Our Old Vermont Barn
Come on into the barn. Smell the hay and listen to the cows, sheep, pigs and horses moving around in their stalls. What can we learn from Garner Rix Dewey's Barn?
The Old Barn's Table of Contents
What can you learn about Garner Rix Dewey from studying the Old Barn?
Photo Credit: Looking out into the Barnyard
in the Public Domain
- Features of an Old Bank Barn
- Inside the Old Barn
- Wood Shed, Barn and Corn Crib
- Learn more about Vermont's Old Barns
- Reading about Old Barns
- Old Barns in Vermont
- An English Barn that resembles Garner Rix Dewey's Barn
- The Vermont Barn Census
- Look Who's Twittering about Old Barns
- Old Vermont Barns in the News!
- Farm Animals in the Old Barn
- Animals in Garner Rix Dewey's Old Barn
- Garner Dewey Kept Morgan Horses in the Old Barn
- The Banyard Alphabet
- Barn Books
- Looking out the Old Barn Door
- Wild Animals around the Old Barn
- The Meadow
- Barn Owls in the Old Barn
- Vermont Barns
- What was Happening in the Old Barn?
- Learn about the History of Agriculture
- The Old Barn is in the Four Wheeler's Online Unit Study Directory
- Who's Twittering about Vermont Barns?
- Come Visit the Old Barn
- What do you love about Old Barns?
- About the Author of this Page
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.
Wood Shed, Barn and Corn Crib
Garner Rix Dewey's Old Barn
To the left you see the woodshed. The openness allows air to dry the wood while the roof keeps the wood out of the rain and provides a place for chopping.
The big sliding door on the old barn gives access to the stables and the workbench.
The corn crib to the right was built with open slats allowing the air to flow freely. A shoot on the backside made loading the crib easy from the ramp or bridge that was built on the upper side of the barn. That ramp had a bridge that allowed wagons filled with loose hay to enter the upper story. The hay would then be forked down to the animals all winter.
Hay Wagon
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.
Reading about Old Barns
As you learn more about different styles of barns and what various sections of the barns are used for, reading these books becomes easier even for beginning readers. These books about barns are often chosen for silent reading.
Old Barns in Vermont
Garner Rix Dewey's barn, in the style of the Old English Barn, was not painted. It did, however, have windows, a stone cellar, and was built on a hillside.
Though no evidence of Garner Rix's original barn, he undoubtedly had one. We know where the cellar hole is for his house. Maybe next summer we will be able to tell where the barn was.
These pictures above show Yankee Barns with windows in the places where Garner Rix Dewey put the old 12 X 12 windows that he had taken out of the house when remodeling.
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An English Barn that resembles Garner Rix Dewey's Barn
Garner Rix Dewey. Garner Rix's grandson, built his barn with the same kind of huge post and beams, cedar shingles and boards running up and down. The doors were on the ends of the barn rather than the sides as in this model. There is a corn crib just to the side of it that is also quite similar. Styles had changed since Old Garner Rix had built his barn, Garner Dewey built his much taller and against a bank to allow wagons to enter on the third floor.
The Vermont Barn Census
See the photos volunteers have submitted of Vermont barns and listen to historic preservation graduate student and project intern Michael Plummer talk about the effort in this audio slideshow.
Look Who's Twittering about Old Barns
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- anyidiot
- Noticed hubby left full wheelbarrow by barn w/rake on ground like a 6yr old. My God if you want it done right do it yourself.
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- vtconnect
- @BPomeroyBDesign 150 year old barn, wow,take plenty of photos,video congratulations to your company
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- BPomeroyBDesign
- Preparing a proposal for an organic urban farm on Long Island, including restoration a 150 year old barn.
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- sarahkhayxoxo
- @TraceCyrus you mean the old barn
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.
Farm Animals in the Old Barn
Garner Rix Dewey's Domenstic Farm Animals
On Garner Rix Dewey's farm Merino sheep where raised for wool. A few horse blankets made from these sheep are still in the barn.
During the Civil War Morgan horses were raised and sold to the Union Army. This was considered so important that raising Morgan horses was considered equal to serving as a soldier.
Cows were kept for milk as well as making cheese and butter. Garner made his own cheese forms which still hang in the workshop.
