Practical considerations guided Scotsman Duncan J. MacArthur, who, in 1833, brought his bootmaking trade, his wife and a one-year-old son to the Genesee Country. His house was small and in a form that looked back to one of the earliest houses of New England — the "salt-box."

The first houses in the English colonies were one-story single-room affairs with a chimney at one end. Then came the two-room versions with the chimney in the middle. Space could be added to either of the simple, gable-roofed boxes by adding a shed, or lean-to, at the rear. The shed roof of the addition might carry out the same pitch as the main roof or it might be flatter. Whichever the case, the result was a long roof at the back and a short one in front, forming the "salt-box" shape. Early salt-boxes grew from necessity, but their practical shape for cold climates — with the longer roof slope to the north — has proven pleasing enough for the style to endure.

MacArthur's salt-box, built at a country crossroads west of York Center, N.Y., evolved from a story-and-a-half house to which at some unknown time a lean-to was attached. The lean-to, which contains the kitchen, a borning room and the pantry, is connected to the older portion of the house through the stair hall leading to the front entrance and through a door into the parlor. One bed chamber is located on the second floor.

Colloquially, MacArthur's salt-box was called a "half-house," a term that suggests that a "whole" house could be built by adding a structure with two windows on the other side of the front door. In York Center there are examples of "whole" houses of the same vintage and with the same tall proportions of doorway and windows as MacArthur's, lending plausibility to the notion that the shoemaker's house was only a fraction of what it could be.