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Overview
Featuring more than 100 stunning full-color photographs along with helpful diagrams and historic photos, Barns of Connecticut captures both the iconic and the unique, including historic and noteworthy barns. The book discusses the importance of barns to Connecticut agriculture across our state and up to the present day. Markham Starr's Barns of Connecticut offers a lovely introduction to the architectural, functional, and agricultural roles these structures played in early Connecticut. Through text and color photographs, it tells a story of change and continuity. From the earliest colonial structures to the low steel buildings of modern dairy farms, barns have adapted to meet the needs of each generation; they've stored wheat, hay, and tobacco, and housed farm animals and dairy cows. These enduring structures display the optimism, ingenuity, hard work, and practicality of the people who tend land and livestock throughout the state.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780819574046 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Wesleyan University Press |
| Publication date: | 10/22/2013 |
| Series: | Garnet Books |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 180 |
| File size: | 56 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
MARKHAM STARR is a photographer and the author of End of the Line: Closing the Last Sardine Cannery in America. His photographs have appeared in Yankee Magazine.
Markham Starr is a photographer and the author of Barns of Connecticut and End of the Line: Closing the Last Sardine Cannery in America. His photographs have appeared in magazines such as Yankee, Rhode Island Monthly, Lenswork, Vermont Magazine and others, and reside in the collections of many regional historical museums throughout New England. His images are also part of the permanent collection at the Library of Congress.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
If you have ever walked into an old barn, you can probably still recall the emotions you experienced. If you have never been in such a building, I suggest you avail yourself of the first opportunity. The colors, textures, and aromas inside a barn bring back the past as few buildings can. For me, walking into a barn is as close as I can get to walking into history. Old churches, town halls, and antique homes, perhaps a bit drafty by modern standards, may retain the barest memory of the years they've absorbed. Electrical and plumbing systems, however, as well as a hundred other modern transformations, often mask the essence of what it meant to inhabit such a dwelling a century ago. Barns, on the other hand, seldom undergo such transformations. The dust of decades still rests atop timbers long exposed to the passage of time. Webs cast by spiders long since departed festoon the corners, and dried animal dung adds pungency to the air. There is a palpable feeling of the life that once infused the barn.
Early Connecticut barns consist of little more than four walls, a gable roof, and perhaps two doorways. A few windows, if any, illuminate the completely open floor plan within the deceptively simple structure. Nevertheless, for the first European settlers in Connecticut, as with nearly all emerging agricultural societies, the barn's important role can hardly be overstated. In fact, as a measure of their importance, barns were once considered military targets in times of war. The British destroyed them during the American Revolution, as did General Sherman a hundred years later in his devastating March to the Sea. A population could be brought to its knees through the destruction of its barns.
While we often think of the church as the most important building in colonial life, it was in fact the barn that held survival's key. Not until basic necessities were well secured could townspeople begin to consider building a house of worship. Barns often came even before houses in order of importance. In early English history one building often served all purposes, and people, animals, and harvests all shared the same space. Without the barn, agricultural life in colder northern climates could not have flourished. Once societies moved beyond the primitive hunting and gathering model that had sustained them for millennia, storehouses became essential to their year-round survival. Settlers arriving in Connecticut in the mid-1600s came from an agrarian heritage, and the barns they built spoke of the culture in which they were embedded. Early Connecticut barns reflect a European heritage in their importance, design, and construction. The model for these buildings was so successful that it would be nearly two hundred years before Connecticut barn builders would consider change.
With this notion of the barn's importance to Connecticut's earliest European settlers — and my own fondness for them — I set out to write this book. Greatly aided by the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation's Barn Survey, I tried to identify some of the most important barns in the state. This book is not an exhaustive study, but rather a showcase of this marvelous structure in many of the forms that grace our land.
This book is also, I hope, a tribute to the continuing, and continually reflowering, family-farm culture of the state.
