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HVVA NEWSLETTER, September 2003 (Click
on graphics/photos for larger view) From the Journal Tuesday
August 26 drove to Everett Rau's farm in Guilderland, Albany
Ev learned a number of things about the family farm from his uncle Willard Ogsbury, his mother's brother, who was born in 1888. Will could recall the cradling, flailing and winnowing of grain. The family had arrived, he said, when they got their first fanning mill. This machine could separate grain into three grades, seed grain, feed grain, plus weed seed and small grain for the hogs. Will could recall a hay barrack that stood on the farm. It had a center pole, he said, with a pulley at the top and bottom. The rope ran through a box and the roof could be raised with a team of horses. No picture or other description exists of the type of barrack that Will described but recently Ev found a 12-foot fragment of a barrack pole reused as a sill in a small shed. It is 8-sided and tapered with holes on 14 to 15-inch centers. The workmanship and design match closely the upper sections of the barrack poles we would see later in the day, a few miles away, in Schenectady County, reused in the Blessing barn. Click on photo for larger view.
Rye straw had several uses in the 19th century. In addition to thatch, it was used in pressing apples for cider, for packing glass, for paper pulp and for stuffing horse collars. Surplus straw and hay was baled with a large vertical bailing machine that was horse-powered. Sometimes called a stationary bailer, they were often taken from farm to farm, getting the crop ready to be shipped to market. The 200 to 250 pound bales were weighed on a steelyard off-center balance scale, and Ev's uncle, Will, said that the man at the scale would mark the weight of each bale on a roof shingle and wedge that under the binding wire. They would write the number of pounds using a lamp black ink. Lamp-Black Ink was made by turning up the wick of a kerosene lamp to blacken the chimney and then mixing this soot with the lamp oil. We still see this black ink harvest writing on the interior beams and boards of our barns.
They
record lists of bale weights, 19th century dates and the names of
the farmer and his neighbors that worked with him. Clever caricatures
and barnyard humor add to the interest of this harvest writing. Harvest writing is sometimes faded or rubbed off and difficult to read but it is cherished by those who might still recall their authors or have an interest in the regions past. It has a fluid character and I had imagined that the person writing used a soft brush, but Ev suggests, from what his uncle had told him, that it was often applied with the fingers. With Michael and Stuart, we all drove a few miles north to the Blessing farm in the Town of Princetown, Schenectady County, near the Normanskill. We met with Marvin Blessing and his wife. Like the Rau farm the Blessing family has owned the farm since the late 18th century and Marvin, who was born in 1938 can recall, as a young child, his grandparents threshing grain on the plank floor of their Dutch barn. There is rare evidence of the use of a removable "threshold board" between the door posts of Bent 1. of the Blessing Dutch barn. As its name suggests, the board would hold the threshed grain, scattered loose on the threshing floor, from spilling out of the open barn door. Click on graphic for larger view.
Blessing family tradition says the 2-bay Dutch barn was moved to the property in about 1830 from a Guilderland Center farm. Of special interest is the reuse of four barrack poles as H-bent columns. They suggest that the barrack was the pioneer structure on the farm and that it was later added to and reconstructed as a 2-bay Dutch 3-aisle barn. No other example of this conversion is known. The barn was later moved to the Blessing farm where a 2-bay carriage barn with a straw mow was added to form a classic sunwise south facing barn yard. Finally a 20 foot bay was added off the north end of the barn with a hay track in the roof peak and a partial basement for chickens. There are a number of questions concerning the form of the original 4-pole barrack. It was of the type with an enclosed space below and hay storage above. It is a type of barrack that is often illustrated and occasionally fragments of poles are found. One example was preserved at Bethpage Village on Long Island. What is unusual about the Blessing barrack is that it seems to have had the proportions of a Dutch barn with the girts (beams) set at least 11.5 feet from the ground. Did it have any kind of lean-tos? Closer study of the frame might show the 3-part wagon doors were part of the original barrack. It seems to have been thought of as a design for the first stage in building the barn. A closer study of the Blessing barn should be undertaken. It has received a NY State funded repair grant and while this repair is being done, it would be an ideal time for a group to visit it. It should also be compared with the barrack fragments in the Kern barn in Austerlitz. Columbia County. Click on graphics for larger view.
Click on graphics for larger view.
Saturday August 30 Eight Members of HVVA (*) met in the Village of Warwick in southern Orange County, on the border of Bergen County, New Jersey. Dr. Richard Hull and Raey Webster gave us a tour of the Shingle House one of six historic buildings owned and interpreted by the Warwick Historical Society. It is a village worth visiting for its many interesting 19th century vernacular buildings, its good food as well as its knowledgeable and friendly volunteer interpreters of the historic buildings that are open free during July and August. The Shingle House was built by Daniel Burt and his son in 1764. The house was clad with shingles and legend has it that they were riven (split) from one tree. The Burt family were Old School Baptists and had come from Ridgefield Connecticut. The house is a good example of a Connecticut 2 story center-chimney house. It is a plan that uses the masonry of the chimney to support the timber frame. The plan results in a building with many rooms. The Shingle House had five fireplaces, one later converted to a stove and maybe ten rooms, five to a floor. some of which could be subdivided further. The Sly barn behind the Shingle House is an 1830 carriage barn moved to the site in 1965. It contains an excellent collection of local farm tools and sleighs. Of special interest is an early quarterscale Pennsylvania farm wagon with an interchangeable box and hay rick. It is just a toy but it shows lots of use.
