Howell-Robinson Farm Barn was moved to the Wise Homestead Museum property in XXXX. It dates to around 1875 and was originally built as a granary.
The barn is 19’x17’4″, one and one-half story, braced frame mortise-and-tenon construction, with braces rising from the ground sill to the corner posts. Corner posts and a post in the center of each long side are of 6×8″ pine; girts, plates and braces are 4×4, braces are nailed with cut nails. Pins securing the mortises are visible at the inside SE corner and outside NE. The gable roof of 12/12 pitch is wood shingle over spaced sheathing on rough sawn (RS) 2×4″ @ 24″ oc. The loft floor of random-width, rough-sawn, tongued-and-grooved pine 1x boards (full measure) sites on 2×8″ RS pine joists @ 18″ oc. The loft floor and the interior vertical siding are nailed with cut nails. the lower floor is supported by RS pine 2×8″s @ 12″ oc, sitting on the ground. The lower floor, as well as the exterior vertical siding and 3/8″x2″ battens are all nailed with common wire nails (posts 1880).
This construction indicates that the building was originally framed for a grain crib, and sheathed only on the inside. Later, exterior siding was added, to protect the frame from the rain, and the floor was replaced (or added). Furthermore, the carpenter was a very conservative workman, to construct a mortised and pinned frame when the balloon frame type of construction had been common and accepted in the west by the 1860s.
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