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Historic barn to be rebuilt at museum
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The largest used equipment inventory in the Mid-Atlantic is only a click away. Visit our website by clicking here or visit us at one of our 11 locations throughout MD, DE, VA and PA.
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Historic barn to be rebuilt at museum
2.26.2008
By BRUCE HOTCHKISS
Senior Editor
WESTMINSTER, Md. — A proud two-century-old barn will rise again this fall in Carroll County, Md.
The barn contructed entirely of logs without nails, pegs or other attachments, was willed, in effect, by the late Marlin K. Hoff to the Carroll County Farm Museum in Westminster. Dismantled, log by log, earlier this month, it will be re-erected this fall on the museum grounds to become an adjunct to the museum, celebrating the county’s agrarian past.
The dedication of the Marlin K. Hoff Memorial Log Barn at its new site is scheduled for Saturday, Oct., 4, during the county’s Fall Harvest Days celebration. Total cost of the project is estimated at $400,000, of which nearly $325,000 already has been raised in private donations and grants.
When reassembled, it will be the realization of the dream of Mr. Hoff, a Carroll County dairyman who died of cancer in 2004.
Hoff had been offered huge sums of money by developers for the barn, looking to use its components in high end houses they were building.
But Hoff envisioned another use for the barn he had inherited from his father, and refused to sell. The barn was part of his legacy and he wanted it to be a monument to Carroll County’s agrarian past, a place where the public could see and experience a part of their history, a time when most families raised livestock and crops for their own need, a time when a man built his own house and barn with his hands.
It is estimated that barn was built in 1794 or 1795 by a German farmer, Yoste Greenwood. It is a Swetizer style barn, common among German farm families around the time of the American Revolution.
The barn is 50 feet long and 37 feet wide. It has a stone foundation 22 inches thick, and the top five logs are 50 feet long. All the logs are hand-hewn with V-notched corners where the logs are joined.
The barn is a rare example of 18th century craftsmanship, according to experts at the museum. Although the same type of barn dominated the landscape a hundred years ago, many have been torn down or destroyed by time and the elements, and only a handful remain today. The Maryland Historical Trust has called this barn, “one of the most significant farm buildings in Carroll County.”
In 2006 a committee was formed to organize this task and raise the money. The barn was dismantled earlier this month by Craftwright Inc., a Westminster company. It took only 2 1/2 days to remove and catalogue each and every log. The logs have been taken to a warehouse in Westminster where, if necessary, they will be restored or replaced.
A education committee, assigned the task of plotting the eventual use of the barn, reportedly is considering such offerings as push-button video and audio display stations, exhibits of tools of that era and an illustration of how logs 50 feet long and weighing 4,000 pounds could be raised to the top of the structure.
For more information and where to send contributions, contact Chairman Bob Jones at 410-848-7687. The Marlin Hoff Memorial Barn Project is a 501(c)(3) corporation and all contributions are deductible to the full extent of the law.