In Madison, New Hampshire – A Tour of 100 Year Old Barns

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view from Joy Farm

View of Joy Farm

This post comes from our barn-loving friends in Madison, NH.  This is the first year of their barn tour, but it will certainly not be their last!  What a great event!

The Madison Historic Barn Tour weekend, July 11 & 12, 2014 is fast approaching. With seven wonderful old 18th and 19th century barns on the tour, including E.E. Cummings’ Joy Farm, interest is growing rapidly.  The small Town of Madison is located in the beautiful Mount Washington Valley of New Hampshire. Incorporated in 1852, Madison has a long and interesting history as a farming and tourist community.

Town tax records reveal that there are approximately 50 barns in Madison which are over 100 years old.  The Friends of Madison Library (FOML), a 501(c)(3) non-profit supporting the local public library, has organized this weekend fundraiser (be sure to visit their website).

Barns on the tour, in addition to Joy Farm, include the Ambrose Barn built in the mid-1870s by then owner Henry Harriman with timbers from his neighbor’s barn. Nearby is the Old Public Burying Ground where several of Madison’s Revolutionary War soldiers are buried.

Ambrose Barn

Ambrose Barn

The Gilman Barn built circa 1795 as a working farm has been in the Gilman family since then. Built with wooden pegs and resting on a loose field stone foundation, Alan Gilman’s barn is as “square” today as the day it was built. The large “Gilman Cemetery” across the street is the final resting place of generations of Madison residents, including the original owners of several of the Tour Barns.

The Henry Harmon place c 1850 may have been built earlier at Madison Corner, then moved by oxen to the open meadows of Goe Hill. A painting of this barn by Andrew Haines was recently on display at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Come to Madison to see all seven tour barns. A list of the other forty plus Madison barns over 100 years old will be available for those who want to do more independent exploring. Directions to the numerous fascinating local cemeteries may lead you to find the resting places of former barn owners, or ancestors of your own. Pick up a copy of Mary Lucy’s book Cemeteries and Graveyards of Madison, NH from the Madison Historical Society. Browse the Barn themed Art Show, purchase barn note cards and photo sketches, or place a bid on a photo or professional work of art in oil or watercolor at our Silent Auction.

Gilman Barn

Gilman Barn

Don’t miss barn historian Bob Cottrell’s talk and discussion of 18th and 19th century New England Barns on Friday night at the Madison Library. Bob has a Master’s Degree from the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture. He has worked in the history/museum field since 1980. Previously, Bob worked at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C., the Crowley Museum and Nature Center in Sarasota, Florida, the St. Petersburg Historical Museum also in Florida, the Conner Prairie Museum in Indiana and at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. In 1996 he became the founding Director of the Remick Country Doctor Museum and Farm in Tamworth, New Hampshire, another great place to visit while you are here. Bob’s talk is included in the price of the Barn Tour.

At the southern end of the Mount Washington Valley, the village of Madison is just minutes away from numerous hotels, picturesque B&Bs, wonderful restaurants and the tranquility of our natural setting around Silver Lake. Make plans now to spend a day or two before or after the Barn Tour.  Bring a blanket and buy a Barn Tour Bag Lunch to enjoy at one of our Town Beaches or in the garden at the Library.

Tickets on the weekend of the Tour will be $20 per person. Advanced tickets may be purchased before July 1, 2014 for $15 per person, payable by check to Friends of Madison Library at PO Box 240, Madison, NH 03849.

All proceeds of Barn Tour events benefit the non-profit Friends of Madison Library. For more information send an email to FOMLibrary.NH@gmail.com

Friends of Ohio Barns’ 15th Annual Conference

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Knox County to host the 2014 FOB Conference and Barn Tour!
Mount Vernon will be the headquarters of Friends of Ohio Barns 15th annual Barn Conference and Tour, April 24th – 26th, 2014. The conference will explore adaptive re-use of barns as a viable way to save historic barns. Knox County is the Heart of It ALL. Within its borders lies the geographical center of Ohio and the colonial city of Mount Vernon, the county seat. Knox County where one finds brick streets, historic homes, recreational trails, camping, elegant bed and breakfast inns, two stunning College campuses, and notable museums. Not to mention the flora and fauna in the rolling hills and fields.

