Historic Barns of Connecticut

Designations

• Local Historic District
• National Register

Historic Significance

Architectural Description:

This is a 1 ½ story attached eave-entry barn with two double-hinged doors on its main facade facing north to Palmer Road. Both doors are painted white, and have vertical siding with wrought iron strap hinges. The east side of the north facade has a pass-through door which appears to have been replaced with a modern storm door and a paneled door behind it. The barn has vertical siding that is painted white and an asphalt shingle roof.

Historical Significance:

Connected barns tied all of the functions of a farmstead - home, hearth, workplace and barn - into a series of linked buildings. This is the “big house, little house, back house, barn” of nursery rhymes.

The oldest barns still found in the state are called the “English Barn,” “side-entry barn,” “eave entry,” or a 30 x 40. They are simple buildings with rectangular plan, pitched gable roof, and a door or doors located on one or both of the eave sides of the building based on the grain warehouses of the English colonists’ homeland. The name “30 by 40” originates from its size (in feet), which was large enough for 1 family and could service about 100 acres. The multi-purpose use of the English barn is reflected by the building’s construction in three distinct bays - one for each use. The middle bay was used for threshing, which is separating the seed from the stalk in wheat and oat by beating the stalks with a flail. The flanking bays would be for animals and hay storage.

Historical background:

The Chaplin Historic District is an entire village built between 1815 and 1840, standing today in complete integrity, free of intrusions. The church, tavern, Town Hall, store and nineteen houses in late Federal and early Greek Revival styles provide a unique example of the architecture and ambience of a New England village - entirely constructed in a compressed period of time a century and a half ago, and unaltered since that time.
Connecticut has many villages which are older than Chaplin and many towns founded earlier than Chaplin in which can be traced continuing architectural and community developments from a century or more before through a century or more after the fabric demonstrated by Chaplin. Chaplin is unique because it was created on site where before there had been no settlement, was created complete in a brief span of time, and subsequently has experienced no development or changes. Chaplin provides a unique record of the architecture and community planning of the 1820’s and 1830’s (Ransom, p. 7).

Field Notes

Associated house c. 1830 national Register and Local Historic District Owners plan to renovate interior as a bedroom, leaving exterior unchanged. Has been widened in the past.

Use (Historic)

• agriculture

Use (Present)

• storage

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Exterior Visible from Public Road?

Yes

Demolished

n/a

Location Integrity

Unknown

Related features

• Barn
• Stone Walls

Environment features

• Residential
• Rural
• Woodland

Relationship to surroundings

The barn is located east of the intersection of Chaplin Street and Palmer Road, behind the house at 35 Chaplin Street. It is one of two barns located at 35 Chaplin Street.

Building Typology

• Connected

Materials

• Vertical Siding

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Structural System

• Post & Beam

Roof materials

• Asphalt Shingle

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Roof type

• Gable

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Approximate Dimensions

25'32" x 20' wide

Date Compiled

12/30/2009

Compiled By

T. Levine and S. Lessard, reviewed by CT Trust

Sources

Field Notes by Catherine Lynch and Hill Bullard 12/30/2009. Photographs by Catherine Lynch, Hill Bullard, Charlotte Hitchcock, and Stephanie Lessard.

Ransom, David, Chaplin National Register Historic District Nomination, No. 78002856, National Park Service, 10/11/1978.

Sexton, James, PhD; Survey Narrative of the Connecticut Barn, Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, Hamden, CT, 2005, http://www.connecticutbarns.org/history.

Works Progress Administration Writers’ Project, Architectural Survey, Census of Old Buildings, Reference Group 33, Box 226 “Bolton-Chaplin,” Hartford: Connecticut State Library Archives.