196 A. EF. Verrill—The Bermuda Islands. 608 
much greater facility with which lumber and fuel can now be 
obtained from the United States and Canada, than formerly. 
At present, nearly all the lumber used on the islands is shipped 
from American ports, including the very large amount used for the 
crates in which the onion crop is shipped. 
The decrease in the cedar timber was one of the causes that led 
gradually to the use of stone for the construction of nearly all the 
dwellings, and even for the barns and outhouses. 
Probably the violence of the occasional hurricanes was another 
important cause that led to the use of more substantial buildings. 
Moreover, the abundance and cheapness of the limestone, and the 
ease with which it can be worked, by sawing it into square blocks 
with ordinary saws, were also very favorable factors in the change 
from wood to stone dwellings. Governor Butler, in 1620, erected 
the first stone public building for the “Town House,” at St. George’s, 
as an example, as he said, for the people to follow, and thus save the 
cedar trees, but very few other stone houses were built for at least 
eighty years later. 
The Company had ordered a stone house to be built on Long Bird 
Island, in 1625, but as Governor Woodhouse objected to it, he was 
permitted by a letter of March, 1626, to build it of cedar at his 
discretion. : 
In 1676 the English government requested information on the con- 
ditions of the Bermuda colony, asking a series of questions. The 
official replies from the Bermuda Company, in 1679, contain much 
information. Among other things it was stated that the houses were 
nearly all of cedar at that time. The names of the forts then in use 
were also given, with the number of guns. Among them were 
King’s Castle and Southampton Fort. 
From 1700 to 1810 shipbuilding and commerce were carried on to 
a considerable extent by the Bermudians,* agriculture having fallen 
into disrepute, owing largely to the social effects of slavery, it is 
said, but the lack of a good market was also a great drawback. 
Cedar was almost exclusively used for the shipbuilding, but it must 
have been obtained chiefly from the young forests that had grown 
on the neglected farm lands of the previous century. 
* Their commerce was interrupted from 1793 to 1799, by the French priva- 
teers, and again in 1812-14 by American privateers. After 1822 they had to 
compete with American vessels in the West Indian trade, and their commerce 
declined again. 