Animals in Garner Rix Dewey's Old Barn
Domestic Animals in the Old Barn
The following links will lead you to more unit studies to learn about the domestic animals that were raised on the Rix Farm. These animals and more were raised on the Rix Farm. Adaptations to the barn were made for many of these farm animals.-
The Thanksgiving Tale of Tobias Turkey
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Tobias Turkey is a determined little turkey who wants to win the prize for being the biggest turkey on Farmer Joe's Farm. This Thanksgiving Tale by Sandra Robbins can lead into a unit study of domestic turkeys with poems, crafts, math activities and...
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Cows Aren't The Only Ones
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Sure you know that milk comes from cows but did you know people around the world milk other animals as well? There are many books about milk and milking to start off a Unit Study about dairy animals and their products. Finding a friendly farmer who...
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Who Layed THAT Egg?
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Everyone knows that chickens lay eggs. Most people know that all other birds do as well but have you ever thought about all the other animals that lay eggs? Children may be surprised that some eggs do not contain birds. Other egg layers include frogs...
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
- 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 Books
Big Red Barn Big Book
By the big red barn
In the great green field,
There was a pink pig
Who was learning to squeal.
Amazon Price: $16.49 (as of 11/16/2009) 
Barn Dance! (Reading Rainbow)
An ordinary evening becomes a festival of foot-stompin' good fun when neighbors gather at a barn dance.
Amazon Price: $7.95 (as of 11/16/2009)
In the Barn (Historic Communities)
A complete guide and history of barns describing types of barns, their uses and tools and gadgets.
In the Barn shows how the barn was the center of activity on a busy settler farm. All the seasonal activities, from birthing to harvest to winter storage, are explored including the work and fun of a barn-raising bee.
Amazon Price: $7.95 (as of 11/16/2009)
Photo Credit: Looking out into the Barnyard
in the Public Domain
Looking out the Old Barn Door
As I look out the old barn door I try to imagine all the children who grew up there. I can see them sitting in the doorway looking out at the pigs, chickens and horses. Helping their parents with the daily chores. Learning how to produce their own food and preserve it for winter.I imagine those children going beyond the barnyard, through the pasture and out into the wood to see what wild animals were there. I imagine that they may have run across chickadees and woodpeckers, foxes and woodchucks. They probably caught trout in the brook and collected wildflowers to bring home to their mother.
Photo Credit: Looking out the Old Barn Door
is in the Public Domain
Wild Animals around the Old Barn
Animals found under and around Garner Rix Dewey's Old Barn
Woodchucks that are the descendants of the ones Garner Rix found when he arrived in Royalton still live under his barn.
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Woodchucks Under the Porch
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Woodchucks chuck wood and Groundhogs determine the coming of spring. They eat your garden, dig holes under the porch but look adorable when they are first born and start to venture out of their dens. Watching the woodchuck babies venturing out from...
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Creatures of the Woodlands
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Winter is coming on! The little Woodland Creatures are looking for winter dens, storing up food and preparing for the long winter ahead. The Thornton Burgess Books, such as Old Mother Westwind, are just full of charming woodland creatures that bring t...
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Fireflies: Twinkling Lights of the Meadow
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Have you ever gone out on a summer evening to catch fireflies. They flit and fly everywhere. Soon you have five and then six. One escapes and then you catch two more. In the morning you let them go. These wonderful experiences of childhood may be di...
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It's Turkey Time!
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Wild Turkeys nearly became extinct in the 1930's but times have changed and turkeys have benefited. Now turkeys are often found in fields and on the edge of the woods. In this unit you will learn about Wild Turkeys, read turkey facts and stories, pl...
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Raccoons in the Corn
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Raccoons love to investigate. In this unit study we will be investigating the lives of raccoons with both fiction and non-fiction books, sensory table explorations and even a visit from a wild raccoon. Let Bobby Coon teach you about life on the Gree...
The Meadow
Garner Rix Dewey's Meadow filled the Old Barn with Hay
A scythe hangs in the Old Barn. It's a bit rusty and quite dull. There is a picture of Garner Rix Dewey with that scythe hanging over his shoulder standing in front of the house with other members of the family. Garner worked hard to mow enough grass to fill the hay mow of the old barn. Some of that hay still lies up in the top story of the old barn waiting for Garner to bring the cows in to feed.-
Apple Trees and Apple Blossoms Unit Study
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When Garner Rix moved with his family to Vermont in 1780 he brought apple seeds with him. He carefully planted those seeds which grew into trees and produced apple blossoms in Springtime and bushels of apples in the fall. It has been 200 years since...