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Knox County has always been and continues to be an agricultural community. Drive any rural road and one will find numerous examples of farm life and the age old icons of an agrarian society. The Barn, the behemoth that has stood out back of the farmhouse for well over a hundred years, built with skill, adapted out of necessity, and the center of family life and survival. Thursday will feature an afternoon workshop by the Junior Barn Detective (JBD) on moving and restoring a barn for adaptive reuse. On Friday the bus tour will include several unique barns and lunch along the way. Take a trip back in time and experience the heritage of Knox County at the Knox County Agricultural Museum. It began its historic collection in 1984. Devoted almost exclusively to farm and home lifestyles of the 1800s and early 1900s, the Museum houses more than 3,000 items, each depicting how our forefathers lived and worked.
Saturday is the annual conference with a slate of outstanding speakers, vendors, and displays.  To register for this outstanding conference go to http://www.friendsofohiobarns.org/. Come a day or two early or stay after and experience “Knox County, the Heart of It All.”

Bucks County Community College Sets Rural Stage for NBA’s 2014 Winter Meeting!

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**Our 2014 Winter Meeting was canceled due to inclement weather, but the NBA is trying to partner with BCCC once again in 2015!  This time around, the meeting will take place on February 21-22, 2015.

This guest post comes from Patricia Fisher-Olsen, Coordinator of the Historic Preservation Program  and lecturer at Bucks County Community College (BCCC) in eastern Pennsylvania.  This year BCCC has agreed to host the NBA’s Winter Meeting at their 200-acre Newtown campus where several of the school’s NRHP-listed buildings have been re-adapted to serve as classrooms – enhancing the learning environment for all its visitors!  From 11:30 am to 1:30 pm, Saturday, February 15th, the NBA’s Winter Meeting is open to the public.  We encourage any barn enthusiasts in the vicinity to join us as we learn more about barns in the region and what all the students at BCCC are doing to save them!  The lecturers are free though small donations to help cover the cost of lunch are welcome.

In 1991, BCCC became the first school in the country to offer a 24-credit Certificate Program in Historic Preservation and since then the campus program has grown and expanded online, offering students the unique opportunity to complete their Historic Preservation Certificate entirely over the Internet. Students opting to take courses on our Newtown campus will find them immersed in a working preservation laboratory. Classes and lectures are taught in buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places, surrounded by historic landscapes and formal gardens. Students opting to take courses through our online campus will find themselves immersed in the preservation laboratory of their own communities.  The online courses are designed to leverage the historic resources in all areas of the country.

BCCC Students at Work Documenting Best Barn.

BCCC Students at Work Documenting Best Barn.

In 2008, Bucks students won the coveted National Parks Service/American Institute of Architects’ Charles E. Peterson Prize, which annually recognizes the best set of measured drawings prepared to Historic American Building Survey (HABS) standards by college or university students.  At BCCC, the HABS program operates as part of the institution’s Historic Preservation Department.  The program offers students the opportunity to measure and record the architectural details of historic structures as they exist today, before they are further altered by time, nature and people.  By studying clues, such as the changes in mortar and other materials applied to a structure, HABS students document both a building’s history and the history of the people who made the changes.

Since 1991, Bucks County Community College faculty member, Kathryn Auerbach, has led several teams of HABS students as they measured and documented historic structures here in Bucks County and across the country.  The recorded findings of the students, many of whom have no previous architectural or building experience, have become part of the collection at the Library of Congress to be used for future research.  The college competes for the best architectural measured drawings of a historic American structure in the Charles E. Peterson HABS Prize Competition sponsored by the National Park Service, the American Institute of Architects and the Library of Congress.

Measured Drawing of Best Barn, Frederick, MD.

Measured Drawing of Best Farm Stone Barn, Frederick, MD (BCCC 2008).

The yearly contest is highly competitive, with entries from architecture and design programs at nationally recognized universities. Several of BCCC subsequent HABS classes have gone on to secure a Honorable Mention,  4th place, 3rd place and even 1st place in the competition. In 2008, BCCC – the only community college entrant – won a highly coveted 1st place award for their work with the National Park Service on the Best Farm Stone Barn, located on the Monocacy Battlefield in Frederick, Maryland.

