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Architectural Change in Colonial Rhode Island: The Mott House as a Case Study’ DELL UPTON he history of vernacular architecture site.4 Once the successive strata of the in early New England was a history fabric had been removed, it became clear T of local, then regional, synthesis. In that the history of the house was more the seventeenth century, New England’s complex than was at first apparent. The builders transformed a heterogeneouscol- earliest surviving portion of the building, lection of provincial English building types dating from the third or fourth quarter of and technologies into several relatively the seventeenth century, was possibly the homogeneous local American architec- oldest timber-framed structure standing in tures, still firmly based in English tra- Rhode Island, but the house had achieved ditions but imitating no one of them nor its final form in two further builds in the each other exactly.2 These intensely local early and mid eighteenth century, and also forms were gradually supplanted by re- through innumerable minor alterations gional ones in the eighteenth century. which continued until it was abandoned in Nowhere is this process of synthesis and 1%9. Systematic disassembly provided a replacement more evident than in Rhode rare opportunity to study this structural Island. There a local tradition based on complexity. plank framing, a principal-rafter-and-purlin roof structure and a single-cell additive I plan flourished briefly in the late seven- teenth and early eighteenth centuries, only The Motts came to Portsmouth at the to give way to a New England-wide system time of its establishment in 1638and were characterized most strikingly by the fami- freemen of the town and colony from the liar double-pile, central chimney mass with beginning. The town was founded by out- a five-bay, symmetrical facade. This article cast Massachusetts Bay merchants who will illuminate that change by examining a hoped to see it become a thriving port, but a single building in the context of Rhode splinter group usurped that role for New- Island vernacular architecture between the port. Portsmouth thereupon sank into a middle of the seventeenthand the middle of quiet agricultural existence which per- the eighteenth centuries. sisted through the remainder of the seven- The Mott House (fig. I) was located on a teenth century. In this insular atmosphere, IOO-acretract of land on the west shore of the Motts evolved from a family unable to Aquidneck Island in Portsmouth, Rhode care for its patriarch (who became a town Island. The original 130-acre holding as- sembled by Adam Mott, Sr. and his de- Dell Upton is architectural historian for the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commissionand scendants between 1640and the final divi- has taught at Brown University and George sion of the Portsmouth town lands in 1713/4 WashingtonUniversity. He recently completed remained in family hands until 1895 and his Ph.D. thesison the early vemaculararchitec- was undivided until 1909, when the U.S. ture of southeasternVirginia for the American Civilization programat Brown University, and Navy purchased thirty peripheral acres has published articles and reviews in Folklore from the southern edge of the farm.3 Forum, APT Bulletin, AIA Journal, Southern In 1973, the house was moved from its Exposure, and otherjournals. 18 Architectural Change in Colonial Rhode Island 19 FIG. 1. THE MOIT HOUSE FROM THE EAST, 1973. The two southwindows (left) mark the seventeenth-centurysection. (Photograph by Jan Armor.) charge), to one whose head served as a representative to the colonial legislature.5 Adam Mott, Sr. (d. 1661)probably built a houseon his new farm in 1640,the year that he received a grant from the town, subject to the customary stipulation that a dwelling be built on it within one year.6 During the next halfcentury Jacob Mott I(1635171 U2) built a single-room, story-and-a-half struc- ture about sixteen feet square adjacent to the original house, possibly for the use of one of his sons (fig. 2).’ This small building was demolished in the early eighteenth century and replaced FIG. 2. FIRST STAGE OF THE MOTT by a two-story structure, but enough evi- HOUSE, BEFORE CA. 1680.This tiny house dence remained to suggestits form and to was demolishedin the early eighteenthcentury, indicate that it had been a stone ender, a but enoughevidence remained to determine its distinctive Rhode Island house type with a size and the locationof its chimney. Here and in figures 3 and 6 only those door and fireplace projecting end chimney similar to those openingsfor which evidence survived in 1973 found on the extant Clemence-Irons and have been indicated, and all window openings Thomas Fenner houses.