e, and gradually developed into a
well-proportioned architectural structure, with richly-moulded cornice
and well-designed dormers. It had many advantages: the framing was
simple and strong, and the attic rooms possessed all the height and
floor-space obtainable in the modern French roof, so called, while
avoiding the disagreeable box-like appearance of the latter. The
window-frames of these early eighteenth-century houses were made of
plank, mortised and pinned together, the sills and caps being often
moulded and a bead run around the inner edge of the frames. The sashes
were heavy and glazed, with small squares of very inferior glass set in
wide muntins.

In one of these old houses we find an attempt to modify the gambrel into
the hipped roof, a type which became highly developed in the latter half
of the eighteenth century. In the earlier examples this roof, instead of
being truncated and hipped in all around, with a railing above the crown
moulding, was simply hipped in on the lower part, being turned up at the
ends, forming small gables. The dwellings of this class form a
connecting-link between the second and third periods, which may be said
to have commenced about 1730, when the growing commercial importance of
the seaport towns and the rapid accumulation of wealth induced a more
lavish and elegant style of living.

Prominent among the buildings of this period may be noted in Newport the
Hazard house on Queen Street, now Washington Square, the Vernon house
(Rochambeau's head-quarters), the Ayrault house on Thames Street, the old
Hazard house on Broad Street, and the Gibbs house on Mill Street. But
these are only a few representative buildings taken from the many of the
same class to be found scattered through the seaboard States. The
interior arrangements were extremely simple, but the architectural
details and ornamentation are often rich and marked by great delicacy
and refinement in treatment, the _motif_ being based upon the Free
Classic of the Queen Anne and Georgian reigns. The framing of these
buildings is more systematically put together than in the earlier
examples. The great beams crossing the ceilings, and the
supporting-posts and hanging knees, are surfaced and beaded, instead of
being rough-hewn with an axe. The fireplaces are often surrounded with
Dutch tiles held in place by brass bands. The locks and door-trimmings
are of brass. The window-glass is larger and clearer, and is set in
well-made sas