The Phelps Barn Restoration

The Phelps Barn Restoration A larger more detailed image is available by clicking on each picture.
Phelps Barn Restoration & Rendezvous Elmwood Community Foundation www.PhelpsBarn.org	In 2002 Trillium Dell Timberworks started restoring a historic barn for the Elmwood Community Foundation. The barn, which is known locally as the 'Phelps Barn', is an early hand hewn square rule frame designed originally as horse barn by one of the founding families of Elmwood. The Phelps barn, which will continue being restored this summer, is to be used as a museum and interactive learning site in the future. Constructed mainly of white oak & some white ash, the Phelps barn is a classic example of American Square Rule Carpentry. It is a 40' x 40' hand hewn structure with a Gambrel style roof epitomizing the evolved agricultural architecture of the Midwest in the mid 19th century. This structure is unique in several ways. The main floor beams, or sommers, are continuous at 40' in length, weighing over 1 ton each, and measure a consistent 12" x 12". The upper & lower rafter plates, as well as all connecting tie beams, are also continuous. All four rafter plates are a hewn 40' long 8" x 8". These factors suggest that the structure was built from standing timber felled from within close proximity of the barn. The joinery, or workmanship, is of good quality and well thought out. Interestingly, the upper rafter plates are braced with an added feature, wind braces, or supplemental principle rafters. The joint used to fasten these additional braces requires that the upper rafter plate be slid into place at the same moment as the intermediate posts, knee braces, and wind braces. Overall this is a mating together of 14 connections, over 20' in the air, with a rough timber 40' long and weighing in excess of 1000 lbs. This correlates with the above factors and implies that the structure was built by a Master Builder. The remaining siding that is original is white pine, and certainly from Wisconsin or Minnesota. At the time the Phelps barn was built, logs were floated down the Mississippi, and sawn in what is now the Quad Cities, or floated down Lake Michigan and sawn in Chicago. Regardless of the milling location, from that point the lumber was brought overland to its final destination. The siding where the gable cross is cut is original siding as well. It can be noticed that many of the smaller dimension lumber in the Phelps barn are sawn. This suggests a local saw mill, as many of these sawn pieces are of multiple species. In many cases these smaller pieces contain high concentrations of sapwood, which can suggest that the mill used was fairly small or that the heart was cut and utilized for other purposes. It would be fair to assume that a builder would purchase such lumber as this since it could be carried from the mill easily in a wagon and obtained economically. Due to the significance of the joinery, and the techniques utilized in the Phelps barn, it belies an old world craftsmanship that was not seen in the following century for the construction of agricultural buildings.