Houses

Pilgrim houses are very small and have one room called the hall. Their roofs are made from thatch and the walls are made from strips of wood. The reason they’re strips instead of whole pieces is because they weren’t used to having so many trees around them, so they were trying to save the wood. There are no doors and the floor is the earth. It doesn’t take long to build houses because they’re small and they brought all of their belongings on the ship, so they didn’t have to build everything.

Every house had a fireplace that provided light, warmth and some cooking, but most of the cooking was done in the oven, but how, when there were no ovens in any ones house? They all shared an oven in the middle of the village. If there were children in the house they would usually share trundle beds. Their beds were filled with straw so it felt like sleeping on a hay stack. If there weren’t enough beds in the house in the house some children would have to sleep on tables, which were just boxes stacked up on each other. The biggest chair in the house usually belonged to the dad and if there were enough chairs in the house children could sit during dinner. You will often see the family’s best dishes hanging on the wall. They did this to show off to people. Their houses aren’t painted, they are the color that Earth decided.

When I went to Plimoth Plantation the houses looked different from what from I thought they would. They were much nicer, practically perfect little architectures. You feel like you want to live in it until you find out what they go through in there.

Pilgrim houses really interest me and I’d like to find out more.

- by Eller