Planned overbuilding was a hallmark of early barn builders!
Of the various types of American barns, Pennsylvania-Dutch barns were typically the
largest. They featured two stories, two mammoth hay bays, two granaries, two harness or
tack areas, a ground-level bank entrance to the second story, and a forebay or overhang to
the rear. The lower level was reserved for the draft animals and other livestock. Ohio
barn builders mainly used open frame construction, allowing for quick assembly, although
the oldest examples were built of logs. In Pennsylvania many builders used stone or brick
in the upper walls as well as in the foundation. Hand-hewn timbers were present in all.
They were also known as German or Switzer barns reflecting their ancient Teutonic origins.
In a huge barn-raising party the first section of massive
frame was assembled flat on the ground, then pushed up by hand, using poles. The following
sections were pulled up by ropes and pulley systems tethered to the first. This open
timber frame's "Yankee" construction technique became generally widespread after
1830. One can only imagine the brawn required of those early barn builders! The earlier
"Old World" frame construction method was that of one timber hoisted atop
another one at a time, and was slower. The barn's huge sandstone masonry foundation is
typical of that used before the 1840's. Probably quarried nearby just off of Avalon Road,
in nearby Perry County, many of its stones weigh in excess of 1,000 pounds! Impressively,
they are still level. Indeed, the continuing levelness yet today of the entire barn, top
to bottom, is amazing! Other, later era, masonry work utilized finer detailed, smaller,
more easily handled stones. The comparative crudeness of the springhouse and stillhouse
foundation stones compellingly suggests that they were laid even earlier than the barn
itself.
The family cemetery's stone walls, however, resemble those of
the barn's. The earliest tombstone date it contains is 1820. A barn was the early farmer's
most critical structure, providing shelter for the all-important draft animals, other
livestock and harvested crops. Thus in early America it was normally built before other
farm buildings, even the house, and certainly before the cemetery, but then this family
was not typical. The old Winegardner barn's actual construction date is uncertain. It may
have been as early as 1807, but its architecture suggests circa 1825-1835.
Neither Jake nor Anthony left any children. After Jake's
passing in 1891, the Winegardner "Home Farm" went to his 'beloved nephew,' young
Herbert (1827-1903), his brother Absalom's son. Absalom, born in 1799 in Virginia, had
died in 1833 of cholera. Absalom's grandson, Amos Jefferson Winegardner (born 1869), in
turn lived in the home of his great-grandfather, Herbert, Sr. after the passing of his own
father, the younger Herbert. Locals say that more than one neighbor borrowed money of