Barn House
| Barn House | |||
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| National Register of Historic Places | |||
| Historic District | |||
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| location | Chilmark , Massachusetts , United States | ||
| Coordinates | 41 ° 20 '35.5 " N , 70 ° 43' 58.3" W | ||
| surface | 43 acres (17.4 ha ) | ||
| Built | circa 1690 | ||
| Architectural style | Colonial architecture | ||
| NRHP number | 11000920 | ||
| Data | |||
| The NRHP added | December 15, 2011 | ||
| Declared as HD | December 15, 2011 | ||
Barn House (also Skiff Mayhew-Vincent House ) is a 43 acres (17.4 hectares ) large, as a Historic District in the National Register of Historic Places registered (NRHP) area in Chilmark in the state of Massachusetts of the United States . The eponymous main house was built around 1690. The district is of historical importance for the development of agriculture, architecture, and society in the United States.
Description of the district
The property consists partly of forest and partly of green areas and has a small stream that flows through it. Field stone walls demarcate it in front of the house and on the east side, while further stone walls to the east of the main house border a pasture and a second, smaller area next to the barn. Rural Chilmark stretches on the west side of Martha's Vineyard from Vineyard Sound in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the south.
Contributing Properties
In addition to the main house, a barn (built around 1786), a shed (built in 1850), seven huts (built between 1920 and 1959) as well as stone walls and a stone slab passage were entered in the register as contributing properties .
Main house
The former farmhouse is half- timbered and has one and a half floors, which are clad on the outside with shingles . It measures 40 ft (12.2 m ) by 28 ft (8.5 m) in plan and stands with the long side parallel to the road to the south. At the rear of the building, a wing extends another 44 ft (13.4 m) to the north. The south side of the house is five bays wide, with two windows flanking the centrally placed entrance. The walls below the clapboard side walls consist of vertical, interconnected wooden planks.
On the south side of the covered with wooden shingles roof there are three with gabled roofs provided dormers , two more are on the north side. The windows are all designed as vertical sliding windows, each of which has six individually mounted panes. Both the dormers and the windows date from the early 20th century.
The foundation consists of field stones. A small basement room is accessible via a trap door on the east side of the building. The central chimney was removed in the 19th century, so that the house no longer has a chimney.
Inside, the building has an architectural peculiarity: two additional beams arranged in parallel subdivide the span of the two rooms facing the front. Since the two rooms are of different sizes, historian Jonathan F. Scott speculated that the house may have been built in two sections - first the eastern and then shortly thereafter the western part. The floors consist of wide wooden planks , walls and ceilings are simply plastered .
The room to the north, which was mainly used as a kitchen in houses from the 18th century, is now one large area. In the place of the former central chimney there are now cupboards and a staircase to the upper floor. The kitchen is in the extension.
barn
The site of what is now the Historic District used to be part of a farm . The middle part of the barn , built in 1786 with materials from the demolished town hall of Chilmark, consists of three bays and has wide gates in the center on both the northern and southern long sides. A new yoke was added later at the east end, and another in the west in the middle of the 19th century. The building measures 44 ft (13.4 m) by 24 ft (7.3 m) in plan and stands on a foundation of field stones. At the west end there is a small cellar room.
The design and processing of the structural components of the barn clearly show its origins from the 18th century. Although some cross members have been replaced and others reinforced with modern woods, most of the original frame construction has been preserved in the original. The roof, which is covered with wooden shingles, rests on wide boards, which in turn are attached to horizontally arranged purlins .
A 16 ft (4.9 m) by 59 ft (18 m) shed is part of the barn today, as is a one-story, 10 ft (3 m) by 24 ft (7.3 m) extension built around 1900 and was probably used to milk the cows.
Dandruff
The 8 ft (2.4 m) by 29 ft (8.8 m) gable roof shed also dates back to when the farm was actively being used. It was erected in three construction phases in the middle of the 19th century and stands on a foundation made of field stones. At the time the property was purchased by Chilmark Associates, it was being used as a chicken coop .
Stone walls and slab passage
The agricultural origin of the property is still visible today in the high stone walls that run along the east and south borders and delimit a small area east of the main house. The land north and west of the main house is currently still being cultivated as green space.
