Historic Barns of Connecticut

Designations

n/a

Historic Significance

Architectural description:

This is a complex of a barn and a tobacco shed towards the east of Scantic Road.

Barn: This is a 1 ½ - story gable-entry barn with a shed-roof addition on its north eave-side and another shed-roof addition on its south eave-side. The west gable-side of the barn faces Scantic Road with its ridge line running east-west, almost perpendicular to the road. The main façade of the barn is the west gable-façade with the main entrance at the center through a pair of hinged wagon doors with blacksmith hardware. The gable attic above is separated from the rest of the façade by a distinct girt siding divide line. The north eave-side of the barn has a shed-roof addition towards the east. The barn has a system of ventilation through the vertical siding on the eave-sides in which alternate boards are hinged along the sides to open like tall narrow doors, each held in place by its own hook. The wooden frame of the barn has gray painted vertical siding. The asphalt shingle roofing on the gable roof of the barn depicts ‘PF’ which stands for ‘Pagano Farm’. The shed-roof addition on the north eave-side of the barn is made of brick masonry and has metal roofing.

Historical significance:

The New England barn or gable front barn was the successor to the English barn and relies on a gable entry rather than an entry under the eaves. The gable front offers many practical advantages. Roofs drain off the side, rather than flooding the dooryard. With the main drive floor running parallel to the ridge, the size of the barn could be increased to accommodate larger herds by adding additional bays to the rear gable end. Although it was seen by many as an improvement over the earlier side-entry English Barn, the New England barn did not replace its predecessor but rather coexisted with it, as both types continued to be built.

The side slats on the vertical siding of the eave-sides of the gable-entry barn suggest its probable usage as a three-aisle tobacco shed.

The tobacco barn, or shed as it is called in the Connecticut River Valley, is one of the most distinctive of the single-crop barns. They tend to be long, low windowless buildings with pitched roofs. They are characterized by vented sides to regulate air flow and allow harvested tobacco to cure at the appropriate rate.  Derived initially from the design of the English barn, the shed is composed of a fixed skeleton consisting of two- or three-aisle bents repeated at intervals of 15 feet to the desired length. The wood-framed bents sit on piers of stone or concrete and the bents are connected by girts and diagonal braces. Typically there are two doors at each end, making the shed a “drive-through,” although some sheds are accessed through doors on the sides. The interior structural framework serves a second purpose in addition to supporting the walls and roof of the building; it provides a framework for the rails used to hang the tobacco as it cures.

This is accomplished with one of four different systems (more than one method may be utilized in a single shed):

a) Vertical slats - siding in which every second board is hinged at the top and tilted out at the bottom by means of a horizontal cleat, that lifts several boards at once, and metal prop hooks to hold the boards in place;

b) Side slats - Vertical siding in which alternate boards are hinged along the sides to open like tall narrow doors, each held in place by its own hook;

c) Less commonly, horizontal siding in which alternate boards are hinged along the top edge and open like long narrow awnings; this system may be employed along the lower edge of the wall in conjunction with vertical or side slats;

d) A series of large doors along one of the long sides of the building with the other sides of the building vented by one or more of the other methods.

e) The tobacco sheds can have additional ventilation through side-pivot awning vents on the gable-ends, which co-exist with one or more of the above four systems of ventilation.

Field Notes

Tobacco shed and small New England barn with PF (Pagano Farms) on the roof. Also see part- 2/2 : http://www.connecticutbarns.org/index.cgi/34349

Use (Historic)

• tobacco

Use (Present)

• unknown

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Exterior Visible from Public Road?

Yes

Demolished

n/a

Location Integrity

Unknown

Related features

• Other
• Shed

Environment features

• Active Agriculture
• Open Land
• Residential
• Rural
• Scattered Buildings
• Woodland

Relationship to surroundings

The 46.01 acres property, Map Number - 39 34 054, is towards the east of Scantic Road in a pre-dominantly residential area of rural character. It is flanked by residential plots and farm land towards the north, south and the west, across Scantic Road. Dense woodland covers the area towards the east of the property.

The barn is located in the south-western corner of the property while the tobacco shed is towards the north-east of the barn. The circa 1979 main residence is located towards the northern edge of the property, north-east of the tobacco shed. The ridge lines of the tobacco shed and the main residence run north-south parallel to Scantic Road while that of the barn runs at an angle along east-west, almost perpendicular to the road. The property is accessed by two driveways: one along the northern edge and the other along the southern edge. A third driveway from Scantic Road runs parallel to the northern edge, dividing the property into two halves with parcels of farmland on either side. Six tunnel greenhouses can be seen towards the south of the tobacco shed while a seventh greenhouse and few out buildings can be seen scattered towards the east. The eastern portion of the property is covered by dense woodland.

Building Typology

• New England
• Tobacco Shed

Materials

• Brick
• Vertical Siding

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Structural System

• Load-bearing Masonry
• Wood Frame

Roof materials

• Asphalt Shingle

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Roof type

• Gable
• Shed

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Approximate Dimensions

Barn: 1260 SqFt, Circa 1900 Tobacco shed: 4500 SqFt, Circa 1900

Date Compiled

12/01/2010

Compiled By

T. Levine and M. Patnaik, reviewed by CT Trust

Sources

Photographs and field-notes provided by – John E. Harmon

Assessors’ records retrieved on December 1st, 2010 from website http://www.equalitycama.com/ 

GIS information retrieved on December 1st, 2010 from website http://www.crcog.org/gissearch/

Photograph/Information retrieved on December 1st, 2010 from website http://www.google.com

Information retrieved on December 1st, 2010 from website http://www.zillow.com

O’Gorman, James F., Connecticut Valley Vernacular: the Vanishing Landscape and Architecture of the New England Tobacco Fields, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002, 144 pages.

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

Visser, Thomas D.,Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings, University Press of New England, 1997.