A Traditional Marriage: Historic Barns & Beautiful Quilts

This article was submitted by Suzi Parron, author of Barn Quilts and the American Quilt Trail Movement.  We are thrilled to connect with Ms. Parron and others active in the barn quilt movement.  The NBA sees the use of quilt blocks and historic barns  behind them, acting as a canvas, to be an enchanting (and culturally significant!) reflection of men and women’s traditional work on farms across the country.  

The historic barns of Kittitas County, Washington, are receiving quite a bit of attention these days.  Several local barns have been decorated with barn quilts—quilt patterns painted on wood and mounted on the barn surfaces for passersby to see. The effort marks the beginning of the state’s first quilt trail, which encourages visitors to travel the rural countryside and creates renewed appreciation for the area’s barns.  Half of the forty barns that make up the first phase of the trail are more than 100 years old, and the remainder date to the 1960s or earlier.

Ballard Barn and Wagon Wheel Quilt Block, Photograph by Jacqueline Fausset

Ballard Barn and “Wagon Wheel” Quilt Block, Photograph by Jacqueline Fausset

One of the most notable is the Ballard barn in Cle Elum, built in 1900 by the original homesteader, Miles Clinton Ballard. Ballard was a skilled carpenter whose barn is unique among those in the area, designed to survive the valley’s spring winds that often gust up to 60 miles per hour. He designed the barn with lateral boards on the first story and diagonal bracing on the upper half.The barn was originally used to store hay and to shelter draft horses and also housed calving cows as needed.  It is still in active use to store hay and farm equipment. Current owner Chuck Ballard is the sixth generation of his family to occupy the farm, which still has all of its original homestead acres intact. The Wagon Wheel quilt block was chosen because it reminded Chuck of the wagons and buggies that were used on the farm when he was a child.  He and wife Bev decided upon a patriotic color scheme to honor their late son Greg, a well-loved and respected firefighter in Cle Elum.

The Barn Quilts of Kittitas County are part of a movement that began with Donna Sue Groves in Adams County, Ohio.  Groves and her mother, Maxine, moved to a farm in 1989 that included a tobacco barn.  The circa 1950 barn, like most built for drying tobacco, was plain in appearance—a very simple gable-entry design. Groves was struck by the idea of adding a painted quilt square above the sliding doors to honor her mother’s renowned quilting and the family’s Appalachian heritage.  When it came time to complete the project, Groves suggested that twenty barn quilts could be painted and placed along a driving trail that would invite visitors to travel through the countryside.  In 2011, an Ohio Star was painted by local artists and installed on a small barn nearby, and the trail of twenty quilt blocks—including one on the Groves barn—was completed over the course of three years. The Ohio Star is one of the most popular barn quilt patterns in its home state and beyond.

Michael Barn and "Ohio Star" Quilt Block

Michael Barn and “Ohio Star” Quilt Block

The Ohio Star is one of the most popular barn quilt patterns in its home state and beyond.  In Urbana, Ohio, this pattern marks the barn owned by Todd and Jill Michael. The Michaels have owned the property for nearly fifteen years and spent a lot of time researching its history. The 1850 Pennsylvania bank barn and late-19th century, 12-sided addition were present in 1896, when Chauncy Glessner received the farm as a wedding gift from his father.  Each of the 12 sides corresponds to a stall below with an interesting feature—round, polished stanchions. According to Michael, broom handles were manufactured in Urbana and were commonly used in barns nearby.  Restoring the barn was a project for Michael.  The barn’s current appearance belies its age, and the Michaels regularly find visitors pulling up their long driveway to get a closer view of one of Ohio’s treasures.

From its beginnings in Ohio, the barn quilt movement has expanded to 44 states and Canada.  Over 4,000 quilts are part of organized trails; hundreds more are scattered through the countryside, not part of an organized effort.  A drive along the quilt trail appeals to barn enthusiasts and to those who appreciate the iconic quilt patterns.  A quilt trail near her home in Callaway, Kentucky caught the eye of Posy Lough. Lough creates needlework patterns that celebrate American heritage, so barn quilts were a perfect addition to her “Posy Collection.”  The Redwork Quilt Kit features 12 barn quilt patterns from across the country. Included are the Ohio Star, the Snail’s Trail pattern that graces the Groves barn, and an unusual design called LeMoyne with Swallows, which is found on a Century Farm in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Epperson Barn and LeMoyne with Swallows

