Barns of Connecticut

Acknowledgments

I have studied architecture and barn construction off and on for more than thirty years, having first worked as a restoration carpenter for a large maritime museum before starting a timber framing company dedicated to building reproduction homes and barns. Because of my interest and occupation , I read everything I could find on Connecticut barns, and I carefully studied the historic barn frames I was privileged to repair. I began work on this book by refreshing my memory with the texts listed below. Visser’s book was certainly the most important reference. The dates listed throughout this work are based entirely on his research. It is certainly one of the most important books on New England’s farming structures , and I am entirely indebted to his wonderful work. While the other books deal with domestic or public architecture, the light they shed on timber framing practices applies to barns as well. Kelly’s book on domestic architecture is a bible in its field, especially for his understanding of colonial builders and their practices. His drawings of roof structures for every meetinghouse in Connecticut up to 1830 in his work Early Connecticut Meetinghouses are exceptional and gave me an appreciation for the conservative nature of timber framers in America up to the Industrial Revolution. The Dover reprints of Asher Benjamin’s builder’s manuals from the early nineteenth century were as useful to me when building period reproductions as the original publications must have been to carpenters of his day. Acknowledgments ...