NBA Virtual Lecture #3

Posted on by

Join us for the next lecture in a series of presentations led by experienced practitioners across the country in support of barn-preservation education! This lecture will be hosted via Zoom and is free to all who register.

To register, send an email to RSVPwith your name and location (city/county, state) to info@barnalliance.org by Sunday, October 25th. We will send an email with the details to call or login to all registrants on October 27th

“Oklahoma’s Historic Barns”

Presenter: Dr. Brad Bays

Keywords: Barn Types, Upland South Culture, Native American Agriculture, Historic Construction Methods, Barn Survey, NRHP Evaluation, Criteria A and C

Historic barns in Oklahoma are disappearing for a variety of reasons, yet they serve as the most vivid, multigenerational markers of local landscapes, reminding us of the inevitability of economic, technological, environmental, and cultural changes which all places undergo.

Between 2009 and 2014, Brad Bays conducted a survey of the state’s historic barns for the Oklahoma State Historic Preservation Office and the Oklahoma Historical Society. The OK/SHPO’s objective was to document at least 10 historic barns in each county over the span of five years.

Five years later, Brad had logged around 55,000 miles, mostly on county roads, in each of the state’s 77 counties. He had visited more than 5,000 sites and documented just under 1,000 properties for the Oklahoma Landmarks Inventory (OLI), the state’s archive of properties that are National Register-eligible or warrant further study for possible NR listing. Of these, about 100 properties were deemed NR-eligible. The experience had taken him to every corner of every county in the state, and better awakened him to Oklahoma’s substantial diversity. This presentation will provide a geographical overview of the forms and materials of Oklahoma’s surviving historic barns.

The survey discovered rare types of barns not previously known to exist, as well as yet-unclassified types. Log barns of every type can be found throughout the former Indian Territory, and they reflect cultural ties to the Upland South and the effects of prolonged inaccessibility. Native stone and masonry barns are found clustered in pockets around the state, and bank barns tend to be associated with ethnic German settlement. 

Brad Bays is Associate Professor of Geography at Oklahoma State University. He holds a BA from Oklahoma State University (1989), an MS from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville (1991), and a PhD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (1996), all in Geography. He has been on the faculty at Oklahoma State University since 1995. His research and teaching interests center on the historical geography and agricultural history of the southern Great Plains, especially his home state of Oklahoma.

NBA Virtual Lecture #2

Posted on by

Join us for another presentation in support of barn-preservation education

This free lecture will be hosted via Zoom and is open to anyone with an interest in learning more about historic barns!

It will be held Wednesday, September 30th at 6 pm EST and is entitled, “The History of Agriculture as Told by Barns.” See the description below for details.

To register for this event, send an email to RSVP with your name and location (city/county, state) to info@barnalliance.org by Sunday, September 27th. We will send an email with the details to call or login to all registrants on September 29th.

(If you missed our first lecture, be sure to check it out here!)

September 30th: “The History of Agriculture as Told by [New England] Barns”

Presenter: John C. Porter

Keywords: New England Agriculture, Barn Types, Timber-Framing/Historic Construction Methods, NRHP Evaluation and Criterion A

The evolution of barn architecture tells the story of New Hampshire agriculture. Barns changed from the early English style, to Yankee style, to gambrel and then pole barns to accommodate the changing agriculture. This presentation will be a chronological walk through time, with photo illustrations of barns around the state that are examples of these eras of agricultural history. 

This lecture is geared towards architects, engineers, preservation contractors, cultural resource professionals who may not be familiar with barns and general barn enthusiasts, everyone can learn from this exploration of historic farm buildings!

John C. Porter was raised on a dairy farm in Lebanon, New Hampshire. He graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a B.S. Degree in Animal Science, and then went on to get a master’s degree from Cornell University in Animal Nutrition and Farm Management. Later he earned a master’s degree from Bob Jones University in Education Administration. He served as a Dairy Specialist for the UNH Cooperative Extension from 1974 until his retirement in 2006. He still works part-time for UNH and operates his own consulting company, Farm Planning Services, LLC. 

In 2001, he co-authored the book “Preserving Old Barns”; in December of 2007, was editor and contributing author of “The History and Economics of the New Hampshire Dairy Industry”; and in 2011 wrote the agriculture chapter for the Concord History book, “Crosscurrents of Change”. In 2019 he published a second edition of the Preserving Old Barns book.

NBA Launches Virtual Barn Preservation Lecture Series

Posted on by

Join us for a series of virtual presentations led by experienced practitioners across the country in support of barn-preservation education

All lectures will be hosted via Zoom and are free to attend – open to anyone with an interest in learning more about historic barns!

The first presentation in our series – to be held Wednesday, August 12th at 6 pm EST – is entitled, “How to Speak Barn: the Language and Nuances of Barn Anatomy and the Language We Use to Describe Them.” See the description below for details.

To register for this event, send an email to RSVP with your name and location (city/county, state) to info@barnalliance.org by Sunday, August 9th. We will send an email with the details to call or login to all registrants on August 11th.