Epperson Barn and “LeMoyne with Swallows” Quilt Block

LeMoyne with Swallows is a reproduction of a cloth quilt sewed by the grandmother of farm owner Marcella Epperson.  Epperson’s grandparents, Isaac and Barbara, inherited the property acquired by the family in 1848.  Epperson recalls the barnyard in the 1940s and 50s: “There were horses, cows, mules, hogs, chickens, ducks, and guineas–pretty much everything. It was like Old MacDonald’s farm!” The 1898 gable-roofed barn housed livestock until the late-20th century and now sits mostly empty, a hidden gem enjoyed by those who seek it out along quilt trail.

One of the most well-traveled quilt trails is in Kankakee County, Illinois. The Kankakee trail includes a couple of corn cribs like the 1934 structure on the Larson farm.  Dean Larson and his sister Beverly are proud of the hard work that the crib represents.  Dean recalls, “The corncrib was the mainstay of our working farm, especially since our father raised livestock. The crib not only stored his entire harvest of corn and dried the ear corn on the vented sides, but also stored smaller grains such as beans in the overhead bins. Our father ground his stored ear corn for cattle feed in a hammer mill contained in the corn crib. Since our corncrib was a valuable asset to our family farm, we decided to honor it with a barn quilt entitled “Corn and Beans.”

Parron book coverThe Larson corncrib was selected for the cover of “Barn Quilts and the American Quilt Trail Movement.”  The book traces the trail to its beginnings in Ohio and takes readers to 29 states from New York to Colorado with over 80 photographs taken along quilt trails across the country. It also includes dozens of interviews with barn owners, who relate the significance of their chosen quilt patterns along with stories about the barns on which they are mounted.

Each of the 150 known barn quilt trails celebrates a community’s farming heritage.  Although quilt squares are the main attraction,barn enthusiasts may find quilt trail maps to be invaluable guides in their travels through America’s countryside. Information about Parron’s book, The Posy Collection, and the nation’s quilt trails can be found at www.barnquiltinfo.com.

A Student’s Review of the NBA/UMW Winter Meeting Collaboration

Group of UMW students who made presentations for the NBA Winter Meeting

Group of UMW students who made presentations for the NBA Winter Meeting

Guest post by Catherine A. Brau, a Historic Preservation student at the University of Mary Washington (UMW).  Our sincere thanks to Ms. Brau and the rest of the UMW and UDel students who participated in the Winter Meeting Presentations and shared their findings with us!  

Barn lovers!  The National Barn Alliance Meeting was hosted on campus February 15th – 17th.  The National Barn Alliance is a non-profit organization committed to preserving America’s Historic barns while seeking to educate the public on efforts to preserve barns.  They encourage the documentation of barns and support preservation organizations and programs.  The meeting was a great opportunity to network with fellow (barn enthusiasts) preservationists and learn more about one of our more precious vernacular resources – barns.  Historic barns – and farmsteads in general – are truly becoming a thing of the past as a result of commercialization and evolving technology and the poor maintenance of outdated or unnecessary structures.  More importantly, barns are typically not the focus of surveying and documenting efforts.

During the conference, students were able to present their research from the Fall 2012 course Agricultural Preservation with Professor Michael Spencer.  Students learned all they could about barns before being set loose to survey and document three local farmsteads – the Houseworth Barn and Arlington Carriage House at Montpelier and Flintshire Corncrib and Granary in Caroline County.  These structures differ in their use and styles, and only the Houseworth barn is still functional, but all three are excellent  examples of 19th century vernacular construction.  Since a majority of texts concerning agricultural buildings refer to national trends, it was interesting to view what was happening on historic farmsteads at a local level (and of course was all the more important to record!).  I personally hope to see this course grow in the future as it offered some great practical and networking experience and really highlighted the importance of vernacular preservation (the first barn my group was supposed to document fell over in a bad storm!).  The National Barn Alliance members in attendance were excited that a younger generation is interested in continuing barn preservation and wanted to learn as much as they could about the student research and local agricultural structures.

While us students put in some hard work researching the farmsteads, we have to send a big THANK YOU out to Professor Spencer and his wife Danae for their knowledge about barns and for the networking opportunity with the National Barn Alliance.  While most of us get the opportunity to be involved in some kind of research with the department, it is a rare occasion that we are able to present said research to our fellow preservationists outside of the department.  These kinds of opportunities, of course, are dependent on us the students – so have fun researching and support your professors when they want you to share it with others!