The First Barns in Connecticut
When early settlers populated the state, nearly every homestead required a barn of one size or another. Barns held the essentials of life. Horses and oxen used for transportation or work were stabled in the barn. Cows, pigs, chickens, and sheep also required a barn, to moderate winter temperatures and keep predators at bay. Grains and grasses grown to feed farm families and their livestock were stored within these buildings, alongside the animals themselves. And, of course, farmers stored essential field equipment there. While early barns seem humble in appearance, the role they fulfilled was anything but. Our ancestors survived on the three basic essentials: food, clothing, and shelter, and the barn played the leading role in that equation.
The first European settlers in Connecticut were Dutch, following Adriaen Block's explorations of the coastline in 1614, but English settlers transplanted from Massachusetts soon followed the Dutch into the Connecticut River valley. By the mid-1600s, the English had become the predominant European population.
The very first structures built in New England were, by necessity, quite crude. Rough log structures and earthen homes protected settlers as they cleared land and began to establish themselves and their farms. As soon as circumstances permitted, these early settlers constructed traditionally framed structures like those they had left behind. The earliest surviving home in Connecticut, the Henry Whitfield house, was built of stone in 1639. The oldest timber-framed home in the state is the Joseph Loomis homestead, built one year later, and a dozen or more framed houses constructed before 1700 still stand. These early structures mimic the framing traditions from which they sprang. No Connecticut barns from the 1600s are known to have survived, but we can see some of their foundations and sense their structures from seventeenth-century paintings, drawings, and literature.
* * *
Since the earliest house frames in both Connecticut and Massachusetts closely follow English framing traditions, it may be safe to assume that both the design and construction details of the first barns in Connecticut did as well. The building method settlers used, known as post-and-beam construction, employed heavy hewn timbers to form the barn's skeleton, upon which barn builders applied a sheathing of sawn boards. The roofs, which may initially have been thatched, would be covered with split wooden shingles. This design was so successful for the single-family subsistence farmer that such barns were still occasionally being built even into the twentieth century. Post and beam barns are still built on occasion in Connecticut as new farms spring to life.
The English Barn
The location of the barn on nearly every farm in Connecticut was, of course, well within sight of the farmhouse — yet far enough away to ensure that a fire in one building would not bring down the other. Farmers wanted to be able to see and hear what was going on at the barn throughout the day and night, since being able to sense trouble brewing was critical to staving off problems before they grew too large. When possible, barns were also situated to catch the greatest amount of the sun's light and warmth during its track across the sky. Hard-working farmers appreciated any available comforts.
The floor plan for the barn was fixed by tradition. These early barns were so similar in size and layout that they are known today as 30x40s. That is, they generally measure out to be something near thirty feet wide and forty feet long. The timber frames for these buildings divide the structure into three distinct bays, or sections. While there is some variation from barn to barn, it is astonishing to modern eyes to see just how little. Before settlers even considered crossing the Atlantic, hundreds of years of structural evolution had refined the barn to the point where a family could depend on its being the correct size and shape necessary for their survival. Much like evolution in animal and plant life, the English barn progressed to become an intelligent answer to a particular problem.
The English barn was a gable-ended structure with the major doorway on the long side of the building beneath the eaves. These barns often had a pair of large doors on both sides of the building, which allowed wagons to pass directly through. While the large doorways provided much-needed light and air during warm summers, in winter months smaller entryways made more sense. Small doors were often built into larger doors. Given the precious nature of glass at this time, barns were built without windows. When the doors were closed, the only light penetrating the gloom would have come from gaps between the planking of the exterior siding. In the winter, barn interiors were quite cold, being able to elevate outdoor temperatures only slightly, but this was enough to keep farm animals alive.
The three bays of the barn were often quite open, from the ground level on up to the roof's ridgeline. The center bay of the barn was generally left clear to allow for the passage of wagons. A tightly laid wooden floor was common in this area of the barn, as grains such as wheat and oats were threshed here before the advent of mechanical threshers. To separate the seeds from the rest of the plant, workers placed grasses on this floor and beat them with flails. Wind blowing through the open doors of the barn would waft away the chaff — the unusable portion of the plant — as the seeds were tossed into the air. Once separated from the chaff, the seeds were collected and stored.
