he was also prominently identified with the more convivial activities of
the community.

On Colonel Coultas' death in 1768, Whitby Hall was inherited by his
niece, Martha Ibbetson Gray, and later passed by inheritance to her
great-great-grandchildren in the Thomas family, in whose hands it still
remains.

Eloquently typical of the broad hall running entirely through the house
from front to back, with the staircase located in a smaller side hall,
is the arrangement at Mount Pleasant to which reference has already been
made in a previous chapter. It is one which affords delightful vistas
through the outside doorways at each end and an ample open space for
dancing on occasion. Handsome doorways along the sides open into the
principal rooms and are notable for their beautifully molded architrave
casings and nicely worked pedimental doorheads. In fact, the woodwork
here, as well as that throughout the house, is heavier and richer in
elaboration of detail than usual in Georgian houses of the North, the
classic details of the fluted pilasters and heavy, intricately carved
complete entablature being pure mutulary Doric and more ornate than the
Ionic detail of Whitby Hall. However, this was quite in keeping with the
larger and more pretentious character of the former. The entablature is
a positive triumph in cornice, frieze and architrave. The moldings are
of good design and carefully worked; the guttae of the mutules, the
triglyphs with paneled metopes between, and the guttae of the architrave
all closely follow the classic order and exemplify the finest hand
tooling of the period.

So similar as a whole yet so different in detail are the staircase hall
of Mount Pleasant and the staircase end of the main hall at Whitby Hall
that they invite comparison. In general arrangement they are much the
same, except that the staircases are reversed, left for right. As at
Whitby Hall a flat arch frames the staircase vista, a great beam bearing
the entablature surrounds the hall at the ceiling, spanning the entrance
to the staircase hall and being supported by square, fluted columns. In
this smaller hall a simple, though only a molded cornice in harmony with
that of the main hall suffices. Unlike the plain dado of the main hall,
however, elaborated only by a molded surbase and skirting, a handsome
paneled wainscot runs around the staircase hall and up the stairs. The
spacing and workmanship displayed in this heavily beveled and molded