A stone slab passage west of the main house, where a former dirt road crosses a small stream, was also rated as an independent contributing property . However, no construction date or period could be determined for either property.
Other contributing properties
In 1919, Chilmark Associates acquired the property known at the time as Vincent Farm in order to build a summer residence for its members, organized as a commune . Some buildings on the site still serve this purpose today. The barn was converted into a dining and communal area, and several small, one-story huts were built north of it and west of the main house. They have gable roofs and stand on wooden or concrete piles, but have neither their own pipelines nor cooking areas, and the interior walls are not plastered either. In detail it concerns:
| designation | Construction year | Dimensions | description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Besse Cabin | 1920 | 9 ft (2.7 m) x 22 ft (6.7 m) plus extension with 9 ft (2.7 m) x 15 ft (4.6 m) |
Roof and outer walls covered with wooden shingles; protruding rafters |
| Warren Cabin | 1920 | 9 ft (2.7 m) x 22 ft (6.7 m) plus extension with 9 ft (2.7 m) x 15 ft (4.6 m) |
Roof and outer walls covered with wooden shingles; protruding rafters; mirror-image structure to the Besse Cabin |
| King Cabin | 1920 | 9 ft (2.7 m) x 22 ft (6.7 m) | Roof and outer walls covered with wooden shingles |
| DK Cabin | 1920 | 12 ft (3.7 m) x 18 ft (5.5 m) | Roof and outer walls covered with wooden shingles; protruding rafters; brick fireplace and external chimney |
| Hilltop Cabin | 1938 | 14 ft (4.3 m) x 28 ft (8.5 m) plus extension with 10 ft (3 m) x 18 ft (5.5 m) |
Main part with monopitch , extension with gable roof; Roof and outer walls covered with wooden shingles; Fireplace and chimney on the northwest side |
| Pitkin Cabin | 1958 | 12 ft (3.7 m) x 25 ft (7.6 m) | Roof and outer walls covered with wooden shingles; Fireplace and chimney on the southwest side |
| Lamson Cabin | 1959 | 20 ft (6.1 m) x 31 ft (9.4 m) | Outside walls covered with wooden shingles; partly consisting of an older, reused hut |
Noncontributing Properties
A bath house (21 ft (6.4 m) x 18 ft (5.5 m) floor space, built in 1995), an eighth hut (L-shaped floor plan with 12 ft (3.7 m) x 34 ft (10.4 m) in north-south direction or 12 ft (3.7 m) x 30 ft (9.1 m) in east-west direction, built in 2001) and one with a high chain link fence delimited tennis court (built in 1996) as these structures were erected outside of the period to which the entry in the NRHP relates.
Historical integrity
Like almost all buildings that have survived from the American colonial era and that have not been explicitly restored with the aim of corresponding to a very specific era, the main building deviates from its original appearance in several ways. In the 1690s, for example, the house had a large, central fireplace, the windows were casement windows and the interiors were clad with whitewashed wood instead of plaster.
As early as 1919, when the Chilmark Associates acquired the property, these characteristic features were no longer present, but the main building can clearly be based on various other indications - in particular the construction with five bays, a central entrance, the gable roof and various architectural aspects inside Attributed to the end of the 17th century.
Together with the barn from the 18th century as well as the stone walls and fields, the area reminds of the origins of Chilmark as an agricultural settlement and thus justifies its historical importance. The other buildings from the 20th century point to the past as a colonial farm as well as to the idealists who used the site as an alternative summer retreat at that time.
Historical classification and meaning
The site is of cultural and historical importance to the United States for three main reasons. First of all, the main house, also known as Skiff-Mayhew-Vincent House after its owners , is one of only a few surviving examples of native architecture from the early days of English immigrants settling the western end of Martha's Vineyard . Although its appearance has changed over the years, it still has essential characteristics of the period in which it was built. Second, the 18th century barn, the fields and the stone walls are a reminder of the island's agricultural history, in which sheep farming was the main source of income for the island's inhabitants - and also for the farm described here. Thirdly, the ensemble illustrates the growing importance of the island as a summer retreat in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is therefore also relevant to social history .