The center bay also provided a working space sheltered from the weather for whatever purpose may have been needed: the repair or building of equipment, animal husbandry, or the thousand other tasks related to daily life. The bays to either side of this central bay were used to store grasses and other crops or to house farm animals. Except for the animal stalls, these bays were kept open to the rafters, rather than being divided into rooms. These two bays, at least early on, generally had simple dirt floors. While economics may have played a role in that decision, it was also more practical to have earthen floors where animals were penned. Wooden floors covering the entire first floor of the barn became necessary, of course, with the advent of cellars.
In early New England, farmers might keep sheep, cows, pigs, chickens, oxen, or horses. These were animals that could withstand the winter temperatures if kept out of biting winds and falling rain or snow. Their wooden stalls were built to accommodate them over the harshest months. The pens kept the animals separated from the grasses and grains stored around them, and encouraged huddling for added warmth.
Differences between Early Barn and Early House Construction
The skills and framing techniques a carpenter used to build barns and homes were much the same; there were few significant differences between the two. Of course the daily operations taking place within the barn were quite different from those taking place within the home, leading to differences in interior layout. The barn, in contrast to the home, was an open and airy structure. Since timber-framed structures are self-supporting — that is to say, they do not depend on sheathed walls for stability, as modern buildings do — a timber-framed structure can be left entirely open without fear of collapse. For grass-crop storage, voluminous space was required, and farmers knew well the importance of air circulation. Grass crops are subject to mildew and rot if not thoroughly dried, and imperfectly dried grasses can spontaneously combust — something settlers could ill afford. Additionally, dried grasses were not pressed into neat rectangular bales as they are today. Rather, they were stored loosely as they were cut and placed in the barn by pitchfork. Open spaces allowed for easier pitching.
The Connecticut farmhouse had a different role to play. Beyond being a place to eat and sleep, the home was also a workshop where essential tasks were performed. Foods were cooked and preserved, wool was spun and made into clothing, and products were made to trade for necessities not available on the farm. While, like the barn, the home's primary function was to keep its inhabitants warm and safe, it needed to do a better job of it. Open and lofted spaces are treasured in today's homes, but such large volumes of air were impossible to warm with the primitive heating systems available at the time. Unlike the barn's occupants, the inhabitants of the home couldn't weather the temperatures of the winter months without being a little more snug. Planking on the sides of their homes was itself sheathed with either split wooden shingles or riven clapboards. Interior walls were plastered as a further measure against drafts. Rooms within early houses tended to be smaller than the rooms we live in today. Low ceilings helped to keep rooms warm by reducing the volume of air. While New England's homes were certainly quite cold by modern standards, fireplaces and eventually more efficient woodstoves kept the family moderately comfortable by burning first wood and, later on, coal.
Unlike domestic structures, barns had no requirements for uniform floor levels between sections. They could be at one height or any other — practicality determined the particulars for each working level. In early barn layout and construction, form strictly followed function in an attempt to make the work within the barn's walls as efficient as possible. The needs of the farm and the farmer took precedence over other considerations. Because everything today is strictly ordered and governed by building codes, floor levels in old barns often seem randomly placed to our modern eyes. We do not expect to bang our heads on timbers or fall through openings as we walk through a building. In a working barn, however, modern safety regulations would have been a hindrance and dramatically reduced efficiency. A particular farmer might have specified a height to the mow, or hayloft, because he knew how high he swung his pitchfork from the ground or from atop his wagon.
The requirements were different for the ends of the barn, in which the animals were housed. The second floor height might start slightly above the maximum height of the animal intended to live there. The flooring above an oxen stall, for example, would be higher than the flooring above the sheep. Keeping floor heights at a minimum above stalls not only made better use of the available space but also added the benefit of keeping the animals warmer in winter. To decide arbitrarily that the second floor should always start, say, at eight feet would waste valuable barn space. When one's survival is at stake, decisions are generally made for very practical reasons.
