Well howdy Jim! Nice to have you back in the fray...

Interesting comments about roof pitch. I hope this thread gets resurrected some. It's neat for us Yankees to compare what we see here for date indicators w/ those of southern barns.

I've been able to deduce that a pitch of 8/12 or less (on a barn, mind you) almost always indicates pre-civil war here in Maine. Absence of gable overhang (rakes flush w/ the building) is another indicator of early-mid 19th century.

The steep pitches came in at a time when barns became quite large here in the north. Big dairy was taking off here in the Northeast after the civil war. The need for big haylofts resulted in steep pitches, which ultimately ushered in the gambrel design around 1900-1930-ish.

Hope Jayson, the thread originator, pops back in...