In Bucks County during the 1930’s, many of the HABS projects involved old stone barns that were very prevalent in this part of the country.   Today, thirty percent of the barns that were documented no longer exist.  Without the HABS sets of measured drawings and photographs, no evidence would exist of some of Bucks County’s beautiful stone barns, nor of the people who built and used them.

Students who participate in the HABS class at BCCC not only learn about historic architecture but also develop important problem-solving skills.  Many of our HABS drawings will be on display during the National Barn Alliance Winter Meeting.

Reflecting on 2013: A President’s Letter

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December 23, 2013

NBA President, Danae Peckler, addresses the barn-loving crowd last June at the CT Trust's "Celebration of Barns" (photo credit: Jim Prager).

NBA President, Danae Peckler, addresses the barn-loving crowd last June at the CT Trust’s “Celebration of Barns” (photo: Jim Prager).

Dear Barn Preservation Advocate:

Today I am writing to express my gratitude for your continued support of the National Barn Alliance (NBA) and to update you on the organization’s 2013 activities.  Now in my second term as President of the NBA, I reminded everyday of how much people love America’s barns in the emails we receive, the pictures people share, and in the many comments exchanged through our social media. The character and charm of an old barn simply can’t be beat!

This past year we partnered with the Department of Historic Preservation at the University of Mary Washington to host our Winter Meeting in Fredericksburg, VA, and heard from students in their Agricultural Preservation class, as well as Preservation graduate students from the University of Delaware’s Center for Historic Architecture and Design, about the work being done at these institutions to document historic barns and study historic patterns of farming in the region. This past summer, NBA collaborated with the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation to join in their “Celebration of Barns” and hold our Annual Meeting in Old Saybrook, CT.  Continuing our presence at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the NBA attended their annual conference in Indianapolis, IN, where we added countless names to our contact list and touched base with old and new friends. Each of these events helped expand our barn-loving network as well as our awareness of the actions leading barn preservation in various parts of the country.

At the Annual Meeting, we welcomed Gina Drew to the Board of Directors (BOD).  Gina has been incredibly active on Restore Oregon’s Heritage Barn Taskforce and has graciously taken on the position of Secretary within the NBA. A special election this month also added Sonja Ingram to the BOD. Sonja comes to us from Preservation Virginia’s Tobacco Barns project and has been instrumental in that organization’s efforts to celebrate tobacco culture and save the barns that reflect it. Both ladies are helping make 2014 look very bright for the NBA!

Another important step taken this year was to revise the NBA’s Action Plan. Taking into account the results of our membership surveys and strategic planning sessions at the 2013 Winter Meeting, the BOD has outlined and refined a plan of action that builds upon many of the goals established in the previous version of 2009.  We hope this revised Action Plan will guide us into another four years of success, as we continue to connect with state and local barn organizations and interested barn preservationists across the country! Also around with us since 2009, the NBA continues to strengthen our Teamwork and Timbers program by sending our two timber-frame barn models into classrooms in the Midwest and Eastern parts of the country. This year we gained a new friend and a New England barn model by partnering with Massachusetts timber-framer, Tom Musco. This is just one example of how we look to further expand the geographical and educational reach of these barns in 2014, as we believe they are incredible assets that leave lasting impacts on students of all ages.

But the time to act to save our barns and rural heritage has never been more evident. More barns disappear from our landscape every day as time and weather take their toll. I urge you to look around www.barnalliance.org and review the information that we are continually improving, and to engage the NBA through social media where increasing numbers reflect our growing influence and the growing interest many have in rural heritage preservation. We are on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and You Tube trying to spread the word about the benefits of barn and rural heritage preservation – please join in the conversation!

The success of our alliance depends on continued action to promote the documentation, preservation, and celebration of these surviving features of our rural heritage! Members in the NBA agree that historic barns occupy an iconic status in our culture and memory.  Benefits of membership include unlimited access to barn preservation resources on our website and social media outlets, monthly e-newsletters, two printed NBA newsletters each year, and an open invitation to join in our sponsored and affiliated events including conferences, barn tours, and our 2014 Annual Membership Meeting to be held next June in upstate New York.

On behalf of the BOD and historic barns everywhere, I thank you for your interest in the NBA and I urge to join us in the effort to preserve our rural heritage in 2014. We just couldn’t do it without the support of our members and barn-loving preservationists like you!

