English-speaking people were the largest group that settled the East Coast of North America in the seventeenth century. The first group who came lived in Virgins; later, another group came to Massachusetts. These early English settlers often made their first houses of long wood pieces or smaller wood pieces called “shingles.” As their lives got better, they built brick houses that were more permanent. They usually copied the steep roofs, the design of the bricks, and the windows from the styles in England.