Scoville Dairy Barn - Part 1 of 2 (256 Town Street, Cornwall (Northwest Highlands))

Barn Record Cornwall

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Building Name (Common)

Scoville Dairy Barn - Part 1 of 2

Building Name (Historic)

Scoville Dairy Barn

Address

256 Town Street, Cornwall

Typology

Unknown

Overview

Designations

n/a

Historic Significance

n/a

Field Notes

Barns at the Scoville farm, one of the oldest in Cornwall, have been destroyed by an early morning fire on Thursday Picture by Martha Loutfi http://www.registercitizen.com/articles/2010/01/01/news/doc4b3d45b3e9150882672530.txt News story: Waterbury Republican-American Friday, January 1, 2010 3:15 AM EST Scoville barn destroyed by huge fire in Cornwall BY JIM MOORE REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN Firefighters battled a barn fire on the Scoville family farm in Cornwall for hours Thursday, with flames still licking the remains of the barn more than six hours after the fire broke out. Jim Moore Republican-American. CORNWALL — A spectacular fire reduced a Scoville family barn to embers Thursday morning. The barn dated to the 1700s, as old as the town itself. The devastated dairy house, about 30 feet by 60 feet at its foundation, was last used for milking in 2006, when the Scovilles decided to abandon the struggling milk business as their farm's main endeavor. An electrical malfunction is suspected, although fire officials said the damage was so severe the precise cause never will be known. Fire engines and trucks lined Town Street at the intersection with Scoville Road, a crossroads in both local and family history: The Cornwall Historical Society lists Samuel, Stephen and Timothy Scoville as immigrants from Saybrook who took over the farm in the 19th century. The barn predated the Scoville family's ownership of the farm, its origins closer to the town's founding in 1738."They've been here since Cornwall was Cornwall," Fire Chief Earle Tyler said of the Scovilles. Tyler led an effort that lasted through the day to contain flames fueled by 10,000 bales of hay. Firefighters broke through a foot of ice to draw water from nearby ponds and shuttled more water in tankers. Foam was spread to smother smoldering hay. The milk barn, featured in a historical society calendar for its history and vision of the rural Litchfield Hills, was reduced to a smoking pile of charred rubble. But two adjacent barns about 20 feet from the lost structure were saved. The silo, right next to the lost building, still stood under clearing afternoon skies. No injuries were reported, and family and friends got all the cows and pigs out of the barn unharmed. "It was a good stop," said Deputy Fire Marshal Michael G. Fitting, who was unable to estimate the dollar value of the loss, or determine the exact point of origin.

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