They were mostly of two low stories, the
superior overhanging the inferior, by a foot or two; a mode of
construction much in use in the earlier days of the Eastern Colonies. As
paint was but little used at that time, none of the buildings exhibited a
color different from that the wood would naturally assume, after the
exposure of a few years to the weather. Each had its single chimney in the
centre of the roof, and but two or three showed more than a solitary
window on each side of the principal or outer door. In front of every
dwelling was a small neat court, in green sward, separated from the public
road by a light fence of deal. Double rows of young and vigorous elms
lined each side of the wide street, while an enormous sycamore still kept
possession of the spot, in its centre, which it had occupied when the
white man entered the forest. Beneath the shade of this tree the
inhabitants often collected, to gather tidings of each others welfare, or
to listen to some matter of interest that rumor had borne from the towns
nearer the sea. A narrow and little-used wheel-track ran, with a graceful
and sinuous route, through the centre of the wide and grassy street.
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