Beaufort National Cemetery, Lodge, 1601 Boundary Street, Beaufort

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS SC-1-B. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Boundary Street, Beaufort, Beaufort County, South Carolina. The coordinates for the Beaufort National Cemetery, Lodge are W and N, and they were obtained in August with, it is assumed, NAD There is no restriction on the release of the locational data to the public.

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS SC-1-B. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

National Cemetery Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Prior to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs was known as the Veterans Administration. The Veterans Administration took over management of Beaufort National Cemetery from the U.S. Army in (Public Law Date: Builder/Contractor: Unknown. Description: The lodge is a two-story, gambrel-roofed building in the Dutch Colonial Revival style. The foundations are concrete, while the walls are composed of wood and stucco and brick. In the front slope of the gambrel is long, shed-roofed dormer and, in the historic photographs, a brick end chimney is just visible over roofline.

The glazing in the sash windows of the dormer appears to have lights arranged six-over-one, while that in the paired sash of the first floor appears to have nine-over-one. Concrete steps lead up to the screened porch that is also the entrance into the building. The porch is on the west end of the south front elevation, and typically the office occupied the front room and had a door that opened onto the porch. Records of the Veterans Administration reveal that there were six rooms in the lodge, plus a bathroom, and that the floors were wood. Maintenance ledgers kept for the cemetery show that the building was painted on a regular basis.

Mechanical systems, also, were updated periodically, such as the replacement of the furnace in and repairs to the heating system in The floor of the office was tiled in while the wood floors were refinished in The exterior doors were replaced in screen doors added in and window screens repaired in Venetian blinds were installed in and new sash cords inserted in The roof was repaired in and the back slope redone tiling and gutters and downspouts in Site Context: The south-facing Dutch Colonial Revival style lodge is located near the main entrance at the south end of the cemetery along Boundary Street. A walkway connects the lodge to a pedestrian gate in the perimeter wall. The low brick wall was constructed in although BEAUFORT NATIONAL CEMETERY,

Lodge Hals

No. (page 2) the cemetery grounds expanded beyond it on the north side. At the main entrance there is a flagpole. The lodge is to the east and the tool house or service building is to the west. From the flagpole circle five avenues radiate outward, like spokes in a wheel that then connect to a gentle arch-shaped walkway at the north side. History: Please see the contextual report for an analysis of the architectural development of the lodge as a building type for the national cemeteries and its place within this prescribed landscape (HALS No. In Congress authorized the appropriation of land for use as national cemeteries so that the Union soldiers who perished in service to their country could be buried with honor.

These became the first cemeteries in the national cemetery system; by the end of the decade almost men were buried in seventy-three national cemeteries. By that time the Office of the Quartermaster General, and the Quartermaster Montgomery C. Meigs in particular, had developed an architectural program for the cemetery. The program created for the national cemeteries included an enclosing wall demarcating the grounds and ornamental iron gates cast to instill reverence to those who entered and calm the wrought emotions of a nation in mourning for its lost sons. Specific plantings, such as the Osage-orange hedge and various trees, were selected to give a pleasing appearance and, likely, to screen outbuildings - the business of cemetery maintenance - from public view.

Less a commemorative architectural statement, the superintendent s lodge combined practicality with a respectful presence. Lodge plans first evolved from expedient wood-frame cottages to masonry buildings one-story in height and with a three-room floor plan. Construction of the temporary wood-frame lodges took place in the years to and overlapped with the construction of the first permanent masonry lodges built to a standard, single-story design from to Officers in charge of the cemeteries soon found the floor plans of the temporary wood lodges and the first permanent masonry lodges inconvenient and, increasingly, unattractive.

Moreover, representatives from the Quartermaster General s Office noted these three-room models were often too small for a superintendent and his family, and so in plans for a six- room, one and one-half story type were acquired from Edward Clark, Architect of the Capitol Extension. The design was refined over the next two years and in drawn for the Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs s approval. This standard plan featured a mansard roof and so became associated with the French or Second Empire style. Contemporary buildings, domestic and civic, exhibited this aesthetic and so the choice of the Quartermaster for a Second Empire style lodge is in keeping with national architectural trends as well as the personal taste of Meigs whose house also was erected in the Second Empire style.