Sincerely,

Danae Peckler, NBA President

The Future of America’s Barns by Charles Leik

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The following post contains excerpts from a 2012 presentation  by Charles Leik, Past President, NBA.  Charles led the NBA for more than five years and was around in the years when the NBA lobbied the USDA to ask farmers about their historic barns in the 2007 Agricultural Census. (NBA also thanks Rod Scott and countless others who worked on behalf of historic barns across the country to get the USDA’s attention!)

Charles Hopf Mail Pouch Barn_Martin Co_smlfile_Gwen Gutwein

Charles Hopf Mail Pouch Barn in Martin County, IN. Painting by Gwen Gutwein

What is a barn?  For me a barn houses cattle and horses or stores grain, hay and straw, or is  dedicated to tobacco or hops drying.  Most of us think of barns as massive gambrel or gable structures to house livestock in winter.  I do not include pole structures as barns when I think of preservation!  I do believe that urban carriage houses that once contained a family’s buggy horse and milk cow and are often highly refined Victorian structures, do qualify as barns.

What is America’s barn population?  There is no authoritative number even if all questionnaire respondents were to use a uniform definition for a barn.  A 2007 USDA census of farmers and ranchers with more than $1,000 of farm income asked if they owned a barn built before 1960 (this would’ve excluded most pole structures).  The results indicated 650,000 barns, however it excluded multiple barns on the same property, barns no longer located on farms, barns owned by non-farming landlords, and did not consider the condition of the barn.  Fifteen percent of the questionnaires were not returned.

Allowing for the shortcomings mentioned above, Texas registered 51,000 barns, Missouri 36,000, Wisconsin 35,000, Kentucky 35,000 and Iowa 34,000.  In terms of density per square mile it was Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.  Michigan was 13th in barn population with 21,368 and 14th in barn density at an average of one for every three square miles.

I find the USDA results unsatisfying given the barns excluded and lack of a uniform definition. Let me approach this question using U.S. census figures.  There were 2.04 million farms at the advent of the Civil War in 1860 to a high of 6.5 million in 1920.  Farms declined to 3.7 million in 1960 and 2.17 million in 2010.  Assuming there is a pre-1960 barn, no matter the condition, on 75 % of the 2010 farms, I would guesstimate 1.5 million barns currently exist on farms.

Note that urban carriage houses or barns no longer on farms are excluded in the 1.5 million, and I believe they are a sizable number.  The problem is that a good proportion of my 1.5 million barns on farms are in such a deteriorated condition that their eventual demise is certain.

I took a last approach, interesting but not statistically correct, and reviewed the barns I can recall since 1950 on 3-miles of Keefer Hwy., Portland where our family’s Centennial Farm is located.  In 1950 there were 12-barns of which 6-7 sheltered livestock and two of these were dairies.

Currently there are six barns—none in active farm use.  I believe based on their condition that four will remain in 2030.  So, 80-years after 1950 only one-third of this barn sample will exist.

I consider 1950 the “High Water Mark” of barn population.  Probably most barns on the 6.5 million farms in 1920 still existed in 1950 and relatively few barns were built in the 25-year period after the farm depression of the early 1920s, the Great Depression of 1929 and the scarcities of WWII.  My opinion is that six million barns existed in 1950, whether located on farms or not. Today, 62-years past the “High Water Mark”, I’d offer for your consideration that approximately two-thirds of the 1950 barns are either gone or going down.

In conclusion I guesstimate that 1.5-2.0 million of pre-1960 barns in all locations exist today in a fair to good condition.  That is the barn universe that we preservationists are attempting to save.  2050 is only 38-years in the future, what percentage of barns will remain a century after the “High Water Mark”?  They say, “Those that gaze at crystal balls to divine the future will be condemned to eat glass”.  Nevertheless I’ll venture that 20 % of the 1950 barns or 1.2 million will remain in a condition ranging from excellent to decrepit.

The romantic in me considers a barn as a trophy or heritage building whilst for others it’s a “money pit” requiring too many squares of shingles or gallons of paint.  My hope is that “scarcity makes the heart grow fonder“and barns in 2050 like covered bridges today will be generally revered.