Old Vermont Barn

Features of an Old Bank Barn 

This old barn has three and a half stories. The cellar with its stone walled foundation was a place to collect manure, house the pigs and store the wagons. The second floor had horse stalls, cow stanchions, a sheep fold and a work bench. The third floor had room to store hay with huge double doors that opened onto a ramp for wagon loads of loose hay to drive right in. The top floor was for storing more hay and some and is still there today.

In the front corner of the old barn there is a square silo. Invisible from the outside, it was used to store grain and could be filled from the third floor with access from the second floor as well as the cellar.

The roof was originally covered with cedar shingles. Those shingles have been since been covered over with tin roofing.

The huge doors that open off the ramp are large enough for a wagon full of loose hay to be driven into the barn.

When the small 12 over 12 pane windows were replaced in the house for more modern 2 over 2 windows the old windows were added to the barn.

The History of The Inn at Woodchuck Hill Farm - Grafton, VT

The barn on the property is known as a "bank barn". It is constructed against a large stone wall built into a sloping earth bank. This allowed for hay to be brought directly into the second floor by wagon and stored. The hay was dropped down to the animals on the lower level as needed.



This ramp is similar to the stonewall ramp build on the back of the Garner Rix Dewey Barn.

What is a Bank Barn?

A two-story barn usually built into the slope of a hill and oriented so that the ground floor is protected from the prevailing wind. An inclined driveway leads to a large sliding door on the upper floor, which contains an area set aside for threshing grain, storing grain, and storing animal feed. The level below provides housing for animals and is entered at ground level from an enclosed yard.

Inside the Old Barn 

Many young men moved west from Vermont to Missouri. They took their style of building barns with them as seen in this picture from an old Missouri barn which looks remarkably similar to the second story of Garner Rix Dewey's Barn. Both were built at about the same time.

WALNUT SPRINGS FARM

Stroll back in time as you tour five buildings on the old HOSMER DAIRY FARM, the
farm that pioneered the dairy industry in Southwest Missouri. Two large turn-of-the-century barns are listed on the NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES and house antique farm machinery, buggies, wagons, sleighs, and other antiques.

Learn more about Vermont's Old Barns 

Taking Care of Your Old Barn

Taking Care of Your Old Barn: Ten Tips for Preserving and Reusing Vermont's Historic Agricultural Buildings


English Barns
(before the 1770s to 1900s)
Vermont's early farmers built their barns based on a traditional barn design that the original colonists brought with them from England. The basic design remained popular for smaller barns throughout the nineteenth century. Measuring about thirty feet by forty feet with a pair of large, hinged wagon doors on the long side and unpainted vertical boards on the walls, the English barn usually stood on a level site without a basement. Inside these barns were divided into a center drive and threshing floor (onto which the pair of doors open) with hay and grain storage on one side and animal stables on the other.



Yankee Barns (1820s to 1870s)
By the mid-1800s, many farmers adopted a new design for their barns which allowed them to house up to ten cows and shifted the main entrance to the gable end. Inside the center drive floor followed the ridge of the roof with cow stables in a row on one side and hay storage on the other. Usually built into a hillside so that manure could be pushed into and stored in a basement below, these barns could be expanded by adding additional bays to the rear. To reduce winter drafts, farmers rejected traditional vertical board siding in favor of tighter board-and-batten, clapboard or shingle sheathings. They soon found that rooftop ventilators were needed for fresh air and windows for light.



Late Bank Barns (1870s to 1900s)
Those farmers specializing in dairying soon needed space for more than ten cows, and many built huge multi-storied bank barns to house cattle and other livestock and to store winter forage and grain for them. At the uphill gable end, a covered bridge or "high-drive" often provided access for wagons to the upper hayloft. Cow stables with rows of wooden stanchions are in the story below, with manure stored in the basement. Most late bank barns are sheathed with clapboards and have elaborate wooden ventilator cupolas, often topped by decorative weathervanes.

Old Vermont Barns in the News! 

