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HVVA
NEWSLETTER, July 2004 FROM
THE JOURNAL The typical orientation of the house and barn, set 100-feet apart with offset parallel roof lines, makes the two buildings appear contemporary and on their original foundations. Evidence of rafter collar ties in the barn makes it appear to be an original single-aisle frame, rather than a three-aisle Dutch barn that has lost its side aisles. The single-aisle form of the New World Dutch barn is rare but distinct. I would imagine there are about six examples in a total of 100 Dutch barns surviving in Ulster County. This example shows a frame design that is specialized and unique. It is the eleventh Dutch barn known in the Town of Rochester and the second single-aisle example.
Tuesday, June 22, I went to see the two-story stone and brick
house with three-bay single aisle Dutch barn in the Town of Rochester,
Ulster County, NY. ___/Gazley/Dogar-Marinesco (Uls-Roc-6)
Five-Bay
Single Aisle Dutch Barn
Bolting planks to the frame and using a pair of screw jacks, Conrad
raises each post separately, cuts away what is rotten and sets it
on a cement pier that is cast with wood strips for re-nailing the
siding. It is important that the wood post and the cement pier are
separated with a vapor barrier. This cement pier system was found
Five-Bay
Single Aisle Dutch Barn The barn is at least 200 years old. The collar ties on the rafters were removed almost 100 years ago when a hay track was installed. Conrad made some necessary rafter repairs and collar ties should eventually be re-installed. They help keep the walls and rafters from spreading. I had examined the Gazley barn 10 years ago and had noted the rafter collar ties and the end wall door posts, which are grooved for wooden hinges. Because of the collar ties I had concluded it was built as a single aisle barn. This examination convinced me that the barn began as a classic three-aisle three-bay Dutch barn and was converted to a single aisle. The proof is in the longitudinal struts, drilled on the cow-aisle side with 2-inch holes set 1-foot apart, and on the horse aisle side with one-inch notches set four inches apart for the stake hay-manger. These could only serve animals in the side aisles of the original barn. An important feature in a surviving cow strut is the remains of stakes that were broken off when the barn was converted, leaving the tops of the stakes in their original position, wedged to stabilize them.
This is a feature I first discovered a few weeks ago in the Snyder
barn in Saugerties, a farm with a rich oral tradition. Ken Snyder
can recall as a child sitting on the sill plate in the cow aisle watching
his grandparents milk the cows that were chained to the stakes. Ken
was able to sit on the sill because the wood floor rested on the dirt
below. After a new addition was made to the barn in the 1950’s,
with a cement floor and stanchions, the old cow aisle was abandoned.
Occasionally pigs were kept there and they quickly ate up the exposed
stakes, the loose floor boards, and probably the sleepers
Three-Bay
Single Aisle Dutch Barn On the way home I stopped at the Lane single-aisle Dutch barn again. I had begun to understand it from trying to draw it and I needed to check measurements. Conrad had discovered several new things hidden behind some modern siding he was removing. There appears to have been a small outshot attached to the barn. But with no door between the sections and large early nails, Conrad felt they were probably originally separated by a plank wall rather than the 3/4-by-14-inch unpainted white pine weatherboard siding that had been on the rest of the barn. 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. |