August 12th: “How to Speak Barn: the Language and Nuances of Barn Anatomy and the Language We Use to Describe Them”

Presenters: Jeffrey L. Marshall and Michael Cuba

Keywords: Barn Terminology, Barn Types, Outbuilding Identification, Timber-Framing/Historic Construction Methods and Techniques, NRHP-Evaluation, Criterion C

Working in preservation in an agricultural context requires uncommon expertise. Barns and other farm buildings require a specialized vocabulary and a working knowledge of the historical evolution of design and use. Learn the lingo, how to recognize change, and how to evaluate and describe elements necessary for National Register designation.

The language used to characterize our barns has varied from person to person and publication to publication over the centuries. Efforts to develop a coherent and unified way of describing these buildings have come far over the past few decades.

This lecture will explore appropriate terminology and the precedents that support this language. The more familiar we become with common nomenclature, the more effectively we are able to share our observations with one another and the easier it is to evaluate particular barns in context with similar barns.

Although this lecture is geared towards architects, engineers, preservation contractors, cultural resource professionals who may not be familiar with barns and general barn enthusiasts, everyone can learn from this exploration of historic farm buildings!

Jeffrey L. Marshall serves as President of the Heritage Conservancy based in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, leading its efforts to conserve and preserve more than 15,000 acres of open space, farmland, wildlife habitat, and important watershed areas, along with many cultural historic assets in Bucks and Montgomery counties. Jeff has over 40 years of combined experience in land protection and historic preservation, and has authored several books on the architecture of southeastern Pennsylvania.
He has been a leader on the National Barn Alliance board of directors for over 10 years, serving as Vice President, President, and currently as Past President. He also serves on the boards of the Historic Barn & Farm Foundation of Pennsylvania and Preservation Pennsylvania.

Michael Cuba is a co-founder of Knobb Hill Joinery, a historic preservation company in northern Vermont focused on traditional restorative joinery techniques. He also operates Transom HPC, a small consulting firm offering dendrochronology coring services, research, and documentation for historic timbered structures. 
Michael is an active member of the Traditional Timber Framer’s Research and Advisory Group. He has served in various leadership capacities with the Timber Framers Guild and currently serves as editor, along with Adam Miller, of the Guild’s quarterly journal, TIMBER FRAMING.
In 2019 Michael was elected to serve as the secretary of the National Barn Alliance’s board of directors.

What We Can Learn About Historic Barns in America from a Decade and the Agricultural Census

Posted on by

Danae Peckler, architectural historian, Fredericksburg, VA

In 2007 and 2017—thanks to the lobbying efforts of a few National Barn Alliance (NBA) board members, particularly Rod Scott, and our great network of barn preservation advocates, including many active supporters of state and local preservation organizations—the United States Agricultural Department (USDA) put a simple question to the farmers of America’s working farms in the Agricultural Census: “Do you have a barn built prior to 1960?”

From the “yes” or “no” answers of those farmers, a set of statistics emerged to help advocates for the preservation of historic barns get a sense of just how many old barns existed within each state. 

The data collected from this effort was far from perfect. For starters, it only gathered information from “working farms,” ignoring pre-1960 barns on farm properties that no longer meet that definition, as well as those that survive in suburban and urban areas. Furthermore, by answering just yes or no, farms with multiple pre-1960 barns were represented as a single unit. Yet the information gathered from this effort was a fine (if not the only) place to start. Obtaining these statistics was an attempt to quantify what is the largest problem facing barn preservation advocates: the size and scale of America’s agrarian landscape.

Acknowledging the limitations of what became known as “the barn question” in the 2007 Census, the NBA board of directors set about repeating the experiment a decade later in 2017. By asking the same exact question, we hoped to gain insight on the big question we are all looking to quantify: “How many old barns have we lost across the country?”

To find out, Rod Scott and I worked together two years in advance of the census to connect with officials at the USDA, drafted a sample letter for friends of old barns and barn preservation advocates to send the agency, and called on each of you to spread the word and lobby for the question’s return in 2017. And it worked!

Barn lovers from across the country heeded the call to action and the results became public in the Spring of 2019. To better digest the statistics, I created a table with an alphabetical listing of states to compare the results of “the barn question” from 2007 and 2017.

This image was produced by the USDA in support of the 2017 Agricultural Census. State and county-level census results are available from the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Not surprisingly, each and every state in the USA saw a decline in the number of working farms reporting at least one pre-1960 barn.  And while we may be inclined to look for the biggest winners and losers by the figures, it is important to be mindful of their context. This is a count of “working farms” with at least one barn built prior to 1960 in each state (though county-level data is also available in Table 43, Special Characteristics!), and not every pre-1960 barn would be thought of as “historic” by many people’s standards, even those of professional preservationists. 

Yet, however small this slice of the bigger picture may be, the limitations of these statistics should not stop us from using them to illustrate the loss that no one is willing to dispute: America’s historic barns (farms and outbuildings!) are disappearing at an increasing rate. And it will also surprise few that, in general, the number of working farms and farmers are also in decline.