 

Share Your Story with the NBA: Write for our newsletter, e-news, and blog!

NBA Newsletter ScreenshotThe National Barn Alliance is seeking articles and contributors for our newsletter, “The Barn Door,” our e-newsletter and our blog, “The Barn Journal.”  The “The Barn Door” is bi-annual publication mailed to our membership.  Articles may also be posted on here, on “The Barn Journal,” and shared via the NBA’s Facebook, Twitter, Linked In page, or Youtube channel.

We encourage individuals as well as our state and local barn preservation partners to share updates on their activities. This is an opportunity to share your successes with others working to save historic barns in their own states. Article topics must be barn-focused such as history/preservation, grant programs, kids & education, photos, art, barn facts, endangered barns, saved barns, repair tips, preservation tips, book review, surveys & studies, barn raisings, and tours. We are also taking calendar submissions for conferences, tours and events.

Submission guidelines:

– Suggested length is 300 – 600 words. Photos are highly recommended.

– Send article in a MS Word, iWorks Pages, or as text in the body of the email.  Photos are preferred in .jpeg format as attachments with captions.

 

Articles for online publication are rolling.  Submission Deadlines for the printed newsletters are:

Fall/Winter Newsletter: August 16

Spring/Summer Newsletter: March 22

Contact us for our easy to use template at info@barnalliance.org.

__

Can you imagine an America without barns dotting the plains or hills? We can’t. Join us in preserving our heritage. Before it is lost. Join us

The Doncaster Barn or Bayers Barn

Round Barn - Cropped

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A guest post by NBA member, Jill Hotchkiss.

The old round barn just outside Twin Bridges, Montana was built in 1882 by Noah Armstrong, one of the lesser known Copper Kings, who was at that time superintendent of the Glendale smelter and discoverer of the Hecla mine in western Montana. Being from Kentucky, Armstrong had a love for horses and horse racing. He purchased the ranch in 1882 calling it the Doncaster Ranch after one of his favorite race horses. He then built a magnificent three-story round barn in which to raise and train race horses. One of the reasons he built it round was so the horses could be exercised in the winter on the indoor track on the ground floor. The ground floor also had box stalls for the horses as well as a saddle/tack room, veterinarian’s room, grain bins and office and living quarters for the jockeys or stablemen. The second story housed hay which could be fed to the horses on the ground floor, through openings or chutes on the second floor. The third floor had a large water tank which was pumped there from the well which was underneath the barn and a windmill which was atop the barn. Water could then be pumped anywhere in the barn, under pressure. There was also a freight elevator to transport the hay, grain and anything else to the second floor. This was quite a fancy barn for the day. There was even a carved horse scene above the front doors of the barn. The barn’s claim to fame, however, was raising Montana’s only Kentucky Derby winner, Spokane, who won the race in 1889. Actually, at that time in history he was the equivalent of a Triple Crown winner, the slate of races being different than they are now.

This article is published in our printed in Winter 2012 newsletter, The Barn Door.

__

Can you imagine an America without barns dotting the plains or hills? We can’t. Join us in preserving our heritage. Before it is lost. Join us

Things will be warming up at our 2013 Winter Meeting!

Preservation students from the University of Mary Washington at Weston Farm in Fauquier County, Virginia, where they documented several barns and outbuildings.

Preservation students from the University of Mary Washington examined several barns and outbuildings at Weston Farm in Fauquier County, Virginia.

As some of our members may already be aware, we are holding our Winter Board Meeting in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in partnership with the University of Mary Washington on February 15th-17th, 2013.  The focus of this year’s meeting, building mutually beneficial partnerships, could not be more timely given the economic climate!

Special guests at this year’s meeting include undergraduate and graduate students, many in Historic Preservation programs, who will present their work to research and document historic barns and farms in Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. Additional speakers, as well as a roundtable discussion, are planned to elaborate on selected successful partnerships in the barn preservation community.  The Board will also conduct work sessions to review our mission statement and action plan to ensure the NBA’s continued growth and relevance to the barn preservation movement at large.

We will be sure to provide additional information and updates on our efforts – so please stay tuned.  You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, watch us on YouTube, and visit us anytime you want at www.barnalliance.org!