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Within this curving, sheltering hook of sand hills lie the smooth waters of Lewes Harbor, and, set a little back from the shore, the quaint old town, with its dingy wooden houses of clapboard and shingle, looks sleepily out through the masts of the shipping lying at anchor in the harbor, to the purple, clean-cut, level thread of the ocean horizon beyond.
Each man stared straight in front of him, some vacantly with resignation, some trying to amuse themselves by noting minutely every object in their field of vision, the cinder piles, the long shadows of the barracks and mess halls where they could see men standing about, spitting, smoking, leaning against clapboard walls. Some of the men in line could hear their watches ticking in their pockets.
I reckon you'll have to crawl on your hands an' knees; this attic wasn't built fer full-size men." "I will be all right," his guest assured him. "Beggars cannot be choosers. A place to lay my head, a roof to keep the rain off, and a generous host what more can the wayfarer ask?" The clapboard roof was a scant three feet above the dusty floor of the attic.
The ship tarried only fourteen days, and returned with a large cargo of clapboard and beaver skins of the value of £500, which was, however, captured on the way to England by a French cruiser. After the departure the governor distributed the new-comers among the different families, and because of the necessity of sharing with them, put everybody on half allowance.
Inside, there is not much to be seen or described. The interior consists of a single room of which the log-walls are the sides, and the clapboard roof the ceiling. In one corner there is a little partition or screen the materials composing it being skins or the black bear and fallow deer. It is pleasant to look upon this little chamber: it is the shrine of modesty and virgin innocence.
The table was a great clapboard set on four wooden legs; there were three-legged stools, and in the better sort of houses old-fashioned rocking-chairs. The couch or bed was warmly covered with blankets, bear-skins, and deer-hides. These clearings lay far apart from one another in the wilderness. Up to the door-sills of the log-huts stretched the solemn and mysterious forest.
I started at the least sound; dangers I had never thought of before, such as sickness and the like, popped into my mind clear as day, and, in short, I was half dead from sheer fright. There was not a breath of wind outside, or a sound, except once in a while a sharp crack of some building as the frost warped a clapboard or sprung out a nail; and at each crack I started as if I had been struck.
Since the materials are of record, these recently built homes may be envisioned as having been constructed of hewn timbers, covered with clapboard on the exterior, and wainscoting inside. The foundations and chimneys were of brick, which, while not plentiful, was certainly being supplied within the Colony at the period.
Consequently, this area was comprised of gentry, indentures, convicts and slaves. Yet the homes of the former two were similar in many ways. Their houses were made of wood; their roofs were made of oak shingles. The walls were made of clapboard sealed on the inside with mortar made of oyster shell lime which gave the room a look of antiquated whiteness.
On the 9th Oglethorpe and Colonel Bull marked out the square, the streets, and forty lots for houses; and the first clapboard-house of the colony of Georgia was begun that day. On March 12th Oglethorpe writes: "Our people still lie in tents; there being only two clapboard houses built, and three sawed houses framed. Our crane, our battery of cannon, and magazine are finished.
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