A few takeaways from “the barn question” and the last decade from a national perspective: 

  • As a nation, 28 percent fewer working farms reported old barns on their properties.
  • Individual states reported between 10 and 45 percent fewer working farms with at least one barn built prior to 1960, with a mean loss of 27 percent.
  • In a handful of states, properties with a pre-1960 barn make up less than 10 percent of the total number of working farms.
  • On the whole, less than a quarter of America’s working farms have a pre-1960 barn (the mean is 23 percent). 

“Historic” or not, it is well past time that we started bending over backward to thoughtfully record and catalog the old barns and outbuildings that dot our farms from sea to shining sea. For preservation professionals that means getting inside the barn to note the specifics of its framing and learning to recognize common modifications that reflect popular agricultural practices. A good general book that I recommend for anyone across the country is Allen Noble and Richard Cleek’s The Old Barn Book: A Field Guide to North American Barns & Other Farm Structures (1995). Although more specific barn field guides and rural documentation sources can be found for different regions, states, and counties, The Old Barn Book is an easy read with great drawings from M. Margaret Geib. 

As increasingly endangered cultural-historic assets of America’s greatest industry, the study of historic barns and farm buildings by preservation professionals has grown in the past 25 years since the NBA was founded. Yet the list of obstacles to preserving them grows faster.

How we justify their historical significance matters less and less—this is not a battle that will ever be won, it’s simply a matter of how much we stand to lose. 

Related articles and pages that might be of interest:

Dating Barns in Holland Township, New Jersey with Dendrochronology (Part 3)

Posted on by

By Carla Cielo, Architectural Historian, Historic Preservation Consultant, Designer, and longtime NBA member.  Two articles on this dendrochronology project have been previously published in the Barn Journal. Check out both stories: Part 1 & Part 2!

(The Historic Preservation Commission of Holland Township, New Jersey, hired ‘Oxford Tree Ring Dating’ to date nine barns with dendrochrolology.  This study has been funded, in part, with grants provided by the New Jersey Historical Commission.  It was hoped that a study of this kind would answer questions related to ethnic settlement patterns.)

The first barn dated with dendrochronology in Holland Township was the Hammerstone Barn – a ground-level, three bay, heavy-timbered, swing beam barn that is located in the hilly section of the township about 8 miles inland from the Delaware River. This preliminary dendrochronology study was completed in 2007 by a colleague who provides dendrochronological services as a side venture. Only 3 samples were taken from the floor structure in a crawlspace: one from a girder that supports the joists at midspan in the crawl space of the west bay and 2 from floor joists. No samples were taken from the main barn frame. Samples were sent to a lab for analysis. The dates were non-conclusive: sample #1 dated 1787, sample #2 gave no date, and sample #3 dated 1785. The possibility of a 1787 construction date was assumed.

After dating six other ground-level, swing beam barns that ranged in date from 1794 to 1812, the 1787 date was questioned. The character of the framing of the Hammerstone Barn looks far more advanced (younger) in its construction methodology than barns that dated to the 1790s. For example, the interior bents of the 1794 James Salter Barn are framed with just two unconnected cambered tie-beams. Whereas in the Hammerstone Barn, struts and passing braces are incorporated into the swing beam bent to join the upper and lower tie beams. This is characteristic of the ground barns that dated after 1803 in Holland Township. It was, therefore, decided to date the barn again using a professional dendrochronologist who operates his own in-house lab. The findings were interesting, to say the least.

This time 7 samples were taken in the barn: 3 from the upper barn frame and 4 from the floor joists (including one joist that had been sampled previously). Two samples revealed that the trees from which the timbers were cut were felled during the winter of 1803/04 suggesting that the barn was built in the spring of 1804. The five remaining samples, unfortunately, could not be dated. The 1804 date, however, is “right on” when compared to the construction details of several other dated barns.

To add further interest, the data was run again on the three samples that were taken in 2007. One of them did indeed date to 1787. Another matched the chronology of the sample that dated 1787 up to 1758 with a “t-value” of over 11. The “t-value” provides an indication of the quality of the match against a reference chronology. A t-value greater then 5 indicates a regional match; above 10 suggests that the samples came from the same tree. In this case, the t-value over 11 indicates that two joists were cut from the same tree and that the sapwood was probably lost from the latter sample. Does this indicate that at least some of the joists were reused from a 1787 structure? Or does it indicate that the sapwood was lost from both samples and that both would date to 1804 if the sapwood remained? Since the core drills appear to have been lost, we likely will never know. It is surely tempting to fantasize a former 1787 log structure being reused as floor joists! But if this was the case, wouldn’t a 1787 date have been re-identified by the second dendrological study?

In conclusion, dendrochronology is a highly valuable tool, but it must be part of a comprehensive study which takes into account a variety of methods to date a building (saw cut, nails, framing methodology etc.). Propagation of a false date can be detrimental to future barn historians.