a single fire, as large as might be needed, would be served as well by two flues as by one. Once more there is European precedent for at least part of this arrangement, since in the middle ages there were sometimes two fireplaces in the same chimney and in the same room. Possibly these things are signs of a conservative love of old ways in Whitfield; at all events it is pleasant to look at the fireplace beside which the smaller Whitfields may have scowled at their hornbooks or their accidence, and think of its uncommon though partial likeness to the one from which a small Shakespeare dragged himself, a whining school boy with his satchel 66 And shining morning face, creeping like snail This fireplace is farther noticeable for the disproportion between its length, ten feet and four inches, and its height, not quite four feet; the former making it easier to have two small fires, the latter easier to supply a sufficient draft for them, or for one large one, and so lessening the danger of a smoky chimney. The eye is at once struck by another peculiarity, of modern origin, the raising of the present floor about eight inches above the ancient hearth. This took place, for the most part, in 1868, when a new floor had to be laid and the whole building was made higher. There would have seemned no reason for keeping the floor on a level with a fireplace which had long been not only out of use but out of sight. In making the final changes, now finished, the construction of another and lower floor would have been too costly and the surface was simply rendered even by being covered with oak, and at the north end was two inches higher than before. The difference in height at least emphasized the characteristics of the ancient fireplace and it was more important to show that as nearly as possible in its original condition than to bring modern work into conformity with it. It is proper to add that the ruins of a brick oven were found on the left, or east side of the fireplace, but this is supposed to have been introduced by Jasper Griffing towards the close of the eighteenth century. Of greater consequence are marks which seem to indicate a fireplace on the level of the second floor. If this is original it shows that this floor was in existence from the beginning and that the tradition of a high hall must be given up. But Mr. Isham does not believe the upper fireplace to have been built at that early period, but to have been constructed when the second floor was built. Mr. Isham is certain that from four to eight feet at the top of the chimney consists of modern work. We are told that the walls of the house, originally fifteen feet high, were raised two and a half feet in 1868, and the chimney would naturally have been raised as much as the walls, or more. A comparison of pictures taken before and after that date seems to show that the chimney rises higher above the roof than was once the case. It is, moreover, reasonable to assume that the old top needed repairs and so we can explain the new work without assuming that much of the old work has disappeared. There is, in fact, no doubt that not only the fireplace but the larger part of the chimney are what they were when first built. And what they then were in general character has long been visible from without at a point where the stucco has fallen from the chimney, showing the old masonry. This consists, in Mr. Isham's words, “of rather small flat stones, with large mortar joints," and the old masonry inside is of the same description, as far as it has been uncovered. In fact it was not the nature but the extent of what remains of the original structure which most of us have particularly desired to ascertain. This could only be done by the removal of the plaster, and it was impossible to remove enough to settle the question without diverting money given for the construction of an exhibition room from its designated purpose. The north wall was exposed by the side of and above the fireplace to a point somewhat higher than the second floor. Except for the triangular space already mentioned directly over the fireplace, what was laid bare was old, as was expected. A large part of this wall adjoining the chimney may fairly be supposed to be original, with allowance made, of course, for what may have been added at the top when the walls were heightened. The east or rear wall extends but a few feet, ending with the wing or ell, or rather with what was a small room in the reëntrant angle, which might have been a stairwell and which occupied the place of the present stairs. The little work that was uncovered in the east wall seemed old, and relatively old work was found near the angle in the wall of the wing. The west wall, or that facing the street, was uncovered only at the front door, and on the line of the second floor when that was removed. In neither place does old masonry seem to have been found. It may, nevertheless, exist below the level of the second floor. Such testimony as has been obtained about the changes made in 1868 is conflicting, but it is on the whole to the effect that as much as half of the ancient wall was not disturbed, the larger part of that being to the north of the door. But if the architect saw no old work above the level of the second floor, and some new work below it, we seem forced to the conclusion that less of the west wall is original than had been supposed, though some of it may be presumed to be so. Of the south wall, Mr. Ishạm writes: "Everything seemed to show that the wall had been rebuilt"; he remembers "no old work." And it is the general, though not the universal, opinion