NEW YORK STATE BARNS

An American barn is a manifestation of our cultural heritage. Each year more barns are lost to fires, the deterioration, vandalism or time and the elements, therefore, I have set about to document and photograph remaining historic New York barns. Most farmers did not think it was necessary to keep written records of their barns and outbuildings.... so many old barns that are now gone from sight only remain with us in photographs.

Many of the barns that are scattered across our New York landscape reflect ethnic and popular culture. Until the mid-19th century most barns were the product of culture. Later, farmers had access to pattern books distributed by agricultural experiment stations, land grant colleges or catalog companies. By the end of the first quarter of this century, there were very few, if any, barns being built in the traditional ways.

There are five major barn designs from folk culture: (1) The log barn reflects the mid-Atlantic culture that also came west with the pioneers. These barns, also known as the “crib barn” are especially numerous in the Appalachian and Ozark Mountain States. In time, shingled roofs were replaced with tin or asphalt. (2) The Dutch-style barns, designs used by Dutch settlers in the Hudson, Mohawk and Schoharie Valleys in NY, have a more complex architecture. Relatively very few original Dutch barns survived. (3) English barns consist of three bays, which commonly have a raised-basement. (4) The New England barn has doors on the gable-end and an extended drive-through passageway... for larger farming operations. (5) The Pennsylvania German fore-bay barn which was introduced to America by immigrants from south-central Europe are large barns on masonry foundations, often built into the side of a hill which allows farmers to drive vehicles into the second-level haymow, also known as “bank barns”.

There are many more types of barns that have figured into the history of American agriculture. As Dutch barns reflect the traditions of the people who built them, so do the Czech and Finnish log barns and the German-Russian house barns. Others reflect the availability of local building materials such as logs, adobe, lava rock, and cobblestone while others are best characterized by their special uses.

Just before the Civil War, farmers began publishing advice on barn building and state universities began to spread new ideas about barn designs. Around the turn of the century, companies began marketing barn designs by distributing their own hardcover catalogs that offered free blueprints. But perhaps the ultimate example of the shift from folk to popular, or commercial culture is the mail order barn as seen around 1930. Two large companies, Sears, Roebuck& Co. and Montgomery Ward Co., as well as other lesser known companies, offered ready-cut barns complete with the necessary lumber, hardware, nails, roofing and paint.

All barn lovers encourage the preservation of historic barns by promoting the refitting for continued use in agriculture or by their sensitive rehabilitation for new uses when their historic use is no longer feasible. It is the physical presence of the past that gives historic buildings their significance. Whether we love a particular barn for their decorative paint schemes or stark Shaker qualities.... the aged billboard signs of “Mail Pouch Tobacco”... fanciful cupolas, weathervanes or lightning rods... as we travel through the United States.... we barn lovers stop and admire a piece of our past that will hopefully live on and not be vanishing from our landscape.