Images(14)

Casement Window

Date1650 to 1700

OriginAmerica, Massachusetts, Medfield

MediumPine; Glass; Lead

Dimensions21 3/4" x 22 7/8"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, The Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collections Fund

Object numberAF-XMA02052.1.1

DescriptionThis extremely rare and intact 17th-century casement window was discovered in Medfiled, Massachusetts. The casement represents a uniquely American colonial style of window with wooden frame and support bars containing diamond panes set in lead cames. It is a horizontal sliding window. We know this because there is no evidence of hinges ever being attached to the frame. In addition, there are indentations where nails were used as stops to keep the window open.
Label TextThis casement window is a rare survival. The materials, construction techniques and design tell us that it is late-17th to early-18th century and American made. It illustrates what the typical casement window would have looked like in Williamsburg during the 18th century.
Period documents and advertisements mention that casement windows were being manufactured here in the 18th century. Between October 1732 and April 1735, Williamsburg carpenter James Wray charged Henry Wetherburn for "Putting in 49 Diamond Panes of Glass"; "18 foot of old Glass sett in New Lead"; and "Mending a light in an iron casement" at the Raleigh Tavern.
ProvenanceThe window was discovered/recovered by Amos Clark Kingsbury of Medfield, Massachusetts sometime in the 1910s. He repelled down a dried up well not far from the Peak House, a 17th century house in Medfield. He removed this window from the well, and it remained in his family's collection until the early 1980s.