A few years ago when we bought our farm from my uncle, we started the process of bringing the ol barn on the property back to life. This was not just a barn on a piece of dirt, it was a very special piece of my family history. As you can imagine, restoring an old barn is no small undertaking and is very time consuming and can eat up a lot of money pretty quick, but the rewards are well worth it! Id like to share the photos as well as the true story of her life. My great-great and great grandparents owned a lot of land in this area of southeastern Illinois back in the 1800s and early 1900s along the Little Wabash River in the Blood, IL area. Much of the river bottom land was full of Red and White Oak timber. Not only were they farmers, they also raised livestock and operated a sawmill which sat on a hill along side the river. In the 1920s, they purchased the 53 acre farm to raise grain crops. The land was several miles from home and part of it had a hard to farm hillside and a creek running through it so it was decided to build a barn on the property to house and pasture a team of horses as well as cattle. All the timber cut for the barn was fell by them from the large Oaks from their timber lands, the dragged out with their teams of Percheron draft horses, loaded on wagons or floated down the river to the sawmill. At this time, their mill was powered by a Keck-Gonnerman steam engine which cut all thee logs into the lumber needed to build the barn. They then loaded the timbers and lumber onto wagons and, with the team of horses, made the three mile haul to the farm. They then began to cut the lumber to the proper lengths and begin building using what we would consider primitive tools. The timbers are wood pinned whereas holes were drilled the the timbers and hand hewn pins driven in to lock everything together. The trusses for the roof were assembled on the ground and raised with a system of pulleys pulled by horses. The roofing was attached and the faceboards nailed on, which were 1 inch thick originally. Livestock was raised in the barn from that day until 1990 when my uncle retired. The barn had been going downhill for some time but suffered tremendously with no maintenance for nearly the next twenty years. I had tried to buy the farm before with no luck and one day while standing inside the manger reminiscing all the memories of helping feed cattle with my grandparents - I told her ( the barn ) that if I ever got her bought, I promised to fix her back to new and make her smile again. One day I got a call and we were able to buy the farm and the plans to rebuild her began almost instantly! We began in 2009 and with the help of my Amish and Mennonite friends, we took down the lean-to which wasnt hard since it had caved in already. We then took off all the old roofing metal which was the worst part as the nails were clinched over on the under side. We then began rebuilding and framing the lean-to working our way up the barn. We left all the old 1 decking on the trusses but nailed new 2x4s on to get our roofing metal above the old decking. We then put on the new roof and trim. Finally, we removed all the the old faceboards and replaced them with new 3/4 in oak faceboards cut at one of my Amish friends sawmill. Today, the ol gal stands proud on our farm and is a standing tribute, not only to my family, but to a time of simplicity, hard work and craftsmanship. I wrote a song about her life and as the chorus goes Shes stood the sun, the wind, the rain, the cold, the blowin snow....shes seen five generations of my family come and go....shes kept the hay high and dry and kept the stock from harm...shes seen the changes through the ages - This Ol Barn To hear her true life story in song for free, visit reverbnation/bryandaleheadley
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 12:57:15 +0000
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