A Finishes Study of the Dutch-American Stone Houses of Bergen County, New Jersey
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THE COLORS OF CULTURE: A FINISHES STUDY OF THE DUTCH-AMERICAN STONE HOUSES OF BERGEN COUNTY, NEW JERSEY Kimberly Michele De Muro Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Science in Historic Preservation Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation Columbia University May 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iii Introduction .................................................................................................................................... iv Methodology .................................................................................................................................. ix Chapter 1: The Early History of Colonial Bergen County and the Bergen County Dutch ............. 1 Chapter 2: The Perseverance of Dutch Culture in Northern New Jersey ....................................... 7 Chapter 3: The Evolution of Dutch-American Architecture ......................................................... 11 Chapter 4: The Availability of Pigments to the Residents of Bergen County and the Consumer Revolution of the Eighteenth Century .......................................................................................... 19 Transportation and Trade in Colonial New Jersey .................................................................... 19 Painters’ Colors and Pigments in New York City and the American Colonies ........................ 22 Chapter 5: Dutch Paint Use: Material Culture and Architecture .................................................. 40 Eighteenth Century Colonial Paintings & Seventeenth Century Dutch Genre Paintings ......... 41 Dutch-American Furniture ........................................................................................................ 53 Contemporary Accounts from the Eighteenth Century ............................................................. 55 Early Studies of Dutch-American Architecture ........................................................................ 58 Recent Scholarship & Architectural Remnants ......................................................................... 60 Additional Paint Studies ............................................................................................................ 65 Wyckoff-Garretson House ..................................................................................................... 65 Van Cortlandt Manor ............................................................................................................. 67 Dutch Period Room (Daniel Peter Winne House) ................................................................. 69 Jan Martense Schenck House ................................................................................................ 70 Abraham Hasbrouck House ................................................................................................... 71 Chapter 6: Paint Studies in Bergen County .................................................................................. 74 The Westervelt House ............................................................................................................... 74 John Naugle House.................................................................................................................... 77 Isaac Naugle House ................................................................................................................... 80 Additional Bergen County Paint Samples ................................................................................. 83 Chapter 7: Analysis: Dutch Paint Use in Bergen County ............................................................. 88 The John Naugle, Isaac Naugle, and Westervelt Houses: A Comparison ................................ 88 The John Naugle, Isaac Naugle, and Westervelt Houses: Paint Study Comparison ................. 90 Interior ................................................................................................................................... 91 Exterior .................................................................................................................................. 93 The John Naugle, Isaac Naugle, and Westervelt Houses: A Colonial Bergen County Comparison ............................................................................................................................... 94 Interior ................................................................................................................................... 96 Exterior .................................................................................................................................. 97 Chapter 8: Colonial Bergen County and Geographic Areas Outside of the County: A Comparison ............................................................................................................................... 98 Colonial Bergen County and the Larger Dutch Cultural Region .......................................... 99 Comparisons to Colonial America ...................................................................................... 102 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 108 Further Areas of Study ................................................................................................................ 109 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 111 Appendix I: Westervelt House Paint Study ................................................................................ 125 Appendix II: John Naugle House Paint Study ............................................................................ 135 Appendix III: Isaac Naugle House Paint Study .......................................................................... 149 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe many thanks to the people and organizations who graciously assisted me with the completion of my thesis, including: Tim Adriance, Mary Jablonski, John R. Stevens, Bill McMillan, the Bergen County Department of Historic and Cultural Affairs, the Materials Conservation Collaborative, LLC, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lisa Bruno and the Brooklyn Museum, Historic Hudson Valley, the Passaic County Historical Society, the Upper Saddle River Historical Society, the Bergen County Historical Society, the Fenimore Art Museum (Albany, New York), the Kunstmuseum Basel (Basel, Switzerland), and The State Hermitage Museum (Saint Petersburg, Russia). I am sure this list does not capture everyone who helped me through this process, but know that I am thankful even though I am somewhat forgetful! I am very appreciative that Dr. Arthur and Esther Goldberg and Kevin and Janet Tremble allowed me to take paint samples from their homes, and Tim Adriance allowed me to take paint samples from his salvaged architectural elements. I am also appreciative for the assistance and guidance I received from my thesis advisor, Janet W. Foster, and my readers, T. Robins Brown, and Catherine Dewey. Last, but certainly not least, I am forever grateful for the love, support, and never-ending encouragement I received from my parents, Linda and Paul, my grandma, Dorothy, my siblings, Nicole and Chris, my dear friend Jill, and my husband, Jason, throughout this journey. iii INTRODUCTION The Dutch-American Stone Houses of Bergen County, New Jersey represent “one of the largest surviving clusters of a significant early American regional building type” in the United States.1 Built from the early eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century, these houses are commonly characterized by the employment of structural members based upon H-bent frame construction, red sandstone elevations, and steep gable or gambrel-shaped roofs. Although a large body of research has been undertaken concerning this vernacular house type, including research on those stylistic traits just mentioned, little if any research has been published concerning the architectural finishes of these distinct structures. The aim of this thesis is to identify if a palette of distinctively Dutch paint colors for interior and exterior paints existed and was employed in the Dutch- American Stone Houses of Bergen County from 1740 to 1776; or, if the paint colors employed within these houses were part of a larger colonial trend. Interior and exterior architectural finishes were widely employed by those living in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, and the practice transferred with this cultural group to the New World. Although there is no physical evidence of architectural finishes during the earliest years of New Netherlands’ settlement, by the beginning of English rule in 1664 architectural paint was employed on both interior and exterior architectural surfaces of Dutch and Dutch-American houses.2 Although the Dutch in colonial Bergen County would have constructed houses during their earliest years of settlement from the mid-seventeenth century through the early to mid-eighteenth century, 1 T. Robins Brown & Schuyler Warmflash, The Architecture of Bergen County, New Jersey: The Colonial Period to the Twentieth Century (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001), 3. 2 Lisa Bruno, email message to the author, March 10, 2011; Site visit by the author to the DeWint House, Tappan, NY, April 2011. iv few, if any, of these early