The first American pattern book of architecture to go through many editions: the orders, mouldings, doors, windows, stairs and plans of houses and churches, drawn for the carpenter who would build them in wood, and simplified from the English books that had served before.
Benjamin (1773–1845) was a housewright from New England who became the most widely read architectural writer in the young United States. His Country Builder’s Assistant (1797) was the first architectural book by an American author; The American Builder’s Companion (1806) went through six editions, and The Practical House Carpenter (1830) many more.
His books made the style now called Federal, after Robert Adam and the English builders’ guides, the common manner of New England: the symmetrical front of five bays, the central hall and stair, the doorway under a fanlight, the slender orders of the porch and the delicate mouldings of the rooms. He reduced the mouldings and the orders to suit wood and the American purse, and in later editions turned to the Greek orders.
The book, part by part
I The orders and their parts
The five orders, with their proportions simplified for the carpenter, and the mouldings that make them.
II Plans and elevations
Houses, a meeting house and a church, with their doors, windows, chimneypieces and stairs, each drawn to be built.