Folks:  A very good pair of sources on the practices of designing and
building in the colonial, early national, and antebellum south are . . .

Catherine Bishir and 3 colleagues, Architects and Builders in North Carolina
[is specific to NC, but conclusions are applicable elsewhere] and . . .

Catherine Bishir, Southern Built a collection of essays she has written and
published over the past 20 years.

Of particular use to those interested in a common [though not exclusive] way
of organizing a construction project in the early 1800s is her essay on
Jacob Holt, a builder active in NC and VA.

Yes, blacks both free and enslaved were involved, but most "architects" were
also builders and site supervisors as well . . .

Hoping this helps.
Camille Wells

>> From: Emmanuel Dabney <[log in to unmask]>
>> Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
>>      <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Slave carpenters and Planter's buildings
>> Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2007 10:28:09 -0500
>> 
>> I do not believe Kathryn was discrediting the services of white skilled
>> laborers
>> in the construction of planter houses but rather giving credit to the fact
>> that
>> many of these buildings have a noted architectural style or a known
>> architect.
>> However, architects of the  18th and 19th centuries were primarily
>> designers
>> and not actually out there with hammers, cut nails, paints, etc. completing
>> the construction.
>> 
>> Rather instead these skilled laborers whether they be black or white were
>> doing the actual work to complete the house. In the South, it just so
>> happened there were slaves to be fully engaged or assist in the completion
>> of
>> a project.
>> 
>> Where I work at Petersburg National Battlefield we have one historic house
>> with centuries of papers for the Eppes family who owned the property. When
>> the property owner Mary (nee Eppes) Cocke added on to her family home in
>> 1841 she had a white man named Mr. Finn engaged in work to the addition.
>> However by September of that year she wrote to her son, Richard Eppes
>> (then a student at the UVA) that Cimon (one of the slaves she owned) would
>> hopefully soon have the house shingled and she could return to her old
>> bedroom.
>> 
>> Her son, who inherited the property after his mother's death, also used a
>> mix
>> of white, free black, and slave labor in projects around the estate. While
>> primarily white labor would be used in his 1854 and 1856 addition there
>> would
>> be skilled slave labor used. Richard Eppes had hired the services of a
>> carpenter named Jef and Eppes recorded that on October 16, 1856, Jef
>> had "commenced doors & windows of bath house today." Two days later
>> Eppes was bargaining with a free black, Henry Claiborn to put up a kitchen
>> building on another piece of property he owned.
>> 
>> Source: Eppes Family Papers, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond
>> 
>> Also, William Johnson, free black barber and planter in Natchez, used a
>> combination of white and slave labor to build his new house after a fire
>> devasted the first. He also noted the hire of other slaves to complete his
>> house and hired the services of George Weldon, a white man who owned a
>> business with his brother. Which according to an 1885 source said they
>> hired
>> some 100 slaves.
>> 
>> Source: William Johnson House: Historic Structure Report, 1997
>> http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/natc/hf_johnsonhouse.pdf
>> 
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