Pictures Of Barns

Antiquated barns are icon of ag tourism

A busload of aficionados from as far away as Ohio and New Jersey rode around Franklin County on Saturday to admire barns.

Forty-seven people made the bus tour presented by the Historic Barn and Farm Foundation of Pennsylvania. Others were turned away for lack of seating.

Charles Leik, president of the National Barn Alliance, was among those listening to the explanation of the architectural details on the stone Sweitzer barn on Kriner Road. He had just returned from helping to start a barn preservation group in Sacramento, Calif.

"Barns are the most impressive structures on our farms and grazed lands," Leik said. "Southeast Pennsylvania is the mother lode of barns in the United States, extending into Maryland and the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia."

Leik said he admires Brownstones and the Taj Mahal, but the vernacular architecture of the American barn is close to his heart. He grew up on a farm in Michigan.

"Barns reflect the people of the immediate region," he said.

The 1813 barn on Kriner Road was rescued recently from demolition by the Guilford Township Supervisors, whose deal with a warehouse developer set aside the farmstead for preservation. A row of young evergreens is beginning to shield the farmstead from the warehouse.

"Our hope is to have the Franklin County Tourism Bureau out here and use it as their base of operations," Supervisor Greg Cook said.

The township plans to have students from the Franklin County Vocational Technical School renovate the interior of the house, then eventually tackle the barn restoration.

"The most logical use (for the barn) would be a farm implement museum," Cook said.

Cook was excited that the barn historians found what could be the signature of the barn builder on a mortar joint.

"I'm sure one of them will be back to study it," he said.

The builders used wood ash to darken the mortar of the joints to accentuate the cut of the stone, according to Douglass Reed of Preservation Associates Inc., Hagerstown, Md.

"This is beautiful Scots-Irish work," he said. "We had a lot of cutters because of the work on the C&O Canal."

The barn put its best face toward the road:

- The quions (corner blocks) are smooth.

- Joists, probably 42 feet long, were trimmed on all four sides.

- Decorative keystones are part of the stone work above each door.

WATERFALL ROAD: FALLING BARNS

Driving in Alleghany County is in many ways someplace entirely different from what it was when I and the county became acquainted. I notice guard rails everywhere now. I'm all for them as safety features, but they're ugly as they can be. Maybe it would help if I were to look at them as roadside art. Long, narrow minimalist sculpture of metal placed so firmly by the side of the road that if a car leaves the road and hits it, it merely leaves a dent in the sculpture, adding to its character as a work of art, like wrinkles add character to a face. It doesn't do much good. A guard rail is a guard rail is a guard rail. It is what it is. They do, however, characterize the flow of the changes I've seen over the last 35 years. I call my time in the mountains the time of the barns falling. Barns were everywhere in the county, so many that nobody ever thought it something to think about that there might be a day of no barns. We're getting there. We still have some barns, but less every year. All the way along I thought of taking pictures of the barns. In the early years I'd see barns fall here and there. They made me think about getting pictures of existing barns in the county. But there were so many, it was unthinkable. Then I see them gone, not a trace, like nothing had ever been there, and just as much forgotten. The next generation wants to sell the land, not work it. I think they probably fell after a full life as a working barn, then time started breaking them down with age, until they just fell down of their own weight. The time of their use is in the past. Christmas tree growers tend to make their buildings that aren't really barns, because they have another particular function, more factory-like, the metal buildings a crew can put up in a few days, or cinderblock. The nature of the barn's use changed, so the nature of it's construction changes as construction materials and tools change. These barns will have their day too, hundred years or so, after agricultural methods change out from under them like they did the family farm. I drive out 18 north and it is mostly the same except for the guardrails everywhere. Subdivisions, newer and bigger houses, major lawns that attest a man who wants a lot of time free from the house on weekends. I look at those lawns and see a little man on a little riding mower in this big field of green he's going around and around mowing. For what? To keep snakes away from the house?

Report

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The Pennsylvania barn, its origin, evolution, and distribution in North America

LIFE

Biennial report of the Dairy and Food Commissioner of Wisconsin