There is something about New England in Autumn that’s hard to put into words. It’s best experienced by walking the back roads in the rural countryside, observing the cows munching on green grass, stone walls, the turning of the leaves into hues of red and yellow, and – the barns.
Barns have always fascinated me especially round barns with their history, construction and beauty. Round Barns were once considered the ultimate agricultural building technology. Their heyday in New England came in the latter half of the eighteen hundreds when progressive Yankee farmers were seeking every means to increase productivity without adding labor. In Vermont this struggle was particularly important because there was an acute labor shortage brought on by the out-migration of young people following the Civil War.
The first round barn in America was built in 1824 by the Shaker community in Hancock, Massachusetts. Famous for their technical and aesthetic innovations as well as their economy of style and deep spiritual beliefs, the Shakers recognized that round structures were cheaper to build and operate than square or long barns.
There were two dozen round barns built in northern Vermont. The first one was constructed in 1899 in Barnet. The second round barn was completed two years later three miles away in East Passumpsic. Both were erected by Fred Quimby, a local carpenter with a reputation for building ringed silos.
In a round barn, the principle structure is the interior silo. It’s where the feed and silage is stored. The middle, or dairy floor has ties for 60 cows facing in toward the circular feed troughs. A farmer could feed the whole herd in a half an hour leaving extra time for milking. Manure fell through trapdoors to the bottom of the structure. A farmer could drive a team of horses with the manure wagon on the bottom level and collect the falling manure to then spread out on the fields. Had tractors not come along to revolutionize agriculture, it’s likely more round barns would have been built.
In 1983, the Shelburne Museum became aware of the need for repairs to the Passumpsic Round barn. Architects and engineers agreed the structure was sound enough to be saved and moved to the museum. The planks were numbered and dismantled and the silo was lifted off by a heavy duty helicopter and flown from Passumpsic to Shelburne -quite a spectacle according to onlookers. Today, it’s once again in good repair and open to the public. But it’s not the only round barn left in Vermont. There are still a few more of these practical vestiges of the past in existence – and they’re a sight to behold on these cool fall days.