| OCR Text |
Show dwellings erected in the valley and were found both in the forts and on city lots. Several of these early structures remain, often hidden under the layers of many subsequent remodelings (see figures 33, 34, and 97). The single cell form was not only built during the period of initial settlement. One unit dwellings continued to be a viable housing alternative for families of moderate means well through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. Evidence of the house form's popularity . is found in the fact that such structures today comprise about twenty percent of the total. number of pre-1890 houses in the valley. 5 While some of these small houses may be viewed as a minimal type of shelter, others are quite elegant and display a concern for fashion that rivals any of the larger homes in the area (see figures 35, 40, and 41). The single cell dwelling type has a long history and cannot be simply characterized as a response to primitive frontier conditions. Such houses surfaced in ·sixteenth and seventeenth century England as dwellings for tradesmen and laborers and easily made the trans-Atlantic crossing to the Ameican Colonies. 6 It was found in both New England and the Mid-Atlantic region but proved to be one of the main farm house forms in the Tidewater South during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 7 Single room houses, often built of l0g, were carried westward with the expanding frontier and have been recorded in virtually every area of the country, a fact that has led one folklorist to call it the "basic Anglo-American house. 118 While often associated with the English tradition, small one room cottages served as the residences for farm tenants and laborers throughout Northern Europe during the nin~teenth century as well. 9 The Mormons were well acquainted with the form in the east and it was perhaps the most common type of dwelling 124 |
