NORWICH – The Chenango County Historical Society is moving ahead in a long-term project that will ultimately resurrect a dismantled 19th century barn on the vacant lot behind the museum on Rexford Street.
The undertaking was first brought about by the CCHS committee last year, when the barn was donated by previous owner Dick Ridgway of Tyner. The structure, built in 1867 and originally stood along County Road 3 in Tyner, was professionally dismantled and currently sits in pieces inside a milk house on the Ridgway’s property.
“Our hope is to have the barn reconstructed on our campus to use for exhibits on farming and agriculture,” explained CCHS Curator Meghan Molloy. According to Molloy, members of the historical society are in the midst of planning the fundraising efforts to finally move forward with the project.
After the barn is erected, plans are to fill it with the collection of post Civil War era farming equipment currently on display in the basement of the county museum. Not to overlap with similar displays at the Farmer’s Museum in nearby Cooperstown, CCHS will only use the barn for agricultural equipment wielded from the 1860’s through the early parts of the 20th century, explained Molloy. A potential barn exhibit would also free up space in the CCHS building to house additional indoor exhibits and archival records too, she said.
At the moment, the CCHS committee doesn’t have a time frame in mind as to when the groundbreaking for the re-establishment of the barn would be. The initial goal was to have the barn raised by 2014, which is “ambitious,” noted Mary Weidman, treasurer for the Chenango County Historical Society. The project mostly depends on funding, which may be a drawn-out process.
“The base of the committee decided this would be a project worth the undertaking,” said Weidman, “but it’s in the very formative stages at this point ... We want to have a good fundraising campaign in place before we committed to moving the barn here.”
Weidman also recognized some other concerns in the pending construction process. She said the committee is taking comments and concerns of the would-be neighbors of the barn into account, although she said some have also shown a good deal of excitement for the project. “Some neighbors have expressed concern about the position,” she said. “It’s going to take good planning to discuss where (the barn) is going to go. Positioning of it is becoming very important.”
The tale of the barn yields a story of the long history of the Chenango County agricultural industry. Original construction of the barn began in 1867, when then land owner Warren Loomis began transporting wood cut from his property to a nearby sawmill in Smithville Flats. Diary entries and town records obtained by CCHS show that the barn, now believed to be nearing 145 years old, was initially used as a horse barn and for hay storage.
“There’s a long history to it ... We’re looking at how we’re going to utilize the full size of the barn for future displays,” said Weidman. “This is something that we’re really looking forward to,” she added. “We want to use it to enhance our own agricultural history and talk about what’s happened in Chenango County.”