In 1919 the picturesque farm located directly on the Atlantic Ocean attracted a group of writers, artists and social critics with their friends and families. They founded Chilmark Associates, which took over the farm and turned it into a community-run summer colony, where meals were eaten together in the barn and the work was shared among the residents. They renovated the main house and built a few small huts so that up to three dozen people could be accommodated at the same time. In 1927, they renamed the property Barn House , placing the focus on the barn used as a meeting place.
Since some of the original members of Chilmark Associates lived there until the 1960s, the relevant period to which the entry in the NRHP relates extends from the time the main building was built (approx. 1690) to 1961, which is 271 Years. A supra-regional importance beyond Chilmark is not recognized.
Use and owner
The main industry, especially in the western part of Martha's Vineyard, was sheep breeding from the first day of settlement, as sheep got along better with the hilly and rocky landscape than cows, for example. In addition to using the animals' meat and wool locally, these products were exported to Connecticut , southeastern Massachusetts, and Cape Cod .
In the 18th century there were up to 20,000 sheep in Chilmark alone, in 1837 there were still 6,470, according to which there were statistically nine animals per inhabitant. These included 1,600 merino sheep whose wool was of higher quality. In 1911, the Encyclopædia Britannica listed sheep farming on the island as an "industry of great importance" and specifically listed Dukes County among the three largest producers of wool in Massachusetts.
Known today as Barn House, the property was run as a small family farm from the start, with a focus on sheep farming. The first owner was Nathan Skiff (1658-1725), who bought 50 acres (20.2 hectares ) of land in 1686 and built the first part of the main house that still exists today. A map of the island drawn by Simon Athearn in 1694 shows the building together with a barn as one of a total of seven farms that had settled along the South Road. Chilmark was the last of the first three settlements established on Martha's Vineyard, and the first families moved there in the 1680s and 1690s.
The Skiff from Sandwich had seven children with his first wife Hepsibah Codman and five more children with his second wife Mercy Chipman. The oldest was born in 1679, the youngest in 1707, so not all of them lived on the farm at the same time. It is speculated that the main house extension was completed in 1699 when Skiff married Mercy Chipman.
After his death in December 1725, ownership was transferred to his son Benjamin (1691-1781), who sold the farm to Simon Mayhew (1687-1753) in 1731. On his death Mayhew left estates valued at £ 1,200 (now approximately £ 222,000) and 200 to 300 sheep. The ownership of the Barn House passed to his son Simon Mayhew Jr. (1719-1801). His childless son Oliver inherited the farm after his death and after the death of his wife in 1833 sold it to Herman Vincent (1806-1884), who then ran it for 50 years. At the time of his death, there were 74 sheep, a cow and a horse on the farm, suggesting that sheep breeding was still the main focus of activity on the farm. The following owners were Francis Mayhew (until 1904) and Grace EM Tilton (from 1904 to 1919).
The three families Skiff, Mayhew and Vincent were related to each other: The maiden name of Simon Mayhew's wife Ruth was probably Skiff. His son Simon Mayhew Jr.'s wife, Abiah, was born Vincent, and their own son Simon married Matilda Vincent. Abiah Vincent Mayhew was Herman Vincent's great-aunt and Matilda Vincent Mayhew was his aunt. Both Herman and his twin sister Amanda married members of the Mayhew family.
The historical name of the farm (Skiff-Mayhew-Vincent House) therefore refers less to the historical succession of its owners, but rather to the continuously continued ownership within three closely linked families.
Chilmark Associates
The history of the property in the 20th century reflects the development of Chilmark and other cities on the island into a summer travel destination. Agriculture and fishing faded into the background, while more and more summer tourists from all walks of life came to visit. The conversion of the farm by Chilmark Associates in 1919 was an immediate response to this new situation.
The founding members of Chilmark Associates all came from privileged backgrounds, but had common interests in art, literature and liberal politics. Gertrude Besse King (1881-1923) had studied at Vassar College and had an MA from Radcliffe College . She worked as a writer and literary critic and as a newspaper correspondent in Russia and on the Balkans during the First World War .
Her husband Stanley King (1883-1951) was a manager at WH McElwain, a large Boston shoe factory, and from 1932 to 1946 President of Amherst College , where he played a key role in building the Folger Shakespeare Library . Gertrude's brother Arthur (1887-1951) was a textile manufacturer and for many years president of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers .
