Late19th - early 20th C barns in Rockbridge , VA

I have recently begun to survey timber frame barns in Rockbridge County, VA. Something that has struck me is the number of frames built between 1906 and 1928. While these dates coincide with the advent of “modern” plan books from the likes of Louden and Radford, I have been unable to locate heavy timber plans from these publishers. Most of what they show are plans using small dimension wood. From my surveys, I have two principal questions:
With the Civil War ending in 1865, why do we see a glut of construction 40 to 45 years later? and,
In an era when light framing is being promulgated as the future in agricultural construction, why are almost all of the surviving examples timber framed?
I understand that I may have answered half my question by limiting my inquiry to “surviving examples”, but there are several large stick built diary barns from this period; and the plan books offer versions of general use barns. Why can I find no example of a general use stick built barn, and what did the farmers do in the intervening 40 – 45 years of agricultural enterprise?

Bob, not sure this will assist you, the time period may work but it is from the New England area. Have you checked out Thomas C. Hubka's book, Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn. In it he makes the connection of the little farms trying to compete with the industrialized larger farms of the wester U.S. The farmers connected the farm building into tighter quarters to make the farm more efficient.

Dairy farming is relatively new, lending itself to the newer style of lighter buildings.

Hard times after the War, did they recycle the older sturdy buildings for the general use barns, hence the remaining timbered buildings? And the big "guys" farmed and built new styled dairy barns?

I know of, but have not read Hubka's book. Growing up in New England, I always thought the idea was to stay out of the elements while tending to chores. It helped too, that one exterior wall of the house was insulated by the "little house".

Also, lots and properties tended to be be smaller, and like here in VA farming was diversified, unlike the larger ranches of the west.

In these post 1900 frames, I see no indication of recycled members (empty mortises and such). Another characteristic is little differentiation in dimensions of individual sticks. I just finished looking at a frame that is pre-Civil war and the main posts are 6x12's, tie beams are 6x8's, girts are either 6x8 or 6x10 (with central girts having blind diminished haunches and gable girts virtually unhoused), the bank side plate is a vertical 6x12 while the forebay plate is a 6x6.

In short, there seems to be an awareness of purpose and need in the earlier barn that is lacking in the later ones. I should mention too, that the earlier barn has an 8 ft forebay while the later ones have 3 to 4 ft forebays.

Also, in this particular early barn, most joists are hewn flat on two sides and are continuous (38 ft) with no signs of previous use. Many of the later barns have hewn joists showing evidence of V-notches, joist cuts, and window/door openings.

Right now, I have more questions than answers and will entertain all suggestions.

Thanks.

By recycling I mean the whole barn was used, perhaps moved without disassembling.

I wonder if the newer builders realized the 8' forebay was a stretch and shortened it up. By the way, in the older 8' forbay barns, was the framing material above the forebay lighter that the rest of the barn?

In the newer barns do you see a change in species used and how the timber was cut from the log, different saws, no boxed hearts, quarter sawn and so on? How about layout systems?

Have you checked into what they were farming and how this could have effected the building they utilized.

I can see it taking about 40 or 50 years before an area had recovered economically from the civil war enough to build new barns. By then, perhaps the rising tide of prosperity in the area floated everyone's boat enough to build a new barn.

It sounds like the grandchildren of the veterans were building these barns as they took over the farms. (at least that generation as opposed to ones who were children during or immediately after the war.)

In our area, times were tough until 1910-1920. And then the boll weevil hit in '26 or so and wiped it all out again to the point that my grandparents didn't even feel the crash on Wall street -- it was already bad.

What was the main cash crop in that area during that time?

Hi Bob;

Plans were not needed for heavy timber framing because everyone already knew how to do that. The plank framing was relatively new and people were willing to spend money on a book to get some guidance.

You have said several interesting things. I did not know forebay barns were being built or that people were still hewing that late.

How are you dating these barns?

Thanks;
Jim

Not sure about your recycling point: the structures are barns with typical barn footprints and floorplans so they aren't converted homes, and home conversions are a modern phenomenon, nor are there any historic structures in the area that even suggest barn conversion.

Properly sized 8' forebays aren't a stretch. There are many examples in PA. The timber sizes remian normal in the forebay with the exception of a lighter plate. I suspect this can be attributed to mot having the large door openings.

