Joiners did the finer work of installing trim and paneling.
Plank and board are not consistently defined in history; sometimes these terms are used synonymously. Board means a piece of lumber (timber) to thick and more than wide. Plank generally means a piece of lumber (timber) rectangular in shape and thicker than a board.
Wall types
Timber framing
Timber framing, historically called a braced frame, was the most common method of building wooden structures in AmericaHawkins, Reginald R., and Charles H. Abbe. New houses from old: a guide to the planning and practice of house remodeling.. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1948. Print. from the 17th-century European settlements until the early 20th century. In houses timber framing was replaced by balloon framing and then platform framing, and in barns plank or "joist" framing became popular. The framing in barns is usually visible, but in houses is usually covered with the siding material on the outside and plaster or drywall on the inside. Variations of timber framing are described based on their nature at the foundation, sill plate, wall, wall plate, and roof.
Posts which were dug into the ground are called post in ground (or earthfast) construction. This technique eliminated the need for bracing. Earthfast construction is still used for buildings and structures such as in pole building framing and stilt houses. Some buildings were framed with the posts landing on a foundation with interrupted sills. Most buildings were framed with the posts landing on a heavy timber sill. The sills were either laid directly onto the ground (which posed deterioration problems) or were supported by stones, masonry or (by the late 19th century) concrete.
The structural carpentry of the walls are of several types and are discussed in detail below. French settlers called placing studs or posts on a sill spaced slightly apart poteaux-sur-sol which is similar to the English close studding. These are examples of half timbering where the framing is infilled with another material such as a mud mixture, stones, or bricks. Half timbering in America is found in limited areas, mostly of German settlement, including Old Salem, North Carolina, parts of Missouri, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania. Much more common was to build a framed building and add brick nogging between the framing which may not be considered half timbering. Half timbering is an architectural element in Tudor and Tudor Revival architecture.
One of the earliest descriptions of how to build timber-framed buildings in America was in a publication titled Information and Direction to Such Persons as are Inclined to America, more Especially Those Related to the Province of Pennsylvania attributed to William Penn in 1684. Described is an post in ground, hewn frame "filled in" (half-timbered) with riven clapboards for the siding, roofing and loft flooring. The author calls this a "first house" distinguishing that it is suitable until such time a better house can be built and then this building can be used as an outbuilding: To build then, an House of thirty foot long and eighteen foot broad, with a partition near the middle, and an other to divide one end of the House into two small rooms, there must be eight Trees about sixteen Inches square, and cut off, to Posts of about fifteen foot long, which the House must stand upon, and four pieces, two of thirty foot long, and two of eighteen foot long, for Plates, which must lie upon the top of those Posts, the whole length and breadth of the House for the Gists [joists] to rest upon. There must be ten Gists of twenty foot long, to bear the Loft, and two false Plates of thirty foot long to lie upon the ends of the Gists for the Rafters to be fixed upon, twelve pair of Rafters of about twenty foot, to bear the Roof of the House, with several other small pieces; as Wind-beams, Braces, Studs, &c. which are made out of the Waste Timber. For Covering the House, Ends, and Sides, and for the Loft, we use Clabboard, which is Rived feather-edeged, of five foot and a half long, that well Drawn, [smoothed] lyes close and smooth: The Lodging Room may be lined with the same, and filled up between, which is very Warm. These houses usually endure ten years without repair.... The lower flour [floor] is the Ground, the upper Clabbord: This may seem a mean way of Building, but 'tis sufficient and safest among ordinary beginners..."Information and Direction to Such Persons as are Inclined to America, more Especially Those Related to the Province of Pennsylvania", reprinted in The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography Vol. IV. 1880. Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Historical Society. 329-342. Print.
