05/04/2023
So this was not only a post-pandemic re-boot of the Behind the Big House (BTBH) program, as we have not had an in-person program since 2019; it was also a year of transition.
The Hugh Craft House and its attendant slaves quarters & kitchen, the primary site for our program, since its creation in 2011 now belongs to a non-profit: The Rosa Foundation. It’s local partner non-profit: North Mississippi Roots & Wings is working with them, as they assume future management of PMCHS’ Behind the Big House program…so again, this was a year of transition.
North Mississippi Roots & Wings asked me to produce a rendering of the brick-making process and the Hugh Craft House under construction in 1851, which gave me an opportunity to illustrate, as a teaching tool, how the house was actually constructed.
As I am usually the one to give Orientation comments inside the Hugh Craft House for the BTBH program, I try to place the house in a proper context with the one of program’s objectives: to recognize the contributions of enslaved people in the building arts in antebellum America. I tell groups in attendance, “Everything you touch in this house was made by the hands of skilled craftsmen: the doors, windows, floors, walls, ceiling and wood trim. – Everything made by hand – not a machine involved in any of this work.
It took many people to construct a house like this in 1851 and most of them were enslaved people rented from local slave owners, according to their skill set. These people were added to a construction crew of white overseers and craftsmen and perhaps a few freedman who had purchased their freedom through their craftsmanship.
These historic structures are significant and need to be studied and preserved…but they need to be understood in the proper context of how they were built and pay due tribute to the skilled craftsmanship of un-named enslaved people who were in involved in that work as tangible testaments to their contribution to the building arts.
The Hugh Craft House was built of heavy-timber framing, held together with mortise & tenon joints and wood pegs – I tell the assembled groups, “Think of it as a cubed tree.”
In between the exterior timber framing is brick in-fill called “nogging” which in 1851, is a rather archaic form of construction, but I suppose it provided some benefits to insulation over a 6-inch void.
To that exterior surface was added hand-split lathing, to which exterior stucco was applied…and yes, to those who are familiar with the home’s traditional history: “Holly Springs’ first insulated house”…there is about a one-inch gap left between the brick face and the wood lathing…which was filled with charcoal - all this was confirmed in 2007-08 rehabilitation work on the house.
Here are some of the students passing around a section of heavy timber, with emphasis on “heavy” and an excerpt from the rendering I did for our program partner, showing how the timber frame and brickwork were done.
