Asher Benjamin's pattern book in Bennington, Vermont

 

In 1838, Judge Luman Norton, his daughter Louise and her husband Christopher Fenton built this 2 family house in Bennington, Vermont. The side entrances are original; their porches, contemporary.* 

Hiram Waters, Master Carpenter in Bennington, probably designed and built the House.  The record shows that he bought a copy of Asher Benjamin's The American Builder's Companion, 6th edition, published in 1827.** 

Based on my research I think he also owned Benjamin's next book, The Architect, or Practical House Carpenter, 1830**.

Waters used Benjamin's molding profiles as well as his drawing for columns for his own house and carpentry shop. He also used them for this house.

 

The porch roofs and columns in front of the side doors  are 1950's +/-additions. Except for the storm doors, the entries are original. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pilasters on either sides of the doors match those in Benjamin's  in The American Builder's Companion.  All the parts are there.

 

 

 

 

This is Plate E,  Ionic Columns 

 

 Here is one of the main doors from the inside. 

  The Norton-Fenton House is currently closed to visitors. These interior photographs were taken in 2017 or earlier. 

 

 

 

This is Plate XLVII from Benjamin's The Architect, or Practical House Carpenter .   The lower casing profile matches that of the house.                                                           

 

 

 Here is the  base of the casings around the front door and its sidelights.

 

 

 

 

 

And Plate XLVIII from
The Architect, or Practical House Carpenter.

 

                       

 

 

 

 

 Finally,  one of the two curved staircases in the Norton Fenton House.

Benjamin uses 9 pages in his 1827 pattern book, 11 in his next book, to describe how to layout and finish these stairs.  

 

 

 Here are details on cutting the face moldings for the sides of the planks used to build the stairs. PLATE LVI, The American Builder's Companion. 

 

 

 

I am always impressed that a carpenter could 'read' these drawings and build from them. Hiram Waters was surely a superb Master Builder.   

 

 

 

 

 

*I've written about the design of this house in an earlier post:

https://passingbyjgr.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-4-front-doors-of-norton-fenton-house.html 

 *I've also written about Hiram Waters, 1797-1890:  

https://passingbyjgr.blogspot.com/2020/10/hiram-waters-workshop-monument-avenue.html 

 

** The Bennington Museum's Wallomsack Review has an excellent introduction to Hiram Waters. https://benningtonmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/Walloomsack-Review-14-Autumn.pdf

 The unabridged 6th edition of The American Builder's Companion and The Architect, or Practical House Carpenter have been republished by Dover Press.

 

The layout of an Italiante window pediment

 

The curvy Italianate molding above that window in the center?  How did they do that? 

How did carpenters in south eastern Massachusetts in c.1850 lay out the picturesque pediment so it could be cut and assembled?  

 

 

This was the question posed to me by Nathan Goodwin of H.I.S. Construction. He was asked to lay out a copy of that molding for installation above two garage doors. 

Nathan and I posted ideas back and forth. Nathan needed to draw and define the curves, especially how the arc over the shuttered windows evolves into the arc which ends in a point above the main window.

While we focused on that curve I wondered how the master builder laid out the whole design. What geometry might he have used so that the pediment complimented/completed the windows? So it is integral, not just stuck on the top?  

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first task was to see the form that was there: 

A center window flanked by 2 skinny windows, now shuttered. Together with their casings they form a rectangle. The 3 windows' tops are half circles. Around and above them is the embracing molding which follows the semi-circles before it swoops up with a reverse curve to meet at the center in a point. The molding seems to be the same width throughout.  

We saw that the pediment was derived from the windows. The windows and their casings were a rectangle, 4 units wide. Note the red  rectangle and lines below the window sill.  

 

The curve for the section of the pediment over the side windows was easy to see and draw. It's the extension of the small windows' half circles. The red dashed line and the dotted lines drawn here radiate from the center of those shuttered windows. I shared this with Nathan. 

 

The pediment's height over the center window was also easy to find - see the dashed red arc on the right. The half circle's radius is half the width of the windows.  Note the black dashed line. It's a reverse curve. Where was its center? How was it generated?

