Mount Vernon ice house
George Washington’s Mount Vernon ice house stored winter-cut Potomac ice in a hillside dry well for use in warmer months. The official description and 1798 estate inventory give distinct details of its form.
Built structures · Smokehouses and smoke rooms
Tidewater smokehouse
Tidewater Virginia smokehouses were separate buildings for curing and storing meat. Documentary references attest to purpose-built examples by the early eighteenth century; a HABS photograph records one interior at Sherwood Forest.
How it is built
Risks and precautions
Historical structure account only; not construction, curing, ventilation, or food-safety guidance.
Materials
- Timber and boards
- Colonial Williamsburg's review of Tidewater evidence does not establish purpose-built smokehouses in the seventeenth-century documentary or archaeological record it examined. It notes that smoking may have occurred in temporary shelters or perhaps chimney spaces, but those possibilities remain uncertain. A 1716 York County document is described as the earliest known local use of the term “smoak house”; eighteenth-century county advertisements and parish orders then provide clearer evidence of separate framed buildings. These are documentary attestations, not a proven origin date.
- Typical early eighteenth-century Tidewater smokehouses were small timber buildings, often around eight to fourteen feet square, with steep pyramidal roofs. Individual buildings varied, and those general dimensions should not be assigned to every example. A HABS record documents the interior of the Sherwood Forest smokehouse in Charles City County. Its photograph shows plank walls and curing poles, but gives neither a construction date nor measurements.
- The Colonial Williamsburg account describes meat being dry-salted before smoking. It discusses pork cuts such as shoulders, bellies and hams and describes salting and smoke exposure as periods measured in weeks. The smokehouse therefore served a sequence of curing work, rather than acting simply as a cooking hearth. Some smokehouses also provided a place to keep the finished meat.
- Those descriptions are historical evidence, not a current preservation schedule or food-safety instruction. The cited account does not establish one universal fuel, airflow plan, smoke level or duration for Tidewater households. The empty HABS interior supports the presence of curing poles, not the specific meat or curing stage in any one use.
- The HABS photograph is useful architectural evidence because its caption identifies this interior and its curing poles. It should not be treated as a plan for all Tidewater smokehouses. Colonial Williamsburg distinguishes known documentary references from uncertain earlier practice, while the HABS caption records a particular building without dating it. The evidence supports an enclosed smokehouse and staged meat preservation, but not a universal floor plan or a single method used throughout Virginia.
Places
Tidewater Virginia
Historical attestation · Region evidenceThe source discusses records from several counties; this does not claim every household used the form.
Sherwood Forest, Charles City County
Historical attestation · Locality evidenceThe HABS record identifies the photographed smokehouse in Charles City County.
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Sources
Colonial Williamsburg FoundationHistory · Form · Use · Geography
SmokehousesThe study does not establish purpose-built seventeenth-century smokehouses in the Tidewater record it reviewed and treats possible alternatives as uncertain.
The earliest known term cited is in a 1716 York County record; eighteenth-century sources describe framed buildings.
Typical Tidewater examples are described as small timber buildings, often 8–14 feet square with steep pyramidal roofs.
Meat was dry-salted before smoking; the account describes both stages as taking weeks and notes possible storage of finished meat.
Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of CongressVisual reference · Form · Geography
Sherwood Forest, Smokehouse, Charles City County, Virginia: Interior, Showing Curing PolesHABS identifies an interior view of the Sherwood Forest smokehouse in Charles City County, Virginia.
The photograph caption specifies curing poles; it does not state construction date or dimensions.