The walls of the rooms were wainscoted and painted. Gurdon Saltonstall had on the walls of some of his state-rooms leathern hangings or tapestries. We find wealthy Sir William Pepperel sending to England, in 1737, the draught of a chamber he was furnishing, and writing, "Geet mock Tapestry or paint'd Canvass lay'd in Oyls for ye same and send me." In 1734 "Paper for Rooms," and a little later "Rolled Paper for Hanging of Rooms" were advertised in the Boston News Letter. "Statues on Paper" were soon sold, and "Architraves on Roll Paper" and "Landscape Paper." These old paper-hangings were of very heavy and strong materials, close-grained, firm and durable. The rooms of a few wealthy men were hung with heavy tapestries. The ceilings usually exposed to view the great summer-tree and cross rafters, sometimes rough-hewn and still showing the marks of the woodman's axe. But little decoration was seen overhead, even in the form of chandeliers; sometimes a candle beam bore a score of candles, or in some fine houses, such as the Storer mansion in Boston, great ornamental globes of glass hung from the summer-tree.

In the first log cabins oiled paper was placed in windows. We find more than one colonist writing to England for that semi-opaque window-setting. Soon glass windows, framed in lead, were sent from London and Liverpool and Bristol, ready for insertion in the walls of houses; and at an early day sheets of glass came to Winthrop. We find, by Sewall's time, that the houses of well-to-do folk all had "quarrels of glass" set in windows.

The flight of time in New England houses was marked without doors by sun-dials; within, by noon-marks, hour-glasses, and rarely by clepsydras, or water-clocks.

The first mention, in New England records, of a clock is in Lechford's note-book. He states that in 1628 Joseph Stratton had of his brother a clock and watch, and that Joseph acknowledged this, but refused to pay for them and was sued for payment. Hence Lawyer Lechford's interest in the articles and mention of them. In 1640 Henry Parks, of Hartford, left a clock by will to the church. In the inventory of Thomas Coteymore, made in Charleston, in 1645, his clock is apprized at £1. In 1657 there was a town-clock in Boston and a man appointed to take care of it. In 1677 E. Needham, of Lynn, left a "striking clock, a Larum that does not strike and a watch," valued at £5—this in an estate of £1,117 total. Judge Sewall wrote, in 1687, "Got home rather before 12 Both by my Clock and Dial."

Clocks must have become rather plentiful in the early part of the following century, for in 1707 this advertisement appeared in the Boston News Letter: