Hawkins-Davison Houses, Frederica, St. Simons Island, Georgia — John Shaqi
Hawkins-Davison Houses, Frederica, St. Simons Island, GeorgiaCate, Margaret Davis
History
Hawkins-Davison Houses, Frederica, St. Simons Island, Georgia
Cate, Margaret Davis
Dwellings -- Georgia -- Saint Simons Island; Fort Frederica National Monument (Ga.); Saint Simons Island (Ga. : Island) -- History
The house of Dr. Thomas Hawkins consisted of three rooms in ground plan
and will be discussed in the order in which the rooms were constructed.
At the west was a small room 10 feet east and west by 15.3 feet north
and south. The room had undergone three periods of building but only the
first period will concern us here. This consisted of a footing ditch 1.3
feet wide on the south and west sides. Six inch posts were placed in
this ditch at intervals of about one foot. These posts formed the
framework of a rather rude shed. The level of the floor is uncertain, as
it had been destroyed by later construction. This pole building is
believed to be the shed built at the time of the first arrival of
settlers in 1736. It evidently served as a shelter during the
construction of the main house which was built immediately to the east.
The description by Francis Moore[40] of the palmetto bowers built in
February of 1736 said that they were built on the backs of the lots.
This hut was just the sort of construction one might expect from the
description given by Moore. Yet it is on the front of the lot along
Broad Street, and not on the back. The only explanation is that Dr.
Hawkins did not build his palmetto bower on the back of his lot, or he
may have built two, one at the back and one at the front. The front one
was later incorporated into the main house.
Directly east and continuous with this original structure the main house
was erected. It measured twenty feet east-west and fifteen feet
north-south, outside dimensions. The ditches for the wall foundations
were dug to a point two and a half feet below colonial ground level. The
walls were constructed of brick 3½″ x 2½″ x 8″ so the finished wall was
one foot wide. The west wall was without a break throughout its entire
length, as was the east wall which formed the party wall with Davison’s
house. Both the north and south walls were broken by doorways three and
a half feet wide in the centers. Evidences of wooden door casings were
found in the doorways. The floor of the room had been excavated two and
a half feet below colonial ground level. It had later been raised four
times by sand fills averaging three inches in thickness. Mixed with the
sands was an occasional brick as well as a few scattered English Delft
sherds and bones of pig and beef.
It seems that the floors were made of dry-laid bricks set in sand
without mortar. As the floor was raised each time, the bricks were taken
up and replaced at the higher level. When the house was finally
abandoned, the floor bricks were salvaged and thus were absent at the
present time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account