In addition to varying floor heights, irregular construction is also seen in barn lofts, which did not need to be built as permanent structures. Unlike the second floor of the home in which the family lived and worked, where solid footing underneath was essential, barns were built with flexibility in mind. Many farmers used temporary flooring to store summer harvests. Rather than framing the lofts with full floor joists and covering them with solid decking to make a loft floor, they often employed poles made from saplings to span the distance between girts (supports that run horizontally from post to post). Enough loose boards were placed across this quick joist system to allow farmers to load the ever-rising pile of hay. Less expensive to build, this system allowed for better crop ventilation and added flexibility should the volume of any particular crop vary — although the arrangement certainly made working on top of them all the more interesting. Temporary floors were simply placed where desired and as necessity dictated. Additionally, this loose arrangement allowed farmers to take full advantage of the volume of dry space available. If you imagine trying to pitch loose hay into a room with a fixed ceiling, it isn't hard to see that the ceiling will quickly get in the way of the work. If, however, you pitch the hay as high as you can and then put the ceiling into place, the work becomes much easier. Much later, farmers invented an overhead trolley system running the length of the barn. A large pair of tongs, or horse forks as they were called, hung from this trolley by block and tackle. The forks could be lowered to pick up huge loads of loose hay from a wagon, then raised to any level and dumped onto mows where desired. Here again, having an open structure was essential. Even later, some farmers built barns into hillsides, which allowed them to drive their wagons in near the top of the barn. They simply tossed the hay downward to fill the mow, eliminating much of the physical effort. With the invention, well into the twentieth century, of hay balers priced for the small farm, permanent floors were often added to older barns or built into new structures, since uniformly shaped bales ended the need for open lofts.
Materials Used to Construct Timber-Framed Barns
The earliest barns were, by necessity, constructed of timbers hewn entirely by hand. In fact, hewn timbers would remain the standard well into the 1800s, depending upon location. Even as water-powered saw mills began to dot the landscape, the frame's heavy timber was generally hewn into rectangular form by hand — for both economic and logistical reasons. It took simply too much effort to transport heavy logs to distant mills for the four cuts needed to transform them into rectangular forms, before then shipping them back to the building site. Given the weights involved, and the need to move logs with animal power over primitive roads, hewing a timber on the spot and moving it just once to the building's location saved labor overall. This would remain the case until the advent of balloon construction, in which buildings were made entirely of sawn timber. As one might expect, sawn timber began to make its way into timber-framed barns as saw mills opened throughout New England. Smaller timbers used in the frame, such as wind braces, joists, and eventually common rafters, were the first to replace pieces once hewn. Despite the spread of mills, carpenters preferred to use hewn timbers right into the late nineteenth century.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Barns of Connecticut"
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Copyright © 2013 Markham Starr.
Excerpted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Barns of Connecticut
Acknowledgments
Barn Hunting in Connecticut
Further Reading
What People are Saying About This
"This fluid discussion of the evolution of the Connecticut barn is filled with enlightening generalization supported by telling details. The author's deep knowledge of and obvious respect for these endangered relics of our agricultural heritage is manifest in both text and photographs."
"With over a hundred captivating color photographs and an engaging narrative, this beautiful book documents the character and features of a remarkable collection of Connecticut's historic barns and farm buildings."—Thomas Durant Visser, author of Porches of North America and Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings
"This fluid discussion of the evolution of the Connecticut barn is filled with enlightening generalization supported by telling details. The author's deep knowledge of and obvious respect for these endangered relics of our agricultural heritage is manifest in both text and photographs.""—James F. O'Gorman, author of Connecticut Valley Vernacular: The Vanishing Landscape and Architecture of the New England Tobacco Fields
"With over a hundred captivating color photographs and an engaging narrative, this beautiful book documents the character and features of a remarkable collection of Connecticut's historic barns and farm buildings."—Thomas Durant Visser, author of Porches of North America and Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings
“With over a hundred captivating color photographs and an engaging narrative, this beautiful book documents the character and features of a remarkable collection of Connecticut’s historic barns and farm buildings.”