On the national stage, Alfred Mullet designed the Old Executive Office building in Washington, DC, a building whose construction in the coincided with the building of lodges in the Second Empire style in many of the national cemeteries. The National Cemetery Administration identifies the Second Empire style lodge, referred to in the as the usual type, or even the full Meigs plan likely in reference to the Quartermaster s endorsement of the design, as the first generation of permanent lodges. It BEAUFORT NATIONAL CEMETERY, LODGE HALS No. (page 3) reflects a concerted effort to standardize what a national cemetery, including the lodge, should look like.

The last cemeteries for which the Quartermaster contracted for this style of lodge were for Mobile, Alabama, and Beaufort, South Carolina, in The L-plan was revised in for the lodge in San Francisco, and then employed for the lodges in Mound City and Loudon Park. The revised plan was further improved for the construction of the lodge at Cypress Hills. The revision to the standard L-plan primarily included a change in roof form from the mansard to a cross-gable and the use of banded brick in the exterior walls. Cypress Hills was a simpler expression of the type, with segmental arches over the windows instead of stone lintels and having no banded exterior brick in the walls. In the the plans called for an elongated office wing.

This change to the L-plan accommodated an entrance hall in the middle of the building; the elongated L-plan was built in Santa Fe, Fort Smith, and Fort Leavenworth. By the century s end, standards of living called for conveniences the L-plan lodges lacked. Advances in plumbing and heating technologies, in particular, made the L-plan outdated as expectations about the appropriate level of domestic sanitation that the government should provide to its employees changed. Even so, the Quartermaster omitted indoor toilets from the lodge floor plans until Maintenance of the existing lodges, as well as ell additions, addressed some of the inconveniences of the older buildings, and made the lodges more comfortable as living spaces.

Between the and improvements to the existing lodges included the installation of indoor plumbing and bathrooms, central heating, closets and cupboards; adding a kitchen ell and converting the original kitchen into a dining room; and maintenance of windows, shutters, and porches. By the Quartermaster determined some lodges warranted a complete overall, rather than renovation, and the department began to replace some of the buildings in the national cemeteries. For the new lodges, it created a succession of twenty-two different plans between and Nine of these plans were used to build multiple lodges, but thirteen were unique designs, used only once.

Compared to the extended popularity of the L-plan, which lasted from to in its mansard-roof form and to in its later variations, the rapid succession of designs in the twentieth century suggests a new awareness among those directing the cemeteries of the need to construct lodges that were aesthetically and technologically up-to-date. Over five decades, the Quartermaster endorsed a progression of plans from four-squares to bungalows to Colonial Revival designs and then to suburban ramblers. This progression paralleled the changes in form, style, building materials, and construction practices that occurred in the private housing market.

Most of the lodges built in the twentieth century are indistinguishable from typical American middle-class and upper-middle-class suburban dwellings, with the exception of a second entrance for the superintendent s office. In some instances, such as in Hampton, Virginia, and in Annapolis, Maryland, the army made a particular effort to match new lodges to their local surroundings, usually by building period-revival designs in places where those designs would have particular resonance. In a nod to the colonial heritage of the Chesapeake, the Quartermaster built one-and-one-half-story brick lodges in a Colonial Revival style at these cemeteries in BEAUFORT NATIONAL CEMETERY, LODGE HALS No.

(page 4) In another example, the desire to match designs to localities prompted the alteration of the L-plan lodge at San Francisco into a Spanish Mission Revival building in and the similarly extensive reconstruction of the Santa Fe lodge into the Pueblo Revival style in Of the twentieth-century lodge forms, the design in the Dutch Colonial Revival oeuvre was selected most often. Fourteen lodges were built using this plan between and The design called for a one and one-half story building with masonry construction at the first floor and wood-frame gambrel roofs enclosing the upper floor. The building footprint was rectangular and included an enclosed porch and office in the front, a living room and stair in the middle, and a dining room and kitchen at the rear.

The second floor contained three bedrooms and a bathroom opening off of a central hall. Three versions of the design were used. The first in four lodges erected between and with hollow core tile walls covered in stucco, shingled roofs and gable ends, and dormers two windows in width on the front and rear. The second version expanded the dormer from two windows to four, adding more light the upper floor. This plan was used twice, for lodges in Nashville and Chattanooga, in PWA funds paid for the construction of lodges in including eight built to a third rendition of the Dutch Colonial Revival design. In the building materials included a brick construction on the first floor and faux half-timbered or brick gables.

