|
Description:
The Beatty-Cramer House is a two-story, seven-bay, side-gable-roof structure comprised of a mid-18th century frame house of Dutch H-bent construction with a 19th century log addition. The property also features a restored late 18th century stone springhouse, and a 19th century stone smokehouse. The two-story, seven-bay house, 58 feet long and 22 feet deep, is oriented to the south, facing the highway. The second story spans six irregular bays. Three major building campaigns produced the dwelling: a timber frame house of H-bent construction (1748), a log addition (1855), and a frame overbuild on the north elevation. The main block is on the east end, a five-bay, brick-nogged, timber frame section with stone foundation, in a two-room single-pile plan. A two-bay, V-notched log kitchen wing with a raised stone foundation and cellar comprise the west end of the structure. The house has asbestos shingle siding and a continuous gable roof of standing seam metal. There are interior brick chimneys in the east gable end of the main block and the west gable end of the kitchen wing. A sheet metal patch in the roof indicates where a chimney servicing the west end of the original house was removed. The two rooms in the main block are accessed by doors in the third and fourth bays from the east end of the façade. A hip-roofed porch on square columns with brackets and a dentiled cornice shelters the two doors and an adjacent window to the east. A third door is located in the west bay of the kitchen wing façade, sheltered by a single bay flat-roofed porch on square posts. The west gable end has two bays on the first story, one on the second, and two attic bays. The cellar has a door in the north bay and a window in the south. On the north elevation, the west two bays are covered by a partially enclosed two-story porch. The rest of the façade is covered with siding with the exception of a single boarded-up window on the second floor near the east end. Windows on the first story of the south façade and in the west gable second story have 6/6 sash. The remaining windows are boarded up. Asbestos shingles cover clapboards on the entire frame and log walls of the house. Plain clapboards are visible on the south, north, and west walls, while beaded clapboards are present on the east wall. German siding can be seen on the upper portion of the north wall and on the east side of the north porch wall. The roof of the house has wood box cornices and the gables are trimmed with tapered bargeboards. On the west end of the house the slope of the roof continues over the back porch in a catslide fashion. On the interior, much of the plaster was removed to expose the timber framing and brick nogging of the first period. A fireplace in the east room of the original block has a 19th century mantel. The walls of the original two rooms (the east and central rooms) are filled with brick nogging between the timber posts. Transverse timber frames called H-bents, consisting of two posts connected by a tie beam, are a character defining feature of Netherlandic framing. The house is framed with eleven tussenbalkgebints, which use mortise and tenon joinery to connect tie beams to posts. These H-bents have blind mortises with diminished housing the tie beams, a joinery method that differs from that in the New Netherland Cultural region where through mortises are utilized. In this house, posts 8" x 7" stand on 6" x 9" timber sills; the posts are placed flat in the walls. Typically, H-bents are laid out 3 feet to 5 feet apart. Most of the bents in the house are three feet apart, but the window bay between bent three and bent four is 2’-6” wide and the easternmost bay is 4’-6” wide. The original roof framing was replaced in the mid-19th century, although some of the original framing members were repurposed in the new construction. The 26-degree angle of a brace mortice in a reused collar beam suggests a roof with a pitch of perhaps 58 degrees.
|
Significance:
The Beatty-Cramer House is architecturally significant as a rare extant example of an 18th century dwelling with architectural features uncommon to the region, featuring Dutch H-bent timbe framing with Flemish bond brick nogging, beaded corner posts, molded plates, and brick chimneys. The period of significance, 1748-1855, extends from the documented construction date of the earliest part of the house through 1855, by which time it had achieved its current form and appearance. Two measures of the importance of the house that was built for Thomas Beatty in 1748-52 are its relationship to Dutch Material culture in New Netherland and its method of timber framing relative to other timber frame traditions in the Maryland Piedmont in the Colonial era. H-bent framing, Dutch doors, a granary door, decorated timber frame, and a split-level floor plan are character defining traits of the Beatty-Cramer House. It is a mark of the diffusion of Netherlandic tradition in space and time in the Dutch material culture region. In the midst of the ubiquitous log buildings an articulated frame house with brick nogging in Flemish bond, beaded corner posts, molded plates, and brick chimneys made a statement. It was proof of the wherewithal and place in the community of its owner, Justice Thomas Beatty.
|