The material in the early barn is mixed with oak, poplar,walnut, and chestnut - possibly others. Conversion is a mix of hewing and circular sawn. The newer barns are almost exclusively circular sawn oak. Right now I am trying to sqeeze in as many barns as possible; spending 2 - 3 hours in measuring, photgraphing, and talking. I haven't looked at boxed heart or quartersawn conditions, but will on the barns I go back to.

Layout so far is either true square rule, or modified mill square rule. No scribe found to date.

Before and after the Civil War, the Shenandoah Valley was the "breadbasket of the Confederacy". The soils here rival those of Lancaster PA for productive quality.

And while slavery was evident here in the valley, the majority of farms were and are smaller, owner run properties that should have recovered fairly quickly after the war. I still can't see what they did for the intervening 40 years.

Crops in the valley were varied: wheat, corn, beef, and sheep for cash. Lots of othere stuff for local consumption.

Bob, the term "recycle" by no means refers to the modern barn to home conversion, it was me being PC. My recent reading of Big House Little House.... lead me to suggest the re-use of older barns, re locating them, I thought it could have been a possibility. The book suggest it was a practice only found in the northern New England area, this is likely true. Local thrifty farmers trying to be even more thrifty. I find old barn, stone foundations, spread around, empty of a barn, and a large number of, obviously re used barn in my area of down east Maine. It sounds like the barns you speak of are by no means of this ilk.

More on the barns you are looking at.... the dates you specify, 1906-1928 were part of the rise, a high leading to the big drop, the roaring 20's. Could these well constructed barns be a result of this? The new generation of farmer needing a farm of his own and pulling from his past and building a similar barn to what was accustom, forgoing the "new version" stick built system with the fancy pants plans. And besides it won't work like pappy's barn, the forebay barn. They still stuck to tradition, for the most part, you say the forebay is shorter.

If I recall, the forebay cantilevered joist, on the 8' version, was tapered, reducing weight. Do the shorter forebays taper? I am going to guess they do not. Were the newer barns canted joist of smaller size over all? Just wondering if they had access to sizable trees, and if not this may reflect in the missing 5' or so of forebay.

Just some entertaining questions.

Perhaps the situation in my aea might help shed some light on the subject as well

here the vast majority of old barns date from roughly the same period, most built from about 1890 to about 1920 at the latest

The oldest barn I have come across in our particular county was built in the 1870's there are older buildings, mostly log cabins that were re-purposed later on after a permanent house was built. It is possible that there were some smaller barns built in the early days of settlement, but these were either dismantled or incorporated into bigger barns in some way. It is common to find some recycled parts in many barns that are clearly much older than the barns themselves.

Now there is a reason why there are few barns from before the 1890s. Settlement around here began in the 1840s, then once things got going the civil war popped up. in the 1870's, when the situation might otherwise have turned around and been good for new barn building, the country got hit by a major depression, and wouldn't recover for some time.

The last decade of the 19th century saw a major economic boom, and that I think is why there are so many barns built beginning in this period.

These barns are all timber framed, and some of them are totally hand hewn, some might have braces come from a sawmill, and others the shorter members might be sawn. The restriction was the size of the sawmills, which in general were not long enough to handle the longest timbers needed, often with an upper range of maybe 20 to 25 feet. so by necessity, hewing was employed.

things built after perhaps 1920 tend to not be very well built, and after that there is virtually no timber framing done any more.

Bob -- The complete and pervasive economic upheaval in the south coupled with the loss of a significant percentage of 18-30 year old males could have been enough to keep conditions fairly poor for a generation. Meaning no farm expansion. It's one thing to be back to operating at capacity in a few years and another thing to be doing so well you can build new infrastructure.


Alternatively, it could be that the original barns which may have all been built in a 20-30 year window were all just plain used up by that time and no longer worth repairing/adding on to/converting for different agricultural techniques and technologies (hay tracks, etc). So people built new ones.

Well, I can believe that the barns are part of the recovering economy of the south, but I still wonder what was built in the forty years after the Civil War. As I mentioned, I can find no evidence of reused materials in these "new" barns. Even if the farms had thrown something up to tide them over, I would expect to see some of that material in these barns.