The white-out on the image comes from us exploring and rejecting options.   

Nathan and I shared ideas back and forth. He posted this suggestion: a layout based on the width divided into 4 units.  

 He extended my 4 units into rectangles, divided the rectangles themselves into 4 parts and used 3 units as the radius for the molding hoods over the shuttered windows. 

The sides of the rectangles cross the semi-circle. He added diagonals from that point to the center of the top of the main window. The crossing point became the center of several exploratory circles for the reverse arc curving to the pediment's center.

 

 

Nathan ended up with this diagram. It worked for the width of the garage doors; he could lay out the curves and cut the parts. 

 
 

 

 

 

I wanted to know about the original design - the layout of windows, casings, pediment with moldings. How might the master builder/ joiner/carver (I don't know his title) have laid out the design? 

 Here's what I saw.  Nathan's division of parts works across the width of the window. The whole width is 16 parts/units.The center window is 6 parts wide; the casing on each side is 1 part. The side windows are 3 parts wide; with one part on each side for the casing.  

Nathan's geometry for the reverse arc over the main window also works. The radius of the center window's arched top is 3 parts, with the casing: 4 parts. This doubled is the diameter of the circle which draws the arc of the  pediment.

More or less! The craftsman left us no notes. And: I am analyzing from a photograph of the window, not the real thing.   

 

 

   

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Asher Benjamin explains how to make stucco

 

First, a brief introduction to stucco. 

Are stucco and plaster the same thing? Not now.Today stucco is used outside. Its recipe will be different from plaster used inside. In 1814, the names referred to the same thing.  

  

These cherubs are plaster. They cavort in the dining room of the Canfield Casino of the History Museum in Saratoga Springs, NY.   

 

 

 

 They are forever in motion on the frieze of the entablature, 

 just below the deep cornice, 

a counterpoint to the circular window ringed with energetic vegetation centered under the coffered barrel vault above.  

Lots and lots of white plaster. Made from lots of molds. Mass production allowed this extravagance in 1902.

 

 

 

100 years earlier moldings were made from wood. Plaster sealed the wall. It was held in place by lath.   

Plaster was lime, sand, hair and water, mixed by hand. 

Its keys fit into the spaces between the lath, holding the plaster in place,  allowing the plaster to create a 'wall'. That plaster kept out drafts, reflected light and created a space, a place. It still does.  

 This plaster is applied to lath which was split by hand, thus the uneven shadows.   

 

This image of the back side of lath shows the plaster keys pushing though the spaces between the lath.  This lath is even because it was cut by a circular saw. This plaster wall would be much smoother than the image above. 

 

 

 

Asher Benjamin shared the latest uses of plaster with aspiring Master Builders in his book, The American Builder's Companion. 

It was first published in 1806, then updated in 1814 to include stucco ornaments (Plate 36,  prefaced by 3 pages (74-76) of instructions, titled Plate XXXVI.

 

 

 

 

Benjamin was a Master Builder with apprentices. He also ran a school for carpenters in Boston. He was skilled at describing how to execute the work. 

 

 

 

 

Here is his footnote describing how to make the stucco. He says to  just mix it up, beat it well every day, and let it cure for four or five days on a brick wall.

Not too much a stretch from plastering a wall, but seemingly far removed from the Canfield's yards of dentil and corbel moldings and the carefree cherubs.

 

He describes the best way to make an ornamental stucco ceiling, by hand. 

Then he explains how to do it more quickly, cheaper. What he describes is the beginning of mass production, ie: the Industrial Revolution, starting us on the path to those cherubs.

For the rest of Benjamin's instructions, please read his notes. He wishes "to give the student every information in my power... and be of no injury to those who are well acquainted with the art of stucco working."*  I think he would be pleased that we are reading his instructions 200 years later.

 

In 2009  I wrote 2 posts about  how Asher Benjamin wanted the builders who would read his pattern books to see and enjoy what moldings could create. He clearly loved the "beautiful variety of light and shade". 

