This frame typology (connecting girt frames) is ubiquitous to Most of NH and much of Maine -
The only mystery is how it was that English Tieing was abandoned (after two hundred years as the dominant system) and seemingly almost overnight, (I've been in but one frame I would call transitional - haveing both jowled posts and CG's) a totally new frameing scheme was in use over a relativly wide area. The only detail to survive the transition seems to be common purlins (in use from the end of the first period on ) and the two systems seem to share the same relative borders as to use and geographical dominance (Tim you and I discussed this at TTRAG) I'd love to hear from anyone who knows of such bldg's outside the area or see a discussion open up as to exactly where the lines of demarkation exactly lie.
This transition seems to have happened in the 1820's and was perhaps driven by a shrinking availability of long timber (the agrarian society having by this point largly denuded the region) Or maybe Square Rule it'self may have been a driving factor, (could the concept of the production of universal pieces have driven a change towards a framing scheme which has many more universal pieces ?) it also seemingly coming into full dominance in the same decade (I have never seen a scribed CG bldg) the answer is probably unknowable, though fun to wonder about.
Conversion and milling aren't necessarily reliable ways to determine probable building dates - The term Yankee Frugality was well earned and millers were and are by nature good at repair and keeping things running - a few up & down mills were known to still be running up through the 1950's
As a for instance as to how conversion can seem out of time - I was involved in the restoration of a CG barn a few years back, which town records showed to have been built in 1826 - every stick in it but the 5 X 5 horizontal nailers and the 3 X 5 braces was beautifully hewn (this in a town with multiple rivers and which had a number of sawmills and in which hewn members in other frames are usually limited to long plates and ties) the sawn pieces were from an up & down mill, but the braces were mass produced on some kind of dual bladed table saw - which simultaneously cut both sides of the tenon - both the shoulder side cheeks and the slight barefaced side reductions - This barely a decade after the invention of the circular saw and the advent of the "overnight success" of Square Rule - It was as if someone was choosing to use contradictory methodologies to goof on future timber geeks.
"We build too many walls and not enough bridges" - Isaac Newton