Most of them are on farms dating from theBorden Land Grant(toward the end of the 17 hundreds) and in almost all cases, the houses are older than the barns. When I began my survey, I started with VDH surveys of the oldest properties in the county. As I noted either "frame barn" or "bank barn" on the survey, I set that property aside. Most of the surveys were done in the late 80's to early 90's and a good number of the barns were gone. Another goodly amount were stick built outbuildings and not really barns at all. I quickly larned that whoever was doing the surveys cared litle to nothing about the barns.

As to the joists on the "new" barns, they are mainly sawn 3 by 8 to 10 relatively closely spaced; and not tapered. On some, as I mentioned they are apparently recycled log structure parts. Sometimes the barns are on older foundations, sometimes on slip-formed concrete. When on older,stone foundations,there is usuallly a cementitious parging applied and sometimes a newer concrete foundation in front of the stone(on the bank side).

Judgingfrom other contemporary construction, I don't think size was an issue. I can say that while most of these barns are oak, we have done a lot of restoration on barns north of here that are almost entirely pine.

Finding no answers, just more questions.

That's all possible. I would feel better if I could find some supporting documentation - either way. I started these surveys for a class I'm taking at James Madison University, but am really feeling out of my depth on explaining what I am finding.

I can describe the barn: how it was built, when it was built, materials, even purpose to a degree. I would like to find a more complete explanation of why it was built when it was built.

A 40 year period is really a short period of time. A generation, 20-25 years, I am two generations old. If I look back through my life a lot has happened but the surrounding land scape, buildings included has changed little. The houses that were built in the 60's have change little as well. We are approaching changes that will be more noticeable.

I suspect you may be looking too hard for a reason these newer building exist. If you applied the information you do have to a timeline, frame types and such, along with habits of the people, farming info, other aspects economies and such, what picture develops?

Bob, is it possible these barns replaced log barns and those joists come from those?

It's possible, but log (crib) barns in this area tend to have central log cribs with rough framed aisles and vertical sheathing. There is little joinery in the barn cribs themselves (joist notches, window and door lets). A good number of the joistsin these newer barns have too much joinery for me to think they came from barns.

Also, the research I've done suggests that preference in barn and home typology tends to be ethnographic. So without a change in ownership, I would almost expect barn replacement to follow type.There are in fact quite a few log structures in the county that post date the Civil War. You do raise an interesting polint, though. I imagine there was a lot of propertnoty changing hands after the War. This might explain some of what I see, but not all of it. As I mentioned, some of these properties have been in the same family since the original land grant. Again, intermarrying might address some of that. Looks like I'm leaving the barns and heading to the courthouse. That should be a little cleaner.

Just did a quick bit of reading. Looks like Gen Sheridan burned a lot of barns in the valley in 1864. It takes two generations at least to come back from losing everything but the land. I can't explain why they would frame with timber so late, though.

Yes. That is my question.

On a related note, it seems that post war surveys indicated that Sheridan's accounts were optimistic. In some instances, he burned more structures than existed.

Some things don't change.

As I stated in an early post, barns were being built of timber right up to the 20's in Indiana, despite the fact that balloon framing comes from nearby Chicago. Most of our barns come from roughly the same time period described here, and are built of both hewn and sawn timber. I can go up the road from my house to a nice big timber barn with the year 1914 posted in big white numbers on one end, because that was the year it was built. Right behind my house sits an old timber barn that county records show was built in 1910. These barns are by no means unique.

In our area, the oldest barns seem to be bank barns and forebay barns, some built by the Amish and the other by other settlers from Ohio and Pennsylvania, while all the newer tend to be the box 'midwestern' type barn. Dairy barns are not always TF, but sometimes are.

For us, a 100 year old building is old, because there just aren't very many surviving that are any older. The oldest buildings are about 150 years old.

There are actually a surprising number of log cabins all around us too, but you wouldn't know it to look at them. Many of them are boarded over and made to look like more comfortable modern houses, or incorporated into a larger expanded structure. The romantic image of log cabins you see did not exist before very very recent times. Here log cabins were a temporary means, something you threw up to stay in before you could build a real house. Which you did as soon as you could possibly manage.