What's the oldest building in the eastern United States?

Factual Questions
1

I was just curious about this and while you’d think this would be easy enough to find out, but I’m having difficulty.

Requirements:

1- It has to have been originally built in America (i.e. the 13th century Spanish Monastery moved to NYC by Hearst and rebuilt in Florida doesn’t count)

2- It has to be the original building- at least in part- and not a reconstruction ala Plimoth Plantation.

Candidates I’ve found:

The Wing House- a small house and fort built around 1643 on Cape Cod. It’s now almost unrecognizable from its original appearance, but parts of the original structure are incorporated into the current house.
The James Blake House of Dorchester, MA (generally held to be the oldest building in Boston), built about 1648.

The Adam Thoroughgood House in Virginia Beach- there’s some debate over this one as accounts of when it was built vary from the 1630s to early 18th century. There was a fire around 1680 and the home was rebuilt, but whether it was basically razing and building a new structure or just repairing the existing one is an item of contention between some scholars.

As for American Indian ruins, there are to my knowledge no actual buildings- lots of mounds and campsites but the houses were seen as somewhat disposable. Probably the closest would be the Lodge Room of Ocmulgee Mounds, created around 1000 years ago, but save for the floor it’s pretty much a total reconstruction.

Portions of the Castillo de San Marcosin St. Augustine date to the late 17th century with some of the rubble used to make the mortar composed of houses and buildings built much earlier, but most of the structure dates to much later.

Anyway, what would be some other candidates? It doesn’t have to be a house?

2

According to Wikipedia, it’s St. Luke’s Church (Smithfield, Virginia).

3

Ah, thanks! (Irks me I didn’t pull that one up.)

4

So it’s not San Miguel Mission?

5

The OP limited it to the eastern US.

6

Damn! My first thought was the Temple of Dendur.

My second thought was the Bowne House, in Queens New York (oddly, not on the Wiki list).

7

Long ago, I remember reading a plaque in St. Augustine, Florida claiming this.

8

Not only is that not the oldest house in New York, but it’s not even the oldest on Long Island. The Old House in Cutchogue, NY dates from 1649, eleven years earlier.

9

It’s worth noting that the dates on almost all these structures are approximate. When you’re dealing with records from a rural, remote community 400 years ago the exact groundbreaking can be hard to pin down.

That being said, there seems to be significant evidencethat the aforementioned St Luke’s Church was built in the late 1600s.

The National Park Service agrees that the Fairbanks House dates to around 1637, but still quantifies its declaration that it is “perhaps the oldest framehouse standing in the United States.” (italics mine)

10

Well, what about the Newport tower? http://www.unexplainedearth.com/newport.php

11

If you’re going to start considering things like the Newport Tower (almost certainly dating from early colonial times, as archaeological excavations have shown, despite the tantalizing possibility some have claimed of a pre-Columbian European origin), then you might want to throw in the “beehive” structures at Mystery Hill in New Hampshire, AKA “America’s Stonehenge”. People have claimed that Vikings built them, or Irish monks, or even Phoenicians. The official view was that the Pattee family built the underground chambers and above-ground stonework. About the only group I haven’t read about as being held responsible are the native Americans, who you’d think were the most likely.

12

So, things like the Cahokia mounds don’t count, I presume?

13

By the way, it’s entirely appropriate that on Halloween I suggest The Witch House, more properly the Jonathan Corwin House in Salem, Massachusetts. The plaque on the door reads “Circa 1642”:

http://www.corwinhouse.org/
You can tour it every day. Tons of folks will no doubt be there today, both in the house and doing things on the lawn, which is thrown open on holidays.

14

Define “building.”

There is an 885-ft. long stone wall on Fort Mountain in Georgia, believed to have been constructed between 500 B.C. and 1500 A.D. (The most accepted date being 500 A.D.)

15

I guess this rules out Xanatos Castle.

16

I guess this rules out the house I lived in during college.

17

What’s the oldest commercial building that is still in use?

18

Commercial building? I don’t know, but Shagnasty owns a seventeenth century farmhouse IIRC.

19

I believe it’s the Piggly Wiggly Grocery Store in Florala, Alabama. I don’t have a cite, but if you’d ever seen their restrooms, you’d agree.

20

Isn’t it an 18th century farmhouse? I could be wrong, but that’s what I recall. I guess we’ll wait for him to put the matter to rest.

Anyway, while the question hasn’t been answered yet, I just want to comment on how bizarre it is to compare the situation to the UK and Europe. My wife was just watching a tv show where people in England were looking for houses, and half of them were built prior to the 1500s! Normal, middle class people were living in houses from the 1300s. That’s just crazy, considering a 100 year old house in the US (like mine) is considered old.

So anyway, was what my wife watched in any way reflective of reality? Is it relatively common to live in a circa 1300 house in England?