I included the portrait of Benjamin in the first post. Historic Deerfield recently cleaned it. To see it please google 'Asher Benjamin'.


http://www.jgrarchitect.com/2009/01/beautiful-variety-of-light-and-shade.html

http://www.jgrarchitect.com/2009/12/strong-mouldings-and-falling-water.html

The geometry of 18th C. furniture design explored by Steve Brown and Will Neptune

 Steve Brown and Will Neptune, are cabinet markers who also teach. 
They wrote  Classic Proportion in Eighteenth Century Furniture Design.*  It is a fascinating exploration of the use of geometry in the design of 18th c. cabinet makers. The illustrations are beautiful.

I first read the article around 2020. Unfortunately, I knew very little about 18th C. cabinetmaking. Visually, the circles overwhelmed me. I just didn't get it. I put the article aside, hoping that maybe later I would understand. 

Last winter  I tried again. The article references James Gibbs' Rules for Drawing the Several Parts of Architecture**, first published in 1722. a book I hadn't read.  I bought a copy. It was a poor reproduction, difficult to read. Then I found a clean, legible copy online. I could enlarge the words and images to easily study them.  This drawing is part of Plate XXXVII.

Gibbs wrote clear and thorough explanations. 

 As I learned, I remembered the tic marks and notations  running up the borders of other pattern books: Wm Pain, A. Benjamin, Owen Biddle.  Now those segmented lines made sense. They are units of measure, a length which determines the other lengths in a specific design, a dimension that can be set with dividers, a compass. Palladio used m for 'module', Gibbs used dia for 'diameter'. Both are names for the same thing, a dimension, a building unit.    

I found that Gibbs' rules for frontispieces were used on this side of the Atlantic. ***  

 

Here is a partial view of Pain's Frontispiece in the Ionic Order, c. 1774.***

The dimensions of the door are noted in diameters as well as in feet and inches. 

 

Asher Benjamin's engraving of a Doric entrance, 1797, lays out the dimensions along the left side, but simply lists them along the bottom. He writes that "the height of the column is 10 parts, one of which is the diameter of the column..."  He uses one diameter for the sub-plinth, two for the entablature.

Yes, Asher Benjamin's first book has poor quality prints.***  

  

 

 

A partial view of an Owen Biddle frontispiece showing  a scale at the bottom, the door width divided into 9 parts, and the height shown as 10 diameters. ***

Finally, I could begin to read 'Classical Proportions'. To encourage you to read the essay, here are 2 diagrams from the article. 

Figure 12, Line drawing of a Chapin high chest of drawers with a modular overlay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 49 is a detail of the foot and ankle of a leg.

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 50 shows the diagrams for the geometry used to lay out the sizes and curves of the foot, showing, to quote the authors,"the stages of development." As this is quite similar to my understanding of how designs develop I thoroughly enjoyed thinking through the details. 

 

  

  

 

  

  

 

 

 

 

 

 *Classic Proportion in Eighteenth Century Furniture Design is available on line. https://chipstone.org/article.php/787/American-Furniture-2017/Classical-Proportioning-in Eighteenth Century Furniture Design.  

** James Gibbs, Rules for Drawing the Several Parts of Architecture, London, 1722.

*** William Pain, The Practical Builder, published in London, 1774. partial view of PlateXVI.

      Asher Benjamin, The Country Builder's Assistant, published in Greenfield, MA, 1797. partial view of Plate X.

     Owen Biddle, Biddle's Young Carpenter's Assistant, Philadelphia and New York, 1805, partial view of Plate 17. 

My blog posts which explore the use of Gibbs' Rules in the States.  

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2024/12/james-gibbs-rules-for-drawing-several.html

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2025/01/james-gibbs-and-rockingham-meeting-house.html 

 

The Carpenter Square and the Compass - The Evolution of Practical Geometry

 

On May 31, 2025, I will present Practical Geometry and Carpenter Squares at the Early American Trades Association (EAIA)* conference in Rochester, New York. I expect I will be introducing Practical Geometry and then explore how the use of a carpenter square began to change the visual character of our architecture. I hope to see tool collections and hear other members' thoughts.

 What happened after 1820 when the carpenter square became a reliable drafting tool? When the compass, line, and scribe were joined by an L shaped piece of steel with a dependable, true 90* corner?

The squares shown here were made in southwestern Vermont c. 1830-50. They now live at the Bennington Museum, Bennington Vermont, and can be seen by appointment.

 

 

 

 

Here you can see the hand stamped numbers on the earliest squares as well as carefully drawn scales. Were the scales as important to the builder as the true 90*angle?

?

    

The square made design and layout accurate in fewer steps. Units (inches and feet) were uniform, corners were square, always 90*.  A job could be drawn, measured, and laid out more quickly and accurately. However, loosing those steps also changed the proportions. I have written about how this can see seen in vernacular housing design.**** I wanted to learn how an architect might have used the carpenter square. Robert Shaw was a good choice  because he wrote a book.

 

Robert Shaw's The Modern Architect was published in Boston in 1854.** 

 

 The pattern book's frontispiece shows the tools of the builder and the architect. The original drawing is an engraving which is quite dark. The color was added when the book was republished in 1995.

 

In the foreground is a large compass, probably used for stepping off. The architect holds a little one. The architect and builders are shown conferring, syncing the construction dimensions with the drawings .

 

 

Here is Plate 4, a 'Grecian  Frontispiece'

Where did Shaw begin his design?  Conceptually the design surrounds the door, giving it emphasis. So I began there.

Shaw himself stated that the door's height should be "...over twice the breadth of its height as three and seven feet."*** 

I have added the scale below the door: 3 units for the door's width. Then a half unit for the columns on each side and a full  unit for the width of the sidelights. 

These proportions follow those recommended by James Gibbs in 1732. ****

 

 

 

Was Shaw using 'circle geometry' for his layout? I don't think so. The circles don't offer much information. 

While the layout is 2 circles tall, the 12 points around the circumference of the circles give only the height, the width of the entry including the side lights, maybe the location of the transom. Note the arrows.

 

 

I think Shaw used a  simple geometric pattern that is derived from the circle, but which doesn't need to start with a length - a radius - and compass. It starts with the square which is easily laid out by the carpenter square. 

The width of the door and its sidelights was the dimension for a square. That shape was easy to lay out and make true with a carpenter square. Beginning with a length, he set up the corners with the square, added the lines for the 4 sides,  trued the box with diagonals. The diagonals used to find the additional height comes directly from the square. Done.        Note the arrows.  

Was there a name for it? Not one I've found.  It's basically a 'square and diagonal geometry'.

 

 The door, its transom, sidelights, and columns are also a square.

Here the quarter circle arcs, based on the width, cross at the top of the door frame, just below the transom. This layout, creating a slightly smaller rectangle within the square, was often used in layout and design. ****  I think here it is incidental.

I've extended the scale across the bottom and up the right side. It confirms the geometry.

The whole frontispiece is 8-1/2 units wide and 10-3/4 units tall. The door, the pilasters and the sidelights are 6 units wide; the columns are 1-1/4 units each. The columns' capitals are a half unit tall. The entablature is 2 units; the pediment, 3/4 of a unit tall.

Each unit and its parts could be stepped off with a compass. In 1854 the length could also have been stepped off in 12 inches intervals as marked on the carpenter square. As shown in Shaw's frontispiece in his book, it seems the builders used both.

 

The geometry used for the door and its parts is also used for the overall size: the height of the frontispiece is equal to the diagonal of the square.

The lightly drawn dashed line is the arc of the width of the door, showing how it lays out the square. This geometric proportion is also used for the sidelight glass panes (see the image above), but not those in the transom.

 

 

When we architects, restoration trades people, and historians note from visual observation that a particular building is Greek Revival, not Late Georgian, we are seeing geometry. I think we are recognizing, even if subconsciously,  that the rhythms, the proportions of  Federal architecture are different from the Greek Revival proportions shown here.   

