Exhibit: Belle Grove

Exhibit Tour Next Page - Exhibit Home - Return to Museum

A Web Exhibit produced by the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Historical Society.

Hardware

The accuracy of documents dating Belle Grove could be verified by examining nail and screw types. These specific nail and screw types date to the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

“L” Head Cut Nails
These nails were machine cut and used as finish nails in the trim. They came in various sizes depending on the size of the trim.

Stamped Head Cut Nails
The heads on these nails were stamped by a machine and used in framing. Because they would not be seen in the finished house, their appearance was irrelevant. The care taken to make “L” nails small and discreet was omitted with this hardware.

Screws
Screws without a point were manufactured prior to 1846. In this year, Sloan was granted a U.S. Patent which provided the technology to taper the ends of screws.

Hinges
Five-part hinges from Belle Grove (see below) were made of cast iron. They feature a fixed pin and pointless screws. By contrast, a later hinge from the S.A. Coffman House (circa 1870s) on the property of Belle Grove has been stamped out of metal, the pin is removable and the screws are pointed.

Rafters

The rafters that supported the roof of Belle Grove would have been assembled first on ground, then numbered and dismantled and reassembled in place atop the second story. Inscribed roman numerals were clearly visible on each piece of wood. While a metal roof adorned the house in the 20th century, nail holes indicated that shingles, likely split wood, were the original covering.

Features of note:
Up-and-down cut marks indicates the board was cut in an early nineteenth century saw mill.
tapered toward the ridge to lighten framing.
open mortice and tenon with treenail (peg) secures pairs of rafters at the peak.
absence of ridge board.

ridge board - a horizontal timber or member a the top of the roof, to which the upper ends of rafters are fastened. Rarely used for common rafter roofs until the late 19th century.

Definitions are from:
Lounsbury, Carl R. An Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern Architecture and Landscape. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.