Lives and Legacies
In this video, stone and brick mason Ray Cannetti and his crew turn burnt oyster shells from last summer’s lime rick burn into powdered lime to use in mortar in the reconstructed Washington house chimneys.
Learn more about the Washington House here and view other videos, photos, and blog posts about the project at here.
Brickmasons Ray Cannetti, Robert Hall, and Kevin Nieto recently finished building the second of three chimneys for the Washington house at George Washington’s Ferry Farm. Located on the house’s north side and made from hand molded brick by the Old Carolina Brick Company, this chimney includes two fireplaces. One fireplace each on the first and second floors. These images show Kevin working on the second story’s fireplace as well as the entire chimney after it was completed and the scaffolding around it was removed last week. To see photos of the east chimney being built click here.
A few weeks ago at George Washington’s Ferry Farm, painters finished painting the exterior of the Washington house. They used a red color known as “Spanish brown.” The paint is linseed oil-based and actually behaves more like a stain. Modern oil-based paint can, in a way, be thought of as a plastic that laying atop the surface and coating the wood. The historic pigment we used actually seeps into the wood itself and essentially stains the wood the deep red.
In the 18th century, the pigment came from clay mixed with red lead, an iron oxide. The paint was “made by grinding the earth into a very fine powered consistency that would then be added to the linseed oil and turpentine – the content of the dirt and the amount used ultimately determined the color” which could range from “burnt orange through reds and into browns.”
Why did we choose Spanish brown as the Washington house’s exterior paint? Well, we have evidence, both documentary and archaeologically, that suggests the original Washington home was this very color.
First, our archaeologists recovered fragments of plaster with Spanish brown on them, which demonstrates the color was available and used at Ferry Farm.
Second, Mason Locke Weems wrote “The house in which he lived is still to be seen. It lifts its low and modest front of faded red, over the turbid waters of the Rappahannock.” (Page 11) While Weems included myths about Washington, his biography was published in 1800 meaning the house could certainly have still been standing for either him to visit or for persons who had seen the house to describe it too him. We know the house became a ruin just after 1830.
Finally, when paint analysis of colonial houses is done, Spanish brown is frequently encountered. The color was extremely popular during the 1700s. Here in Virginia paint analysis found it used at William Randolph’s Tuckahoe and in Williamsburg at Nathaniel Walthoe’s storehouse, Bruton Parish Church, and, most notably, the Peyton Randolph House.[1]
Spanish brown was also popular beyond Virginia. It adorned the Palmer-Marsh House in North Carolina and Sotterley Plantation in Maryland.[2] A survey of advertisements for Rhode Island paint shops between 1760 and 1819 found it offered “in nearly every ad.”
Spanish brown was “the ubiquitous color of colonial America” and “was cheap, probably the cheapest available – dirt cheap because it was dirt.” Its inexpensiveness did not prevent it from being popular among the gentry class. If possible, the Washingtons and their fellow gentry would have preferred homes of brick that symbolized “dominance, prosperity, and social status.” With this desire in mind, “red paint in its various shades can be seen as an attempt to give otherwise well-finished frame buildings the same aura of permanence that brickwork offered.”[3]
Zac Cunningham
Manager of Educational Programs
[1] Susan Buck and Willie Graham, Chap. 15 “Paint” in The Chesapeake House: Architectural Investigation by Colonial Williamsburg, ed. by Cary Carson and Carl R. Lounsbury, Raleigh, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 364.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
The roof of the rebuilt Washington house at Ferry Farm was recently completed. The work was done by tradesmen using a mix of 18th century building methods and 21st century equipment. The roofing was done by Peter Post Restorations.
Learn more about the Washington House here and view other videos, photos, and blog posts about the project here.
Painters recently finished painting the exterior of the Washington house at Ferry Farm. The house was painted a red color common to the 18th century and known as “Spanish brown.” The paint was linseed oil-based just as it would have been in the 1700s. We’ll have a more detailed blog post in a few weeks explaining how we came to choose Spanish brown as the color to use. In the meantime, here are a few photos of the painters working as well as of the finished job.
Learn more about the Washington House here and view other videos, photos, and blog posts about the project here.
Over the past several weeks, following the timber framing and while the shingling of the roof was taking place, The George Washington Foundation’s carpenters Steve Chronister, Tom Rainey, and Josh Schwenk installed the Washington house windows and the beaded weatherboard, enclosing the house and shifting most of the work from the exterior to the interior.
Read “Washington house replica rises on riverbank” from the past Wednesday’s edition of The Free Lance-Star and plan to attend George Washington’s Birthday Celebration tomorrow and Archaeology Day on Monday to see all the latest progress on the Washington house replica! Visit ferryfarm.org/events for event details.
The timber framing of the Washington house is complete. In this video, we get a close-up view of the construction of the house’s timber frame. For a timelapse view of the timber framing, watch this video. To see how the beams in the frame were fashioned, watch this video.
Learn more about the Washington House here and view other videos, photos, and blog posts about the project here.
