Online English Test

Although the architects Samuel McInire and Charles Bullfinch designed notable buildings in Salem and Boston, respectively, Asher Benjamin, a carpenter from Greenfield, Massachusetts, is credited with having exerted more direct influence than any other single person on architecture 5 in New England. In 1797 he published a book called The Country Builder's Assistant. It was not the first book on architecture printed in the United States, but it was the first genuinely American treatment of the subject. It was very much a " how-to-do-it " book since it contained plans and detailed drawings for various private and structures. 10 Carpenters throughout the Northeast were a literate breed. They acquired Benjamin's book and began to pattern their construction work on his plan. The first Congregational Church in Bennington, Vermont, one of the most admired of all New England churches, was built by the carpenter Lavius Fillmore and closely resembles one of the designs 15 in Asher's book. Like Fillmore, most local carpenters had souls of their own and were not given to automated reproduction from the book. But the total result is a pervasive pattern that continues to give New England its distinctive flavor.