 

* EAIA, Early American Trades Association https://www.eaia.us/

https://www.eaia.us/2025-rochester-ny

** Robert Shaw, The Modern Architect, Boston, 1854, originally published by Dayton and Wentworth, republished  (unabridged) by Dover Publications in 1996.

*** Shaw, The Modern Architect, page 63. 

****    For more information about James Gibbs' use of the door width as a unit of measure see: https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2025/01/james-gibbs-and-rockingham-meeting-house.html

            For more information about the square and its rectangle see:                                          https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2023/11/the-practical-geometry-of-parson_20.html

           For information about buildings using the 3/4/5 triangle for layout:

  https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2014/03/railroad-warehouse-frame-c-1850.html  

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2014/10/the-cobblers-house-c-1840.html  

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2013/10/1820s-farmhouse-north-of-boston.html 

  

Durer's alphabet via the book 'Good Eye'

A rift, not a book review

This is the cover for Good Eye, George R. Walker and Jim Tolpin's latest book about furniture design and proportion.*

The G comes from Albrecht Durer's alphabet in his  Instructions for Measuring with Compass and Ruler of his  Four Books on Measurement (Underweysung der Messung mit dem Zirckel und Richtschelettersyt, Book 3, published in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1525. 

Good Eye uses for Durer's letters for chapter headings. It discusses the design of the letters on pages 2-4. 

I last read Durer's book during Covid, 5 years ago. I wanted to understand Durer's knowledge and use of geometry.

Now I want to know more about his alphabet.

Durer used the numbers and letters of his time and place, the script of 1525 medieval Germany.The drawings I can find via the modern, online copies of his book are fuzzy.*  So his instructions are not clear to me.

 

I want to understand the basic geometric formation of the letters: Can I find out where did he begin? 

Here are Durer's letters A, B, C, D, F and Z.

 

 

 

I chose C and D.

I am laying out only the left hand C and D.

 

 

For both I began as Durer did, with a square and its center.  I have drawn these on graph paper to make the layouts easier to follow.

 

 

 

Using the arc of the square's side, here are the steps for dividing the square into 8 parts horizontally and vertically:

1) The square is divided into 4 smaller squares using a compass and straightedge.

2) the smaller squares is divided. 3) and again. 4) and again. That smallest width is 1/8 of the width of the square. The square can be divided into 8 equal sections both horizontally and vertically.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the C. The circle within the square :

 

The second circle, its center moved one unit (1/8 of the width) to the right.

The circle cut at 1/8 of the width on the right side to create the letter C.

 

 

 

The letter D:        half the circle 

 

 

 

 

 

The second half circle with its center moved one unit to the left:

The leg of the D drawn one unit wide, set 2 units from the left side.

The serifs added: 1/4 of the circle whose radius is 1 unit wide. 

Look again at Durer's letter D to see the circles.

 

 

 

For more on Albecht Durer see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer  

*I have asked to borrow, via Inter Library Loan,  the 1977 translation into English of this book. It may be clearer. If so I will update this post after I've studied that.

    +                         +                          +                        +                      +                   +                        +

Good Eye is a good book for me, a geometer. It speaks from a different vantage point than mine. This is excellent. 

Here's why. The use of geometry in construction, including wood working, was passed down by master to apprentice, by hand.  I know of no teaching manuals for apprentices. From Vitruvius, (c.50 BCE,) to the 19th century pattern books, the writers assume the reader already knows how to use a compass, a scribe, and a line. We don't know what words they used to describe what they were teaching. We have almost lost the vocabulary as well as the skills.

Good Eye uses a different vocabulary to describe geometry. For example: the book uses focus for the center of a circle,  the point on which an arc pivots. I use Euclid's word: point. This is fine. I have watched George Walker explain geometry by sketching on a white board. I have seen Jim Tolpin's work and discussed it with him.  I know we are all exploring the use of geometry in design and construction. Good Eye helps me think more carefully. Thank you.

*Good Eye, George R. Walker and Jim Tolpin, Lost Art Press, Covington, Kentucky, 2024