Wood, Bricks, and Stone
- Jeff Brewer
- May 9
- 9 min read
The History of Home in the Early American South
Part 3: The Liberty Tree, a serendipitous American icon
In this series on “The History of Home in the Early American South” my intention for the third installment was an article featuring the "Virginia House", an all-wood Southern Colonial first appearing in the English colony of the same name in the mid 1600’s. As I began to write this article, it became obvious to me that before I can acquaint readers with this architectural American original, it was necessary that I give a back-story as to why this simple home was so impactful on the landscape and the soul of the English colonies.
The Virginia House, in all its variations, was an architectural creation made possible by an abundance of perfectly suited timber that, in the hands of enterprising craftsmen, could be fashioned into all the industry that one could imagine needed to create a new country among the old ones. This natural resource of timber being so necessary to the survival and prosperity of the "American Experiment", it seems quite providential that one of our first symbols of defiance to the tyranny of political absolutism was a giant Elm tree in Boston. Forever since known to Americans as The Liberty Tree, the giant Elm was familiar to all in the area and was a known landmark that became a natural meeting place for revolutionaries in the early days of the liberty movement. Although no intentional connection was made, the Liberty Tree embodied that free spirit moving among English colonists that, at its core, had very much to do with Liberty and Trees. Such was the serendipitous nature of America's first symbol of freedom for the common man.
An endless forest, great and tall
At the time of our country’s founding, it was said that a squirrel could go from Maine to
Georgia and never touch a foot to the ground by traversing the distance atop the canopies of the mighty American Chestnut tree. This mythical tail was borrowed from the ancient oral traditions of Europe and so is not unique to America. What is uniquely American is the reality of the American Chestnut Tree and its prolific existence throughout the English colonies. Sadly, this stately tree was killed off by a blight from Southeast Asia in the 1930s which killed an estimated four billion trees denying future generations of some of the finest wood ever used in the building of homes and furniture. However, the Chestnut, as majestic as it was, certainly had its rivals among the forests of the "New World". Oaks, Poplars, Cherrys and Maples, were favorite hardwoods among home builders and furniture builders alike, while Hemlock and White Pine were two choice softer woods used in timber-frame shipbuilding as well as home construction. These are just some of the species that covered the American landscape along with Cypress, Cedar, Walnut, Beach, and Locust, and the list goes on and on. In America, if first tobacco, then cotton, was king, timber built the kingdom.
Early colonists in America were entranced as they pushed inland from the Eastern shoreline. The primeval forest must have truly seemed to them as a completely different world. Two overriding factors aided in this view. 1) As stated, the American forests were primeval, meaning they were old, very old. Natives lived simply in small "towns" made of crude log homes or "igloo" type structures sheathed with animal hides. These hide covered stick-built homes, known as Wigwams, demanded very little resources from the surrounding area. Some tribes were more settled than others, but none of the Eastern natives were as habitually nomadic as the wandering tribes of the Great Plains out west. Eastern woodland Indians roamed for warfare and hunting but always returned to the same area. They didn't expand and their impact on the forest was minimal at best which resulted in ancient trees growing to enormous height. In a 1760 publication written by William Douglas, the tallest known height ever recorded in Colonial America was a 250' Eastern White Pine.[i] That's a tall tree! Although a 250-foot tree was certainly a giant by any standard, colonists were regularly engaged in felling trees 150 to 240 feet tall. This was something the average Englishman or European simply had never seen before. 2) Europe and the British Isles had largely been deforested during the Medieval period, beginning around 1200 AD, up to that of the Great Reformation in 1500 AD.[ii] Once again war was a catalyst with conflicts such as the Holy Crusades and the calamitous Hundred Years War between England and France fueling an insatiable need for wood to support military campaigns. As a result of increasing migration, refugees fleeing destruction, and redrawing of boundaries caused by the latest victory or defeat, towns sprung up as other towns were leveled by invading armies. City defenses were constantly being improved and expanded, and naval power was beginning to come into its own as a military asset necessary to the safety and security of the realm. Add to that the copious amounts of wood consumed for heat during the successive winters marked by what historians call "the little ice age" and you have all the makings of massive deforestation. All required an immense amount of wood which resulted in less and less timber and greater and greater official restrictions on private use.
Forest laws and the "Bloody Code"
One of the least understood catalysts that eventually fueled the American Revolution had nothing to do with taxes, religious liberty, or freedom, at least not directly. It had to do with wood, or more precisely the availability of it and access to it. As oil is to national security today, so was wood to the security and prosperity of a kingdom in the era of the longbow and the age of sail. At least as early as the 13th century, England instituted Royal Forest Laws that when studied enlighten the modern reader as to just how oppressive life could be to the common man and woman or even upper-class subjects in earlier times. Under the reign of King Henry II, his Chief Justice of the Forest, Alan de Neville, regularly conducted “perambulations” (survey’s creating new boundaries and exclusion zones on forest) in which, after codified in statute, now fined any and all who attempted to use the forest or game within the forest as done before the latest arbitrary law was in place. Such an act done in 1219 resulted in a 100£ fine to the knights and freeholders in and around the village of Wiltshire. Converted to dollars and adjusted for inflation, such a fine would equate to over $213,000 in today’s money. This restriction remained in place until a subsequent Chief Justice of the Forest, Robert Passelewe, returned the original boundary around 1246.[iii] Enforcement of the laws were done by a class of forestry officials who travelled from village to village on what was called an Eyre, a circuit court of itinerant judges known as verderers. During one eyre of the 13th century,
“the constable accounted for herbage dues, receipts from sales of windfallen wood, honey, and nuts, and for fines paid at the attachment courts for cutting wood without warrant and for allowing stock to stray in the forest.”