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Bluebirds of the Meadow
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Summer nears and the bluebirds start nesting along the fenceline. The children are fascinated with the way they fly back and forth to build their nests. They become the focus of our next Unit Study, Bluebirds of the Meadow. As your little bluebirds...
Barn Owls in the Old Barn
- Barn Owl Information Page
- 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. - Barn Owls - Learning and Creating
- Most common owl and is recognized by it's heart shaped face. Did you know that they feast on SKUNK? Dissect Owl PUKE, Learn how they see, hunt, and use their talons to capture their prey.I've listed a number of links for various subjects including Science, Math, Literature, and Arts and Crafts. Hope
Vermont Barns
Learn more about the Garner Rix Farm and Old Barns
Linda mentions that the first barns in Vermont were built with boards going straight up and down in a style brought over from England. That is the style of Garner Rix's barn. To this day the boards have never been painted.-
Garner Rix and the Royalton Raid - 1780
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Garner Rix was just 12 when he moved with his father, pregnant mother, two sisters and three brothers from a farm in Connecticut to a log cabin on the banks of the White River, a place that would one day be called Royalton, Vermont. He helped h...
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Historic Vermont Barns
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Growing up on a working dairy farm in Vermont, I spent a large portion of my time in the barn, both working and playing. The barn is the center of the business of farming. For a child, the barn holds the promise of places to hide, animals to grow wi...
What was Happening in the Old Barn?
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18th Century Threshing
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Photo Credit: Threshing with hand flails on Flickr, Creative Commons. Once Garner Rix had cleared enough of his land to plant wheat and oats, he needed to have a barn for storing his grains and for threshing the grains to separate the seeds from the...
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
- 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.
Who's Twittering about Vermont Barns?
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- product_unknown
- @j_brizzle "Screen Fiends"@EL BARN GALLERY4628 Hollywood Blvd. (At Vermont and across the street from Wacko)LA www.TheStatusFaction.net
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- Jewles
- @knitterplease All I want is an oven and a warming drawer. We'll have to include that in the kitchen plan for our Vermont barn renovation.
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- FrancesAlford
- I am in Vermont, starting my new studio. The Tuttle Barn.
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- RemodelCrazy
- RT @NewVenturellc: #Vermont Barn Census - Remodel Crazy Forum - Contractor and Home Owner Remodel Forums: http://bit.ly/1sneax #VT #BVT
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- NewVenturellc
- #Vermont Barn Census - Remodel Crazy Forum - Contractor and Home Owner Remodel Forums: http://bit.ly/1sneax #VT #BVT
Come Visit the Old Barn
Come Visit Vermont
Photo Credit: Vermont Dirt Road
on Flickr, Creative Commons.
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Evelyn's Bed and Breakfast
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Our home in Vermont is a big old Vermont farmhouse and the land that it sits on has been in the family since the town was founded. This historic 1850's Vermont Farmhouse is surrounded by pastures and hundreds of acres of woods, trails and even a wate...
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Come Visit Vermont
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In a couple of weeks I will be making the long drive from Miami up the east coast of the United States to my home in Vermont. Vermont is the place that my heart longs for. No matter where I travel it always calls to me. If you have not been there ye...
What do you love about Old Barns?
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Reply
- JaguarJulie JaguarJulie May 16, 2009 @ 4:48 pm
- I love old barns! We saw quite a few when we were traveling the countryside of Hungary and Romania! Nicely presented.
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- EditorDave EditorDave Feb 17, 2009 @ 2:10 pm
- Nice lens. My grandads (both in Pennsylvania) had barns. My dad's dad was a blacksmith--his barn was always full of metal things--and in the center of the barn was a brick furnace and a huge anvil. My mom's dad was a farmer--his barn had a 4-wheel horse carriage, a yoke on one of the walls, some scythes on a different wall... and old milk cans, a butter-churn, and still remants of hay on the floor. I explored these barns--but my grandads (and particularly the grandmas) always fussed about those places being too dangerous for my sister and me. (We'd sneak in there anyway to explore... but barn owls lived in the rafters and would scare the mess out of us... so after a while, we chose other ventures.) 5*
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About the Author of this Page
Find out what I'm up to when I'm not out in Garner Rix Dewey's Old Barn.-
Evelyn Saenz: Lensography of a Teacher
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My passion is teaching and finding ways to teach children in fun, hands-on, creative ways. The unit studies I make on Squidoo reflect my view that learning should be integrated and no skills should be taught in isolation. I believe that each topic s...
