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Researching the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site of Canada
  Recherche sur la Forteresse-de-Louisbourg Lieu historique national du Canada

DOMESTIC BUILDING CONSTRUCTION 
AT THE FORTRESS OF LOUISBOURG, 1713 - 1758

By

Eric Krause

1996 Draft Report

(Fortress of Louisbourg
Report Number H G 10)

CHAPTER TEN

DOOR AND WINDOW OPENINGS - DOORS

Doors stood at nearly every doorway, trap or staircase opening. Of local manufacture, they were planed both sides, one or 2 pouces thick, one or 2-leafed, and were either batten or emboiture.

The difference between batten or emboiture was in how the carpenter set the horizontal members in place to hold the vertical tongued and grooved boards together. In batten construction he nailed either soft or hardwood boards, near the top and bottom, and occasionally another in between, set horizontally or diagonally. In emboiture, however, he assembled his doors, mortise and tenon style, with a hardwood board, perhaps 5 to 6 pouces wide, on each end, pegged in place.

The vertical boards of both types were usually of pine or fir, drawn from a common stock widely used for flooring and partition construction. Battens were generally also of softwood and so contracts often ignored a batten door in actual description since its price was no different than, say, an equal area of flooring. They discuss emboiture doors, however, because of the hardwood and the time-consuming joinery required, which made them relatively more expensive. The hardwood, as for the occasional batten too, was oak or mérisier, both harvested locally.

Paneled and glass doors, both variations of the two basic Louisbourg doors, saw occasional use. Paneled doors were the rarer type, prompting one thief of four doors in the commissaire-ordonnateur's north shore house to burn the only paneled one so as to avoid questions where he obtained it. Three and 5-paneled doors, single or 2-leaf, seem to have been more popular. As in the chapel of the hospital, half an interior paneled door might also be in glass.

An exterior glass door- one carried 28 panes in a frame - was also possible, as long as it did not compromise security, as for a boutique. Thus one might find one leading to a balcony or to a garden but not usually to a street. Otherwise, an owner would have installed a transom above an exterior door with normal size glass panes - one carried 20 6 by 8 pouce panes - set in a frame. Only a few, however, chose a transom for interior use.

Likewise, for reasons of cost rather than for preference, however, did a few owners choose a door entirely of hardwood. Louis Levasseur's fine Block 23A residence had a number of oak doors and the entry door to the Vallée's home in Block 34 was of hardwood, but there were scarcely any others. Economics being important it was perhaps more common to have solid softwood emboiture doors, like those which a Block 2 Rodrigue contract proposed in 1738. One pouce thick, these interior doors, 16 in all, were to be entirely of pine.

Location and desired doorway width would pre-determine whether a door would be single or 2-leafed. Exterior doorways, particularly those for main house or storehouse entrance-ways, tended to be wide and so their doors were often 2-leafed. Within a house, however, doorways were smaller and doors were generally single-leafed. Exceptions were doors for corridors, oversize staircases and special rooms - like a conseil chamber where a paneled 2-leaf door opened out into another room. Exterior doors were usually 2 pouces thick, but occasionally one pouce, whether they were single or 2-leafed or whether they swung inwards or outwards. In contrast, interior doors were generally just of the opposite size, with some 1 1/4 pouces thick. At times, too, the door which stood in an exterior opening was lined with a second layer of boards, or was even a storm door. Storm doors were perhaps unusual though because of the popularity of interior vestibules, and exterior storm porches.