HVVA NEWSLETTER, August 2005
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HVVA Newsletters


The recent local interest in barns has given the owner a new appreciation of what he has and there were many suggestions from the group of early features that should be preserved when he makes his planned repairs. From the road the barn is painted red and dated "Angestra Acres 1834" in the gable. The three small martin holes cut in the narrow siding are diamond shaped. This probably dates the conversion of the barn to side entrance. In the back gable the wide board siding is unpainted and one martin hole has survived with a classic 18th century design, once common on New World Dutch barns, now rare.

The Jacob Post Dutch barn is another scribe-rule frame that seems late 18th century judging by the style of the joinery. Its columns and side walls were raised 8-feet in the 19th century giving it a tall appearance that hides its original Dutch' proportions. While most of the families of Berne were of Palatine German and Swiss origin the Post family was Dutch and they were in the Hudson Valley by 1680. Jacob's father John was born in Kingston, Ulster County in 1732, was living near Albany in 1752 when Jacob was born and in the Berne area by 1768. Jacob's sister married William Shultes. The Shultes/Sholtes families and the Post family like many of their neighbors had one or two slaves at the turn of the century.

We lastly visited the Jacob Sholtes Dutch barn, were at 11:00 P.M.? Terrell Sholtes, of Florida, and other family descendants and local historians from as far away as Mexico, dedicated a NYS cast metal historic marker to the builder of this early scribe-rule Dutch style barn.

Lastly we went to the Berne Heritage Day celebration where we manned a table with the DBPS, handed out literature and met many of the local people.

Friday, July 29 Met at 9:30 A.M. with Patsy and Craig Vogel and Bob Hedges to discuss future sites and plans. We then visited and documented two sites in Red Hook for The Survey and were done by noon.

The first site was the Cookingham barn on 9, we registered it as: _/Coockingham stone house and Dutch barn (ny/du/re/000?) coordinates N. 42'00.008, W073'52.308; 32'accuracy; 185' elevation.

We examined the exterior but did not go in or take measurements. Bob knows the barn and says it is a late 19th century Dutch basement barn with round-sawn timbers. The 19th century stone house that goes with the barn is across the road with a parallel roof line. There are extensive 1930s HABS drawing of the house. It is accociated with the Cookingham Dutch barn (ny/du/re/0003) we visited July 15, this being the main farm and the other perhaps a tenant farm. We plan to go inside the barn at another time.

Next we visted the Klose farm on Echo Valley Road. Tibbie Klose was our host. We registered it:

_/Klose house and barn comples (ny/du/re/0008), coordinates, N 42'00.076, W 073'51.280, 25, accuracy, 236' elevation.

This site has a two story fram house with a stone smoke-house/bake-oven extension off the back, also two large side entrance barns a sheds. There is an early Dutch barn across a stream (name?) to the west: _/Klose Dutch barn (ny/du/re/0008) coordinates N 42'00.060, W 073' 51,439; 34' accuracy; 266' elevation.

_/Klose Dutch Barn Red Hook, Dutchess County, NY (ny/du/re/0008)

We felt the Dutch barn was part of the same farm. The large side entrance barns of the first farm have been recently constructed from reused timbers and one of a frame moved from Fleishman, Ulster County, in 1999 to replace a barn that burned. We did no measurements but noted a 1755 dated stone that Tibbie said came from a nearby gravel pit. She has some other dated stones we did not see. The smoke house has a false panel door with early hardware. The present house no doubt contains an earlier one.

We took basic measurements of the Dutch barn that began as a 4 bay scribe rule barn reconstructed with a 2 bay addition probably in the early 19th century. It contains many re-used parts. Especially interesting is its non symmetrical transverse plan with the cow aisle measuring 9.5 feet wide and the horse aisle 10.5 feet. There is also a difference in side wall height.

It would be worthwhile to do a better documentation of the barn frame and especially of some of the reused parts that show manger evidence. One of the reused columns contains a series of angled holes set 3 inches apart that suggests it was originally horizontal and served as a hay rack but its length 21'4" does not fit the normal Dutch barn plan. There is a hay barrack plate resting on the anchor beam that should be documented and perhaps saved as an artifact. It has a rare surviving end that indicates how the barrack plates were joined.

_/Klose Dutch barn, Red Hook, Dutchess County, NY (ny/du/re/0008)

Newsletter, Part Three

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