Unknown 'old salts' carved shingles at turn of the century
How did this barn, probably built in the early 1800's, come to be covered with row upon row of elaborately cut shingles 75 years later?
Shingles had been used on walls for years, and the Centennial Celebration in 1876, reminding Americans of their colonial roots, made wood shingle siding even more popular. Victorian builders took square shingles, trimmed their edges in fancy shapes, and decorated the front gables and bay windows of mansions and cottages alike. Sometimes shingles covered a whole wall and, especially in seaside resorts, the whole house.
Perhaps, I thought, a local carpenter used this barn as his shop and displayed his skill at working in the Queen Anne style on the outside; The City of Haverhill had lots of houses waiting for embellishment! I was wrong.
A retired seaman lived here in 1900. His shipmates often stayed here when they came into port. They, the sailors, cut these shingles, invented the designs. Some of the shapes are quite simple, just a repeating triangle or square. Others - for example, those at the gable window - are ingenious combinations of circles and squares. And then there is the lace at the peak of the gable - shingles cut in scallops whose edges themselves have been scalloped.
This is folk art. Although we can imagine the men carving the detail of another shingle with a careful turn of the knife, using the skills they had perfected through long hours at sea, we don't know their names. They are anonymous. But what they created is still here for us to enjoy.
No comments:
Post a Comment