We next visited Bairds Tavern, this 2-story stone house with a gambrel
roof was built by a The last house visited was the Azariah Ketchum House built 1809 or 1810. It is a 2-story side hall house with very individualized Federal Style entrance and fireplace mantle. It is the home of the carpenter who built the Old School Baptist Meeting House that we went to visit nearby, One of the most impressive early churches in the Hudson Valley. Its white interior and clear windows soften the space. No image of man or God is on display here but a small gold bird with outstretched wings is perched on a plaque high above the hood of the wineglass pulpit. The words on the plaque are too dim and far away to read but the message seems clear. Monday,
September 1. I met with Bob and Marge Hedges at Malcom Kirk's
Dutch barn in I had come to measure the rare surviving horse manger that was reconstructed when the barn was reassembled. There is evidence in one side aisle of most Dutch barns of built in horse mangers but few complete examples have survived, most have been totally reconstructed and the stake manger, that held hay, is removed, Often the horse stalls are later closed off from the threshing floor with a plank wall and a horizontal flap door. Originally, as the evidence shows, there were horse Horse Manger mangers in 5 of the 6 bays, indicating the builder was planning Deertz Dutch Barn for a large number of horses. However, the one surviving intact manger shows almost no use. The holes in the "backboard" show no wear and there are no typical chewing marks that horses leave. I believe that the two large 2 3/4-inch diameter holes in the back board were for inserting "separating poles" and the small 1 1/2-inch holes were for light chains with toggles. The chains were attached to the horse halter. When the horses entered the side-aisle the separating poles lay on the floor and the horses stepped over them. After the horses were tethered to the back board the separating poles were raised and set in the large holes.
There may also have been some sort of hanging separation between horses
in the Deertz barn. In the Snyder barn in Saugerties the horses were
separated by a partition hung on ropes from the mow poles above. This
method is similar to the hanging pole illustrated in the book, Daily
Life in Holland in the Year 1566, by Rien Poortvliet, published
by H. Abrams, 1992. Click on graphics for larger view.
From the Editor: We are looking forward to the Dutch barn conference in Ancramdale, on Saturday, October 4 as well as the Year of the Farm conference in Holland to be held later in the month. Members of HVVA and the Dutch Barn Preservation Society will be attending both. Plans are also underway for some of us to visit Karen Gross in Westphalia, Germany while we are in Europe. Karen has offered to show us some of the museums, tool collections and sites in her area. I hope to have reports on these events in an October/November issue of the newsletter. For some time, HVVA has been looking for a site that could serve as a museum, library and archive. A few weeks ago a Dutch stone house with 26-acres, located in West Camp, Town of Saugerties, Ulster County, NY, has come on the market. The house is interpreted with an unfinished loft, a Dutch jambless fireplace and a five-plate stove on the main floor, kitchen and cold storage rooms in the cellar. The house is dated "1735 W. TenEyck" but its exact history is yet to be uncovered. The house retains exposed beams and many early original features. The property includes a grave yard and lots of trees, water and rock. West camp is where, in 1710 approximately 2,000 poor Palatine German refugees landed to set up temporary camps on the east and west banks of the Hudson River to begin work on the English naval stores project for the Queen. Five years later most of the Palatines had moved on to Pennsylvania or north to the Mohawk and Schoharie Valleys. The temporary villages of both West Camp and East Camp would be interesting archaeological sites that could find widespread interest. After visiting the West Camp property a few weeks ago, some members of HVVA expressed interest in forming a company to buy it. Maggy MacDowell of Gardiner, has offered to act as the agent for-such a purchase. In my conversations with a handful of interested HVVA members, 1 believe we could easily raise $10,000 and with some work find another $40.000 to begin the purchase. Input on this matter would be appreciated. HVVA would continue to work with the Palatine Farmstead in Rhinebeck, Dutchess County. Plans are underway there to do major sill repairs to the 1770 Dutch barn there. It is rumored that the Northeast Solite Corporation Dutch Barn that was to be gone from its industrial site by September will definitely be moved to its new home at the Kierstead house in Saugerties, Ulster County, before the snows of winter come and my neighborhood project, the Madden House of Stony Hollow, is being repaired and will be given a standing seam tern metal roof as soon as the rain stops. Peter Sinclair Editor West Hurley, Ulster County, NY Copyright ? 2004. Hudson Valley Vernacular Architecture. All rights reserved. All items on the site are copyrighted. While we welcome you to use the information provided on this web site by copying it, or downloading it; this information is copyrighted and not to be reproduced for distribution, sale, or profit.
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