An Old-Fashioned "Barn Raising"

Photo courtesy of Rebecca Williamson.
Rebecca Williamson was going through some of her family's old photographs when she ran across this gem - a very old picture of a barn raising on her great-great-grandfather's farm near Bad Axe, Michigan. According to some old family documents the barn was built (and this photo was taken) around 1885.

Times were especially hard back in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Most families had to grow, process and store their own food which made the barn the second-most important building on the farm after the family home. Actually, it could be argued that back then the barn was even more important than the house in some ways and often it was the first building erected on a new homestead.

Since building a barn required a lot of man-hours back before the invention of modern construction equipment, everyone benefited from barn raisings and they were typically community events with most of the men in the area pitching in to build the structure from bottom to top - usually in just one or two days!

Of course the women did their part as well by preparing meals - and in some cases working right alongside the men helping with the construction. Usually, the building site would have been prepared and the materials gathered ahead of time.

Some communities still hold barn raisings today, most notably the Amish who have preserved this time-honored tradition as a way of helping their fellow man while reinforcing their sense of community.

Picture Of The Day Homepage | Submit a photo

Interesting Articles