English Origins of Early American Building Techniques – Trenched Timbers

{Buildings Archaeology Artifactual Feature Origins Part II — Trenched Timbers} INTRODUCTION The first technique covered in this series of artifactual features used in early American homes by immigrant English carpenters is trenching. In his book entitled English Historic Carpentry, Cecil A. Hewett describes a trench as ‘a square sectioned groove cut across the grain.’...

The Candy Spite Store

{152 Newark Avenue, Jersey City, New Jersey} Of all the celebrations in the month of June, one which may not be well known is one started in 1974, National Candy Month. No surprise that it was originally started by the National Confectioners Association. It originally was celebrated in the month of January when sales...

Resources for Building the African American Personal Family Narrative

{National and New Jersey African American Genealogy Resources} In honor of Juneteenth, Legacy Roots has compiled a short list of national and local New Jersey genealogy websites that may be instrumental in telling the story of your family’s journey as an African American. While some sites will provide access to sources with names and...

English Origins of Early American Building Techniques – Introduction

{Part 1 – Introduction} Anyone who has owned, cared for, or worked on a historic property can appreciate that the details of a structure’s origins get lost over time. We don’t often know or recall who designed a building, what techniques and materials were used, and even less so, who the individuals were who...

Using Bricks to Learn the Date of a Building

There are times when determining the date of a building through documents and architecture can be further confirmed or questioned through the study of foundational bricks. The typical process by which this can be accomplished is through thermoluminescence (TL). Simply put, this technique can determine the amount of time which has elapsed from the...

Connecting Early American Dwelling Artifactual Features to English Prototypes through Human Agency

by Lorraine Arnold, University of Leicester Thesis, 2019   This study looks at the connection between early American dwelling artifactual features and English prototypes as it relates to human agency. This is accomplished by diachronically examining who and what “agency” is and how behavior is manifested in the physical material of early American vernacular...

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