Old Barns: Restoration, Vermont’s Past and Future

Old Barns: Restoration, Vermont’s Past and Future

Susan Cloke, Columnist

Journal Opinion

September 3, 2017

Silas Treadway
photo credit John Keefe

“Preserving old barns keeps us in touch with our agricultural past.  They sit beautifully on the landscape and the actual act of working on them keeps alive an ancient way of building with wood.”  Silas Treadway 

Silas Treadway, a builder in the Upper Valley,  is currently at work on the restoration of an old barn off the Tunbridge Road.  Originally built circa 1790 and then rebuilt in the 1830’s, the existing barn is structurally unstable and is not usable in its current condition.  In order to rebuild the barn, it had to be substantially deconstructed.

Treadway sees every barn as a puzzle and will recreate a deck, as was done in the building of the original barn, where each timber is laid out in the way it would be placed in the finished barn.  Each piece is unique and each piece of timber has a scribed mark - a roman numeral - to mark the fit of the timbers.  Empty peg holes where the timbers from the earlier barns were joined are still visible.  Treadway notes, “There were no tape measures when they built the original barn.”

This method of building was called scribe rule because each piece of timber was given an identification mark.  As described in Thomas Durant Visser’s Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings, an opening, called a mortise, was cut into a specific timber.  Then another timber was shaped to have a piece, called a tenon, that would fit that specific mortise.  These timbers were then joined.

Scribe rule is important to Treadway.  Understanding how scribe rule was used makes it possible to solve the puzzle of how to put the timbers together when reconstructing the barn.

The restoration will reuse as much of the original hand-hewn timber as possible.  The disassembled barn pieces have been sorted into piles that are now waiting on the land for reuse.  

Rosehead spikes
photo credit John Keefe

Hand-forged iron nails, called rosehead spikes, were used in the original barns. They are large, wrought-iron nails made precious by the fact that they were made one by one and by hand.  The rosehead spikes were used to attach vertical sheeting boards in both of the earlier barns.

“It would be possible for me to try and restore the barn to its original 1790’s scheme, however some decisions would be speculative.  I have more evidence and good material for the modified structure (circa 1830),” explained Treadway, speaking of the decision to model the restoration on the 1830’s barn.

The 1830’s barn also used a building technique which started in the early 1800’s, called square rule.  In Visser’s Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings  he writes, “Rather than custom crafting each joint by scribing each timber to another, square rule allowed framing parts to be cut to predetermined dimensions with the aid of patterns and measurements marked with a framing square allowing each mortise to be cut to precise dimensions.” 

Deconstructed Barn
photo credit John Keefe

Like both old barns, the restored barn will be two stories and have the same 30’ x 40’ footprint.  The understory is intended for horses and has a dirt floor.  The upper story has a wood floor and is divided into three bays, two for hay storage on the gable ends and a threshing floor in the center.

Where new timber is needed, Treadway will use hemlock and ash cut from near-by woods.  Some of the new timber will be pulled down to the barn site by horses.  Treadway noted that use of horses “is generally less impactful on the forest and there is less soil compaction.”  Much of the old timber was also hemlock, mixed with chestnut, which is no longer readily available.  The new timbers will be both hand-hewn and sawn.

“The practice of restoration preserves historical fabric to a reasonable level, keeping as much evidence of the building's history intact while making it useful again,” said Treadway.

Treadway plans on completing the barn restoration by the end of 2017.  Overall, the barn will take about six months to build.  In part, the completion date is determined by the rules set in the State grant awarded to this barn restoration. Historic Preservation Barn Grants is a State program, started in 1992.  To date, it

has provided financial help of $3 million, helping to preserve over 360 historic barns. 

“Preservation of these buildings not only protects Vermont's agricultural and architectural legacies, but it also generates jobs, supports independent businesses, increase civic participation, and bolsters a community's sense of place while enhancing the experience of visitors.”  (Vermont Official State Website http://accd.vermont.gov/historic-preservation/funding/barn-grants)

Understory of the deconstructed barn
photo credit John Keefe

The historical purpose of a barn is to provide shelter and comfort for farm animals as well as a place to protect and store the harvest.   But barns also carry great symbolic meaning.  A barn in a rural landscape is an evocative image of our American history.  A barn restoration, done with the care and thought of a builder like Silas Treadway,  makes possible a connection to the past, a way to learn about the making of buildings, the life of Vermonters since the beginning of the state and a guide to the future.