Edwin DeTurck Bechtel (1880-1957 ) originally from Plainfield, New Jersey , was a lawyer by profession , but his private interests were collecting art and growing roses . He wrote about the French artists Honoré Daumier and Jacques Callot and was president of the New York Botanical Garden .
Clifford P. Warren and Wolcott H. Pitkin, Jr. were both also attorneys and were early members of the American Civil Liberties Union . Before he emigrated to Chilmark, Pitkin was the attorney general in Puerto Rico , while Warren was an employed legal advisor for a shoe manufacturer in Massachusetts.
Lawson Valentine Pulsifer (1882-1957) had a degree in chemistry from Harvard University and worked in the family business on new varnish developments. In the process, he invented the Valspar varnish , which helped the company achieve great economic success. He and his wife, Ethel, continued the art-collecting passion of their grandfather Lawson Valentine, who had been a patron of Winslow Homer .
Boardman Robinson (1876-1952) came from Canada and worked as an artist and illustrator . He had studied art at the Boston Massachusetts College of Art and Design and in Paris , where he married his wife Sally Senter Whitney and worked briefly as a writer for Vogue . His works have appeared in many well-known magazines, and for some time he also worked as a political cartoonist for the New York Tribune . He published in 1916 together with John Reed , the book The War in Eastern Europe and wrote regularly for the magazine The Masses , The New Masses and The Liberator . In addition to his drawings for magazines, he was also active in the field of wall painting , among others on behalf of Edgar J. Kaufmann for his department store in Pittsburgh . His paintings also adorn the Rockefeller Center in New York City and the Robert F. Kennedy Building in Washington, DC
Dorothy Kenyon (1888-1972) was the daughter of a successful New York patent attorney and, according to her own admission, wasted her life as a party-goer until an encounter with poverty in Mexico caused her to change her mind. She enrolled in law school at New York University and graduated in 1917. Before moving to Chilmark, she worked as an expert at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and from 1917 to 1925 for Wolcott Pitkins law firm. She co-founded the New York cafeteria chain Consumers Cooperative Services and was a passionate advocate of freedom of expression , equality between women and men, and civil rights . She represented the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , among others, and held prominent positions at both the League of Nations and the United Nations . From 1919 to 1971 she spent part of each summer at the Barn House.
Over the years, many celebrities from politics, art and literature have visited the Barn House. Walter Lippmann , Sylvia Plath and Felix Frankfurter only stayed a few days, while Thomas Hart Benton and Roger Nash Baldwin , for example, stayed there every summer.
See also
literature
- Clouette, Bruce; Friedberg, Betsy: National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. (PDF) National Park Service , October 27, 2011, accessed on March 16, 2015 (English, accessible via the "NR" button).
- Scott, Jonathan Fletcher: The early colonial houses of Martha's Vineyard . Minnesota 1985, OCLC 15271815 (Dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1985).
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c cf. Clouette / Friedberg, p. 5.
- ↑ a b c cf. Clouette / Friedberg, p. 6.
- ↑ a b cf. Clouette / Friedberg, p. 7.
- ↑ a b cf. Clouette / Friedberg, p. 10.
- ↑ cf. Clouette / Friedberg, p. 12.
- ↑ Martensen, Hans Lassen . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 17 : Lord Chamberlain - Mecklenburg . London 1911, p. 787 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
- ↑ a b c d cf. Clouette / Friedberg, p. 13.
- ↑ a b c cf. Clouette / Friedberg, p. 14.
- ^ King, Gertrude Besse: Alliances for the mind . Ed .: Oliver Wendell Holmes Collection. Harcourt, Brace and Co., New York 1924, OCLC 635075 .
- ↑ a b c d e f cf. Clouette / Friedberg, p. 15.
- ^ Bechtel, Edwin DeTurck: The lithographs of Daumier from the Revolution of 1830 to the Franco Prussian War . OCLC 707608005 .
- ^ Bechtel, Edwin DeTurck: Jacques Callot . G. Braziller, New York 1955, OCLC 519236 .
- ↑ Reed, John; Robinson, Boardman: The War in Eastern Europe . C. Scribner's Sons, New York 1916, OCLC 830677 .
- ↑ a b cf. Clouette / Friedberg, p. 16.