* have been omitted. (Drawing by author.) 20 Old- Time New England A large addition, the earliest surviving part of the house, was built about 1680(fig. 3). It was a two-story building framed with studs. Like its predecessor,it originally had a single large room in each story, and an enormous stone end chimney. At first there was a second-story jetty, or overhang, twenty-one inches deep on the east end. This was an unusual but not unknown fea- ture in early New England. In most jettied houses, the overhangswere on a long side, or on both a long side and the gable ends.9 - Significant portions of the original roof framing of this 1680 section were intact in 1973 (fig. 4). There had been four principal-rafter trusses, with thirteen closely spaced pur- lins (members lying in the plane of the roof FIG. 3. THE MOT-I HOUSE, CA. 1680.A and connecting the trusses) let into chan- large stone-endhouse (solid lines) has been added to the south of the original structure (hol- nels in the backs of the rafters. The apex of low lines) and the principal entrance is now on its the one complete truss had been uncoupled south side. Dotted line indicates location ofjetty. and the rafters declined from their original (Drawing by author.) 52-degree pitch to the lesser 49-degree pitch of the south slope of an eighteenth- century roof that they then supported. Other pieces also helped to support the that is, with the exterior and interior finish newer roof.iO Inside, each room was deco- attached to light vertical members posi- rated with vertical sheathingand had elabo- tioned at intervals between the major struc- rate moldings along the leading edgesof the tural posts, the new wing was plank-framed exposed structural members in the ceiling (fig. 7). Closely setvertical planks about 1% (fig. 5).ii A winder stair, supported on the inches thick and 12 to 18 inches wide, and chimney, ascendedin the southwestcomer extending from top to bottom of the frame, of the chimney bay of the new house. were peggedat intervals to the major hori- Between approximately 1725 and 1730, zontal framing members. No studs were the secondJacob Mott (1661-1736/7)under- used, and the interior and exterior cover- took drastic alterations to the family house. ings were attached directly to the planks. A mature man when he inherited the farm In the entrance of this newest section a in 1711 or 1712, he had to accommodate stair with flat sawn balusters was installed. several of his eight children and probably It was needed to replace the one in the his mother in the small building. Ultimately chimney bay of the 1680 house, for, when he demolished the original section of the he built his addition, Jacob Mott II made house (fig. 2) and replaced it with a two- extensive changes to that section as well. story, single-room ell, a formally up-to- He tore down the massivestone chimney at date version of the earlier house to which it its west end and set off the chimney bay as was attached, and built a kitchen lean-to at a separate room. The other stone chimney the rear of the new room (fig. 6). base (belonging to the demolished original Structurally this latest section was very room) was reworked, its flues rerouted, different from the earlier portions of the and a replacement fireplace provided for house. Where they had been stud-framed, the 1680 hall.i2 The stack was rebuilt in Architectural Change in Colonial Rhode Island 21 FIG. 4. ROOF STRUCTURE OF THE MOTT HOUSE. Within the mid-eighteenth-centuryhipped roof, a complete 1680truss with its thirteen purlin mortises(center) survives,along with a rafter from the 1725addition (lower left). (Photographby Jan Armor.) brick from the second-floor level to allow which distinguished much American for fireplaces in the upper chambers. A domestic architecture in the eighteenth and large brick kitchen fireplace in the new nineteenth centuries.t3 With the exception leanto was attached to the older base. Fi- of minor alterations and the addition of a nally, the jetty was removed and the new kitchen ell in the mid nineteenth century, wing tied to the old by two twenty- no other changes were made to the Mott one-inch-long, inch-and-a-half-thick iron House until it was demolished. spikes, driven through the adjacent postsof the two sections at second-story level. The house stood in this form for only II twenty or twenty-five years. The next Few American houseshave had so com- owner, Jacob Mott III (16!20-1781),enlarged plex or so rapidly changing a history or it still further. He removed the kitchen have incorporated such varied plan forms lean-to and its adjacent open shedand put a and structural systems into one building. two-story, full-length addition across the Yet on the surface of it there is little about rear (fig.

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