of those who remember the changes of 1868 that the south wall is substantially new. In the foundation some new work was found in the form of a lining, but the old work remained behind it and there seems no reasonable doubt that the original foundation of at least the main building is virtually intact. But could the modern part of the house be made to disappear we should certainly see a roofless ruin, with the great north chimney, like a low crumbling tower, standing amongst and partly supporting ragged fragments of wall, but a ruin in which we could trace three sides of the square room in which we have fancied Whitfield to have faced his first New England winter in the late autumn of 1639. But what should we see if chimney and walls stood as Whitfield left them in 1650? There are several pictures of the building made before the general reconstruction of 1868, and the Museum contains a model prepared in 1855. Changes had been made in the course of the eighteenth century but we do not know that they affected the external appearance of the house except by the removal of the south chimney, the introduction of at least one window in front and the enlargement of others. And there is a view based on a drawing made in 1862, and agreeing with the model just mentioned, which is not only far more picturesque than the rest, but is so largely in virtue of the correspondence which appears between the wing on the east and the venerable north end, so that the former looks not less venerable. Of the north end, as shown in the picture in question, it is enough to say that it looks, as it should, lower than at present and in consequence a little broader, which it was not. In the angle between the main building and the ell is the small stone structure already referred to as perhaps a stairwell, and which strengthens the picturesque effect of angles and broken lines characteristic of this view. The effect is completed by another projecting chimney at the east end or rear of the ell of the same general pattern as the principal one and strongly suggesting an essentially contemporaneous origin. It is naturally smaller than the other, and has only one sloping offset instead of three, but makes up for this sobriety of outline by thrusting itself into and finally emerging from an aggressively overhanging wooden gable which contained two secret closets, one on each side of the chimney, and behind the wall. All this is lost in the modern wing, which has no irregularities of form, is longer than its predecessor by the width of one room, and is of the height of the main building. As to the arrangement of the interior in Whitfield's time, we have even less material for positive assertion, and can assert positively only this, that after 1868, at all events, there remained no recognizable traces of the original arrangement. Hence, in such changes as might be made, there was no danger of destroying anything ancient existing within the walls. There is still preserved an oak stair-rail made of the old timber, but this throws no light on the primitive interior. I have, however, already referred to a tradition that the front part of the house consisted of a single room as high as the side walls, if not as high as the roof. This apartment was used, it is said, for public worship and, we may suppose, for other public assem blies, until the first meeting-house was built, presumably three or four years after the settlement. It was made more suitable for family use by folding partitions which could be let down or drawn up as occasion required. This tradition is traceable to a former owner of the house, Mrs. Nathaniel Griffing, who died in 1865, when she lacked but two days of completing her ninety-eighth year, and who was, of course, born in 1767. Her husband had inherited the Whitfield property in 1800, and her interest in it must have been strong much earlier, while the tradition must have come down from some period still nearer the days of Whitfield. The circumstantial character of this account renders it more credible. If it be asked how the house, even with movable partitions and even when enlarged by the erection of the ell, containing very likely an upper room, could have been a comfortable abode for Mr. Whitfield's large family, it can be replied that few persons would have asked the question then. A generation or two earlier, and to some extent in Whitfield's own generation, a country squire in England might have had as few rooms and as small a house as the first minister of Guilford. At the close of the seventeenth century the house of an important county family had but one upper room, where the squire slept in a curtained bed while his daughters and the maids slept without curtains around him, and the sons and serving-men in the hall below, in which, moreover, the entire household sat when indoors during the day. In this case, as in multitudes of others, the original high hall had evidently been divided by a floor, but this was almost always done after, perhaps long after, the house was built, and was done, of course, at an additional outlay, by way of improvement, just as a modern house is often made more spacious and commodious as the owner's wealth increases. Hence, Mr. Whitfield's high hall, if he had one, might have been the result of a wish to avoid extravagance rather than of a wish to give greater dignity to his dwelling. His own wealth need not have prevented this, for if, as is practically certain, he was very influential in framing the early "orders" of the town, then we may doubtless see his hand in the precaution (not taken in New Haven) against the acquisi |