Fines seemed arbitrary and variable in severity with the heavier judgments leveled against those with means such as in the case of Wiltshire. Still, although certainly denying a valuable commodity to the common people, early on the forestry laws seemed more of a nuisance than a harbinger of fear of things to come.
All that changed sometime in the 17th century. Most likely due to the constant demand for trees to supply the Royal Navy, laws regarding the cutting of trees were stiffened and, in some cases, could be described as draconian. As rival European kingdoms were engaging in the first arms race to colonize worlds outside their native lands, the ship building industry exploded. In England, most usable trees were identified as belonging to the king. This practice, though more selective, extended to the English colonies in America with White Pines over two feet in diameter being set aside for ships mast and marked with “The King’s Broad Arrow”, a carved marking in the shape of a three-pronged arrowhead identifying the tree as royal property. The race for European colonization brought inevitable confrontation with war between rivals a near constant threat. This reality resulted in harsher penalties for those who would dare fell a tree belonging to the king. In 1688 there were 50 crimes of which the judiciary of England and Wales exacted punishment by death. In just over a hundred years, the list of capital punishment crimes had risen to over 200 and by the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 the total had risen to 222.[iv]
Most of the expanded crimes covered under the Bloody Code had to do with property or rather the violation of it. Under the Bloody Code, those caught cutting a tree down without warrant, which was near impossible to acquire, if caught, had committed a crime punishable by death with public hangings being the most popular method of execution. However, in the colonies, timber was in such abundance, those who felled a tree belonging to the king had committed a truly unnecessary crime. As long as one avoided the marked trees and did not cut in any forested area that was restricted, the acquisition of timber was not an issue, not in America. However, in England and much of Europe, forestry restrictions very much affected how, when, and even if, a man could build a home. This lack of timber resulted in homes being constructed of materials other than wood and created entire new industries and associated technologies such as brick kilns as well as ensuring the prosperity of historical trades such as stone masonry.
Vernacular by Necessity
In architecture, regarding the style of building and materials used, the term "vernacular" means indigenous or native. The most obvious example of vernacular architecture would be a house constructed from local materials native to the immediate surroundings. A place where the landscape is predominantly covered in stone is a place where stone would be a logical choice of building material. A secondary application of the word vernacular when speaking of architecture would be a reference to the building practices of the laity, or common people, with no formal architectural training.
In England, the judicial environment regulating the cutting of trees had a direct effect on domestic architecture and construction. The more affluent homes in the Southeast around London were built from clay brick. Those with natural materials at their disposal as in the East Midlands and the Cotswold region built their homes from stone, while the remainder of English homes had a predominant representation of Wattle and Daub construction. All methods that minimized the use of timber. When the English colonists disembarked on the shores of Virginia, then 13 years later the Massachusetts Bay area, that most essential component to a 17th century family's prosperity was laid out before them as far as the eye could see. Forest teaming with enormous straight grained hardwood and softwood trees were in abundance as none previously could ever have imagined. Trees produced timber and from timber came usable wood boards and from wood boards came all the things necessary to survival as well as the creature comforts that made a house a home.
The restrictions on wood in the Old World had resulted in the consistent application of vernacular architecture among English and European alike that incorporated as little timber as possible. Conversely, on this side of the Atlantic, while stone masons and brick masons certainly plied their trades, it was the abundance of tall, straight, hardwood timber, and equally tall and straight softwoods, that became the transplanted Englishman’s canvas on which he could paint all he ever imagined his domestic life could be.
On my next installment I hope to explore a bit of the history of the architecture that arose from the forested floor in the English American colonies. The “Virginia House” with its strong timber frame and all-wood cladding complete with wood shingles, or “shakes”, would become the homes we American’s see in our mind’s eye as we associate our founders’ domestic world with the times in which they lived. - JLB
For more information about me and my business Liberty Tree Timber Works, please visit my website, www.historicaltradeworks.com.
[i] The King's Broad Arrow and Eastern White Pine - NELMA, https://www.nelma.org/the-kings-broad-arrow-and-eastern-white-pine/
[ii] Scott Rylan, When did Europe lose its forests?, NCESC - NextGen Horizons Inc., February 17, 2025
[iii] 'Royal forests', in A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 4, ed. Elizabeth Crittall (London, 1959), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol4/pp391-433 [accessed 3 May 2025].
[iv] Emma Slattery Williams, “The Bloody Code: your guide to the severe legal system”, History Extra, https://www.historyextra.com/period/early-modern/bloody-code-guide-british-legal-system-death-penalty/, September 26, 2021
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