Stone Houses of Amherst, NY

Building a Stone House

Let's turn to the houses themselves. First, how were these houses built?

Since the weight of the entire house is on the outside walls, these have to be very thick. For a two-story house, the lower wall should be at least 16" to support the upper story, but can narrow to 12" once you reach the floor of the garret or attic, especially on the gable end.

The stone cut from the quarries can be either fairly regular or uncut, and can be laid in either regular or irregular courses [drawing] but the surface of the stone that faces out should be fairly flat; given the 16" width, there are two rows of large stones marking the inside and the outside of the wall. Between these two rows, small pieces or rubble or stone not appropriate for the outside is used to take up the space. About 1" or 2" of mortar is placed between each horizontal layer of stones, filling in all the space. This locks the stones into place. It is important that the stones in each layer overlap; otherwise, if the mortar finds a straight vertical line, it will crack. Pieces of timber and small stones hanging by string are used in keeping the lines straight.

To stabilize the corners, stones overlap into the adjacent walls, alternately going into first into one wall, then into the next. These are called quoins. Window and door openings have to be small, because glass was expensive, and to ensure the strength of the walls. A longer piece of either wood or stone, called a lintel, above the window and door openings shifts the weight of the upper part of the structure to the side.

What Did These Houses Look Like?

Usually, the construction and design of the houses of early settlers everywhere were determined by tradition -- what they were familiar with, where they came from, with available materials and climate a secondary influence. And many of those who settled the tracts of the Holland Land Company brought with them the tradition of stone houses from Pennsylvania and the Hudson Valley, based on traditional forms in Germany, and some English influence. These houses tended to have heavy stone walls, small windows, and smaller windows under gable end of the steep roofs, with the door on the non-gable side of the house. They have simple, flat facades, with little ornamentation.    A cellar, entered from outside, was used for food storage. This was a common feature in most houses of this era.

While these houses also incorporated some of the English traditions of those who came from New England, there are nevertheless distinct differences from the typical New England house and the stone houses here. For example, the Hull House, built by New Englanders in nearby Lancaster, NY, shows more English influence, especially in its proportions, than the more modest Amherst houses . Remember also that the houses built by Mennonites would not doubt be plainer as the basic belief of Mennonites is of a simple life.

Typically, the first floor had two rooms, a larger one called the hall, in which most activities took place, and the parlor, containing treasured furniture and best belongings. Because the interiors of all of the surviving houses have been radically changed as they have been updated, we cannot be sure of the interior plans, but the size of original rectangle of the Amherst stone houses would suggest a division into two rooms.

Samuel Schenck House at Grover Cleveland Golf Course - four bays

Benjamin Hershey House, 33 Mill Street - four bays

A fairly rough stone, laid in uncoursed manner, underscores the simplicity of the houses in Amherst. Three bays are typical of the style called "Pennsylvania ethnic," although three of the Amherst houses have 4 bays [Grover Cleveland, Park School, 33 Mill].    Stone or wood lintels and sills define the windows and doors, but there is little other decoration.

Kitchens were usually separate structures in back or an addition onto the back of the house [Fogelsonger]. In the house at 71 N. Ellicott, there was a partial basement toward the back of the house that contained a Dutch bake oven and fireplace.   From Peter Hershey's will, we learn that one of the possessions he wanted to be sure his wife received was -- in addition to the furniture -- the iron stove. The stove was the cooking preference of the Pennsylvania Mennonites, instead of the crane in the huge fireplace on which New Englanders hung their cooking utensils. When Abraham Good, a subsequent owner of some of the Hershey property [38 Richfield], died in 1829, an inventory of all his belongings, including his cattle and farm implements also contained a list of his house furnishings: a cupboard, a bureau, 6 chairs, a stand, 3 bedsteads and bedding, a portmanteau (carried clothes while travelling), a looking glass, an iron tea kettle, tinware, wooden ware, and pewter ware, a decanter and 2 tumblers, a bread dish, server, and candlestick, a shotgun, a large bible and some books.

Why Did the Construction of Stone Houses Stop?

But by the middle of the 19th century, stone houses were no longer being built. Cutting the stone, carrying the stone, laying the stone, all demanded a great deal of labor, and the skills of a stone mason.   When saw mills were established and cut lumber to standard sizes, and brick manufacture began (around the mid-1840s or so), also providing standard sizes, it was easier to put up a house with a wood frame or in brick. Perhaps just as important, English traditions and influence were dominant in this country, aside from pockets of ethnic traditions, and this influence favored frame (wood was plentiful) or brick houses, particularly for ambitious middle-class families. Even where stone was available, it was used only for common structures, such as ice houses or root cellars, or these slave quarters on a plantation in Texas, while the grand house was made of wood hauled in from a distance.

Changes

Mennonite Meeting House - Evans Bank

Most of these houses have changed over time, sometimes to update for style, often to accommodate family needs, such as the addition of a kitchen [147 Mill or Metz]. Some, such as the one at 33 Mill are beyond recognition, when new owners in the early 1900s added a new front entrance. Dormers were often added to provide more living space and light upstairs [Park School]. Others are serving new functions, such as the Mennonite Meeting House, which has become the Amherst Archival Research Center [later Evans Bank], or the Schenck House at Bailey and Main, now the groundskeepers' quarters for the municipal golf course, or the other Schenck House at Harlem, which over time, has stored oats waiting to go to market, and has housed a private natural history collection.

Isaac Bowman, 71 N. Ellicott

One of the changes we can follow closely is the rehabilitation of 71 N. Ellicott, from a diary written in 1920 by Anna Maeder, a school teacher of modest means, who had spent a summer of her childhood in Williamsville. Returning many years later, she found the old deserted farmhouse that "had caught her childish fancy." Unlived-in for 40 years, the house had cherry and maple saplings growing in the cellar, old corn stalks and fallen plaster covered the floors, along with tin cans and rubbish of the neighborhood.

But she bought it nevertheless, and over the course of three summers, serving as her own architect and contractor, she slowly made it her dream house, taking the hour's trolley trip out and back every day. She speaks of adding the dormers to accommodate three bedrooms, a bath, and a small hall. From an old house being demolished, she reclaimed slate for the roof, 14 6-paneled doors, baseboards, porch pillars, and two marble mantels. The mantels were placed in two chimneys that were built, and the old wooden mantel was moved upstairs. In addition to removing the stucco and re-pointing the masonry, strengthening the roof and re-roofing, rebuilding foundations, floors, walls, and building an addition for a dining room and kitchen, she found quarrymen to chisel out more of the cellar from the rock on which the house was built. Partitions between the four small rooms on the first floor were removed, leaving one large room. She speaks of lime plaster and of saving the old bark-covered rafters for seats and trellises. Wiring, plumbing and heating had to be incorporated, a new staircase built, cupboards, digging the driveway, re-doing the gardens, adding 18 fruit trees, over 75 berry bushes -- the list is endless.

The first summer in the house, among the guests received were a small, sweet-faced woman and gray-haired man. The man was Joseph Demer, whose family occupied the house from 1837, and who, 50 years ago that day, had brought the sweet-faced woman here as his bride to meet his mother.