Cultural difference in the building of old barns

While traveling through West Virginia and Pennsylvania last month, a large part of the time on two lane highways, my wife and I began to notice the many interesting barns along the way.

Many appeared quite old and held additional interest for this history buff. Especially in Pennsylvania, the old barns were larger than we commonly see in east and southeast Ohio. Many were made of stone, likely taken from the fields on the farm. Others were made with sidings of wood.

These barns rose to great heights, built to store large amounts of hay to feed the livestock housed below. Most barns had an attached silo and an abandoned milk house made of concrete or tile blocks. At one time, the farms we were passing would have been owned by families with a herd of milk cows. Today, only a few dairy herds remain.

Most of the barns we saw were bank barns. Bank barns were built with the bottom floor of the barn dug into a slight hillside so wagons could carry hay and grain inside the top floor of the barn and unload it where it would be stored. The lower floor, partly underground, came out at ground level with stalls for horses. There was an overhang over the top of the stall doors to allow the farmer to harness the team of horses under cover. The overhang, along with some strategic vent holes made in the top floor, allowed for ventilation of the upper part of the barn.

Unfortunately, many of the old barns we saw have fallen into disrepair as other more efficient structures have taken their place. There are now pole frame barns and vinyl covered shelters of great size that are more conducive to today’s needs. The mows once used to shelter loose hay and small square bales of hay and straw are not practical for storing large round bales.

Each part of what we saw in the old barns we passed had a purpose in the farming operations of the day. The builders were savvy to what was important in the time they lived and developed buildings to meet their own unique challenges. The early barns are also indicative of the cultures that built and used them. Most of the Pennsylvania barns we saw were either built by or influenced by the German population settling in the central part of the state.

The English tended to build barns with straight sides, a drive through aisle with stalls on each side and a mow overhead. The Scotts who settled the southern valleys of Virginia and the hills of Tennessee would build cantilever barns, which were square log structures the size of two cabins with overhangs on top of them to make a hay mow three to four times the size of the cabin like structures below. They were smaller than the German and English barns but served the purpose for their area.

One writer outlined the building processes of these three agriculture pioneer groups in this comical anecdote. When the Germans had their house built, the next thing they built was a barn. When the English had their house built, the next thing they built was a church. When the Scotts had their house built, the next thing they built was a still. According to this story, each culture had its priorities for building. Still, each made an interesting contribution to history by the way they constructed and used their barns.

Chuck Bell is a former 4-H Educator for Muskingum County.

This article originally appeared on Zanesville Times Recorder: Cultural difference in the building of old barns