Log building Log building is the second most common type of carpentry in American history. In some regions and periods it was more common than timber framing. There are many different styles of log carpentry: (1) where the logs are made into squared beams and fitted tightly. This style is typical of defensive structures called a blockhouse. The walls needed to be thick and strong and not have gaps between the logs; (2) Round logs are left spaced apart, often with the gaps filled with a material called chinking; (3) Planked log buildings have the wall timbers shaped into rectangular thus called planks and plank houses.
The C. A. Nothnagle Log House in Gibbstown, New Jersey, was constructed in 1638 and is believed to be the oldest surviving log house in the U.S. The house was built by colonial settlers in what was then the Swedish colony of New Sweden.OLDEST - Log House in North America - Superlatives on Waymarking.com
Balloon framing Balloon framing originated in the Midwest near Chicago in the 1830s. It is a type of American historic carpentry which was exported from America. Balloon framing is very important in history as the beginning of the transition away from the centuries-long method of timber framing to the common types of wood framing now in use.
Corner post construction
Corner post construction is known by many names listed below, but particularly as pièce sur pièce and it blurs the line between timber framing and log building. This type of carpentry has a frame with horizontal beams or logs tenoned into slots or mortises in the posts. Pièce sur pièce en coulisse (literally piece on piece in a groove) blurs the lines between log, plankwall and framing techniques.Dell Upton, John Michael Vlach. Common places: Readings in American Vernacular Architecture, referencing V. Gordon Childe, The Bronze Age, NY, Macmillan, 1930, pp. 206-8 Usually the origin of corner post construction is credited to the French in Canada and Germans or Swiss in the U.S.Jordan, Terry. "Alpine, Alemannic, and American Log Architecture", Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 70(1980), pp. 154-80
Horizontal wood pieces (poles, beams, planks) tenoned into grooves in posts allows shorter timbers to be used, and a building can be extended an indefinite length by adding more bays, typically measuring ten feet. Similar methods of construction are found in Scandinavia. It is one of the earliest building types of French Canada used extensively by the Hudson's Bay Company for trading posts across Canada. It became a common, widespread building method in Canada. Other French names reflect the shape of wood (bois) used between the posts such as planche en coulisse and bois en coulisse. Pièce sur pièce literally means piece on piece and also describes log building with notched corners or any kind of stacked construction.
These methods were used in the United States predominantly in early French forts and settlements along the Mississippi River, though examples occur in other states. "This sophisticated system, which uses carefully constructed mortise-and-tenon joints, was common from the 1820s to the 1860s and represents some 5 percent of the log houses built in western Maryland.”Gordon Bock and Douglass C. Reed, “Repairing a Historic Log Cabin: A variety of materials and methods work together in the structural repair of an 1850s log cabin”, Old House Journal, March/April 2001 Occasionally these buildings have earthfast posts.
Examples include the Cray House in Stevensville, Maryland, and the Navarre–Anderson Trading Post in Monroe County, Michigan. A particularly interesting example is the Golden Plough Tavern (c. 1741) in York, Pennsylvania, which has the ground level of corner-post construction, the second floor of fachwerk (half timbered) and was built with other Germanic features.Nancy S. Shedd. “Corner-Post Log Construction: Description, Analysis, and Sources” , A Report to Early American Industries Association. March 10, 1986, and updated 2011. A very interesting report discussing numerous examples found in PA, some examples with the rare feature of bracing which is also found in MD and Poland.
Plank-frame houses
Plank-frame house construction has a timber frame with the walls made of vertical planks attached to the frame. These houses may simply be called plank houses. Some historians prefer the term plank-on-frame. Plank-frame houses are known from the 17th century with concentrations in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. The carpentry consists of a timber frame with vertical planks extending from sill to plate. Sometimes there are studs at the doors, but mostly the vertical planks replace the studs. Both wood shingle or clapboard exterior siding and interior lath and plaster attach directly to the planks.Garvin, James L.. A building history of northern New England. Hanover: University Press of New England, 2001. 21. Print. Some examples of plank frame houses are the Richard Jackson House in New Hampshire and the Thomas and Esther Smith House in Massachusetts.
Palisade construction