Partitioning the landscape: fences in colonial Virginia

Magazine Antiques, July, 1998 by Vanessa E. Patrick

Posts and rails that had been sawn rather than split made a more refined looking fence. Multiplying the number of mils could make a more solid barrier, although too many mortise cuts in the posts undermined their soundness. Substituting two-by-fours or two-by-eights for the mils allowed the builder to fill the panels with boards. This version, often called a board or plank fence, was built infrequently in Virginia until after the Revolution and then almost always in an urban setting. Split post and rail fences might be coated with pine pitch for protection from the weather, but sawn elements were usually whitewashed or painted.(31)

The paled fence, also called a pale, a paling, or a palisade, was essentially a post and rail fence with vertically positioned boards nailed along one face of its length [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE VII OMITTED]. This type of fence was both practical and decorative and had already proved itself in Europe.(32) It was the best choice short of a masonry wall for protecting and dignifying gardens, workyards, town lots, grave sites, and the surroundings of public buildings in colonial Virginia.(33) The best examples resembled the fence specified by an Elizabeth City County vestry in 1771:

The Garden to be Rebuilt 132 feet long by 108 feet Wide with good white oak posts Clear of sap 6 Inches square 7 1/2 Feet Long 2 1/2 feet of which to be in the ground, the Rales to be sawed out of good White Oak 4 Inches square split Triangle, & not to Exceed 9 Feet long, the Pales to be sawed out of good heart of Pine 3/4 Thick after sawed, to be five feet high neatly Pointed and Nailed on with 10d- Nails.(34)

As with all wooden fences woods were chosen for their durability and tensile strength. The relative lightness and workability of pine, poplar, or chestnut made these woods well suited for pales. All the elements of a paled fence were usually sawn, and additional finishing with a plane or drawknife enhanced their appearance [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE VIII OMITTED]. Paled fences were generally whitewashed or painted, and at the very least they were given a coat of tar.

A thinner, more elaborately cut and less truly functional version of the paled fence, the picket fence, came into fashion toward the end of the eighteenth century [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE V OMITTED]. Pickets and pales were not synonymous in the eighteenth century, but by the mid-nineteenth century, picket had become a generic term for all fences with vertical components affixed to a post and rail framework. Similarly, in the eighteenth century pale and palisade or palisado became synonyms, although pale ultimately prevailed During the early years of settlement in Virginia, palisades composed of massive posts, rails, and pales with an overtly military purpose surrounded Jamestown and spanned a six-mile frontier between two creeks.(35)

Simpler versions of both the palisade and paled fence relied on closely positioned verticals that were driven into the ground, often with minimal bracing. Such fences were constructed almost entirely of whole or split logs, hewn planks, or riven boards, combining elements of massed and framed fences.(36) From military fortifications to garden enclosures, the paled fence in all its guises constituted a serious investment in both materials and labor and represented a choice of considerable sophistication.