Barn Census: Calling All Volunteers

How many barns are there in Vermont? What kind of condition are they in? Are we losing significant numbers each year? What can be done to preserve these icons of our history and landscape? The goal of the Vermont Barn Census is to carry out, for the first time, a statewide census of Vermont's barns that will lay the foundation for further efforts to preserve them.
Brattleboro Retreat Farm ventilator

The project will recruit volunteers in all of Vermont's 251 towns to identify barns and other agricultural outbuildings in their communities. The Barn Census will occur mainly over several highly publicized weekends in the summer and fall of 2008 and spring and fall of 2009. Students from elementary to high school will be welcomed to participate. Volunteers will take a photo and some notes about barn features, history, use and condition in the field, and then submit the data over the web.

The fall Barn Census weekend will be October 18-19, 2008. Get ready by attending a workshop on September 27th, 10:00 am to 2:00 pm at historic Glen Dale Farm in Cornwall with barn experts Jan Lewandoski and Tom Vissor. Sign up for the Barn Census e-mail list and check the Vermont Barn Census Website for further information on how to participate. Contact Mike Plummer via email at Mike.Plummer@state.vt.us or at (802) 828-1220.

Garner Dewey Kept Morgan Horses in the Old Barn 

During the Civil War, Garner Rix Dewey raised Morgan Horses for the War effort and a flag flies over his grave in recognition of this service.

The National Museum of the Morgan Horse: Morgan Horses in the Civil War

Morgan horses are known to have been used in both the Union and Confederate armies. Due to the quality of the Morgan horses and their physical attributes, they were in high demand. They were hardy and their thick winter coats enabled them to survive without shelter during bad weather, they were able to survive on scant forage, their resilient skin reduced saddle sores, and the Morgans were highly trainable and willing to please.

Substitutes, Civil War

No conscription in the North during the Civil War was absolute. The drafted man could always hire a substitute if he could afford it. Starting in 1862, the U.S. government allowed this escape from military service on the theory that, so long as each name drawn from the wheel produced a man, it made no difference whether the drafted person or one hired to take his place appeared for muster.

Vermont State Animal: Morgan Horse

Coloring page of the Morgan Horse.

The Banyard Alphabet  

An Alphabet around the Old Barn

Buy at AllPosters.com

Farm Alphabet

Farm Alphabet Poem
(Source unknown)

A is for the apples that grow on trees.
B is for the barn where animals live.
C is for the cow that gives milk.
D is for the dog that guards the sheep.

etc.

from Little Giraffes

Barn Owls in the Old Barn 

Barn owls are cavity nesters which means they prefer to nest in dark places like tree cavities, caves, pipes or barns.

In many parts of the world they have chosen to nest in barns and silos, high in a dark corner, and normally where humans wont see them. This is why they are called "barn owls".

The reason they do this is because most of their natural nest sites have been destroyed, and barns are usually located near grassy fields where their prey can be found.

You can encourage even more barn owls to live near your barn with Barn Owl Nesting Boxes

Barn Owls

The Barn Owl can keep a barn or structure free of mice better than most cats.

Barn Owls

Barn Owls live in open to partly open habitats such as grasslands, farmland, and fresh and salt water marshes. They nest in natural tree cavities or manmade nest boxes adjacent to fields or marshland. See more details below.

Barn owls eat mostly small rodents such as mice, voles, and rats. Their preferred prey is the meadow vole. They will also feed on small birds.

Learn about the History of Agriculture 

Primary and Secondary sources for Elementary Children

Harvest of History | The Farmers' Museum

Harvest of History, developed by The Farmers' Museum, is an interactive website and interdisciplinary 4th-grade curriculum dedicated to agriculture and rural life in New York State.

The Old Barn is in the Four Wheeler's Online Unit Study Directory 

Thank you to the Four Wheelers for including the The Old Barn in their Online Unit Study Directory.

Internet Directory of Unit Studies

The Four Wheelers Internet Directory of Unit Studies contains a list, roughly arranged by subject, of links to unit studies that are published on the Internet.