Henry Whitfield House - Construction

Construction

The first settlers of the Guilford colony began construction of their minister's home in September of 1639, shortly after their arrival in the area of the future Guilford colony. However, they had begun construction of the house too late in the year, winter weather preventing them from finishing anything more than half of the great hall and north fireplace until the following spring. By the summer of 1640 the rest of the hall, the second floor, and the attic were completed and the house was inhabited by Whitfield and his family. Accounts of the construction state that the local Menunkatuck Indians aided the settlers in the construction of the house by transporting stone from nearby quarries to the building site on hand barrows. The walls of the house were made nearly two feet thick because there was so much stone available for construction. The original mortar used to cement the stones was composed of yellow clay and crushed oyster shell, a technique developed by the lack of more conventional building materials. Inside the great hall, the "joists and rafters were hand-hewn oaken timbers; the inside partitions were formed by wide planks of pine or white wood joined with feathered edges."