A34-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 28, 1998
Old Barn Finds New Home At Carroll County Farm Museum
KAREN BUTLER
Maryland Correspondent
WESTMINSTER, Md. A
bam once slated to be demolished
has found a new home and a new
lease on life, thanks in part to a
Carroll County agricultural mu
seum. The 19th century bom has
been completely disassembled
and is being rebuilt on site at the
Carroll County Farm Museum in
Westminster.
The bam survived its near-fatal
brush with progress thanks to the
involvement of a series of differ
ent groups of people who each in
their own way have contributed to
the edifice’s new life. Each work
ed through different channels to
make their own unique contribu
tion to the barn's survival.
Originally erected around 1840
at a 93-acre farm owned by the Ja
cob Mearing family at the cross
roads of Rt. 31 and Uniontown
Road in Westminster, the bam is a
typical 19th century bank bam. It
measures roughly 42 by 60 feet,
and originally sat on a fieldstone
foundation. Fifteen posts support
the bam downstairs, and up above
there are the typical center open
area with two mows and a hay
fork track running the length of
the bam. A lean-to had been at
tached to one end for equipment
and crop storage.
In the 197Qs the farm was sub
divided, and several parcels,
including a 45-acre piece contain
ing the home and outbuildings,
were acquired by Uniontown
Road Associates, a real estate de
velopment gtoup. Uniontown
Road Associates is now develop
ing the property into single family
homes. After over a century of
usefulness, the bam sat vacant
awaiting demolition.
According to Jonathan Fink, of
Uniontown Road Associates,
there were some people in the
community who expressed an in
terest in the historical aspects of
the bam, and were reluctant to see
the building tom down.
“There was some sentiment
from a few people in the com
munity that we should save it,”
said Fink. He said the develop
ment group was motivated to per
form some type of goodwill ges
ture in the community. “When you
come in and do a development,
everybody has a varied interest in
it. Normally a developer likes to
make a goodwill gesture.”
In the first of several steps on
the road to preserving the struc
ture, Uni on town Road Associates
looked into the feasibility of do
nating the barn to a group that
would maintain it as it had origin
ally been used. Since the farm
stead is actually within the city
limits of Westminster, and is not
on any historic register, there were
no regulations prohibiting the de
velopers from doing what they
liked with the house and outbuild
ings. “There were basically no
hoops to go through," said Fink.
By contrast, the entire town of
Uniontown, several miles away, is
considered a historic district and
his heavily regulated.
Fink approached the Carroll
County Farm Museum, a local
museum dedicated to the preser
vation and appreciation of the rur
al culture of Carroll County, about
accepting the bam in a donation.
Dottie Freeman, manager of the
Farm Museum, explained that the
Farm Museum, situated on 142
acres, is’ a living history museum
that focuses on the agricultural
heritage of the county. The collec-
lions of the museum include more
than 10,000 horse-drawn imple
ments, many exhibit buildings in
cluding a farm home, bams, and a
one-room schoolhouse, and a
flower and herb garden.
The Museum serves more than
100,000 visitors each ycarc. The
Museum decided the bam would
make a welcome addition to its ex
hibit area, and accepted the dona
tion.
Once the decision was made to
accept the bam, though, the logis
tics of actually disassembling and
moving the massive structure had
to be considered. To deal with the
intricacies of the barn's tear-down
and reconstruction, the Museum
would have to rely on the exper
tise of a bam builder familiar with
traditional construction tech
niques. That is how Henry Stoltz
fus and his company, W.W. Build
ers, became involved.
W.W. Builders is a company
out of Christiana, Pa. that special
izes in bam repair and metal roof
ing work. John Growl, a local
farmer and special consultant to
the Farm Museum board, knew
Stoltzfus and approached him to
see if he would undertake the job.
Although Stoltzfus said this was
more or less his first time doing a
complete disassembly and reas
sembly of a bam, he agreed to take
on the project
The first step was to disas
semble the bam. Each piece was
painstakingly labeled to tell its
position and each joint was given
a number. Stoltzfus explained that
the post and beam construction
technique used when the bam was
constructed is basically the same
as new post and beam construc
tion. Most of the time, he said,
when we say post and beam, we
actually mean mortise and tenon
construction.
“You really appreciate what the
original builders put into it,” said
Stoltzfus. He said there are four
main frames running crossways in
the bam. “When I go to number
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joint gets a number, by the time I
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