The Beaufort lodge is significant as an example of the third expression of the Dutch Colonial Revival design, and it cost to build. President Abraham Lincoln authorized the establishment of Beaufort National Cemetery in and the initial interments were the remains of those who died in the Union hospitals during the occupation of Beaufort. Beaufort fell to Union troops less than a year after South Carolina seceded from the United States, and the city s role in support of the Ordinance of Succession (in made it an early target once the war began in April The national cemetery is in the city of Beaufort, guarded by a brick masonry wall and within that boundary, it was laid out like the spokes of a wheel.

A temporary, wood-frame building one story in height with an elongated octagon plan was constructed for the cemetery in The octagon-plan accommodated three rooms and there was a porch against the rear of the building. The octagonal building was placed on the site where men of color had been buried; although the graves were relocated by the superintendent complained of sickness caused by conditions in the cemetery lodge and justified taking quarters in the city of Beaufort. By the octagonal structure was used as an office and for storage because the superintendent continued to reside in town.

The building was moved inside the enclosed portion of the cemetery in and reused as a tool house in No moves to replace the temporary wood lodge in Beaufort, or that in Mobile, Alabama, came until because both locations were said to be unhealthy. By these wood cottages, once perceived as appropriate living quarters, were described as old and not commodious and new lodges were commissioned. In a lodge in the Second Empire style was constructed in Beaufort. It was L-shaped in plan, with three rooms on the first floor and three rooms on second floor. The walls of the lodge were brick with stone trimmings and brick quoins; the basement and foundation were stone. Gable-roofed dormers lit the second floor, while double-hung, wood sash windows illuminated the first floor.

The walls and ceilings were plaster on lath, while the floors were wood. The BEAUFORT NATIONAL CEMETERY, LODGE HALS No. (page 5) basement, also three rooms equal in size to those above, had a floor of concrete and grilles at the window openings. Joseph R. Bickings won the contract to build the brick lodge; he estimated costs of construction to be Shortly after Bickings completed the project, an August gale broke the lodge s skylight. Repairs were made to the skylight using old sash. Information from the National Cemetery Administration suggests that this lodge was completed in and taken down in for the Dutch Colonial Revival styled building there today.

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS SC-1-B. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Annual Report of the Secretary of War. [to Congress]. Washington, DC: GPO, Deetz, James. In Small Things Forgotten: The Archaeology of Early American Life. New York: Doubleday, Dickinson, William C., Dean A. Herrin, and Donald R. Kennon, eds. Montgomery C. Meigs and the Building of the Nation s Capital. Athens: University of Ohio Press for the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, General Correspondence and Reports Relating to National and Post Cemeteries, 1865-ca. Record Group 92, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, National Archives Building, Washington, DC. Holt, Dean W. American Military Cemeteries: A Comprehensive Illustrated Guide to the Hallowed Grounds of the United States, Including Cemeteries Overseas.

Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, Message of the President of the United States [to Congress]. Washington, DC: GPO, Meyer, Richard E., ed. Cemeteries and Gravemarkers: Voices of American Culture. Logan: Utah State University Press, National Cemetery Historical File, Department of Memorial Affairs, Record Group 15, Records of the Veterans Administration, National Archives Building, Washington, DC. Sloane, David Charles. The Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries in American History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Zipf, Catherine W. Marking Union Victory in the South: The Construction of the National Cemetery System. In Monuments to the Lost Cause: Women, Art, and the Landscapes of Southern Memory, edited by Cynthia Mills and Pamela H. Simpson.

Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press,

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS SC-1-B. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

The documentation of the lodges and rostrums in the national cemeteries was undertaken by the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), one of the Heritage Documentation Programs of the National Park Service, Richard O'Connor, Chief. The project was sponsored by the National Cemetery Administration (NCA) of the U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Sara Amy Leach, Senior Historian. Project planning was coordinated by Catherine C. Lavoie, Chief of HABS. Historical research was undertaken by HABS Historians Virginia B. Price and Michael R. Harrison. NCA Historians Jennifer Perunko, Alec Bennett, and Hillori Schenker provided research material, edited and reviewed written reports.

Field work for selected sites was carried out and measured drawings produced by HABS Architects Paul Davidson, Ryan Pierce, and Mark Schara.