Designations
Historic Significance
Architectural description:
This is a 2 ½ story gable-entry barn with two overhead garage doors on its main facade facing north to Palmer Road. Each door has six single-paned windows. Centered between the two doors below the apex is a fixed six-pane window. The window is above the girt line. The east facade has a pass-through door located on the north side. To the right of the door, on the second story, is a fixed four-pane window. The barn has vertical siding that is painted red and an un-mortared fieldstone foundation. The roof has asphalt shingles and a wide eave and gable overhang boxed with brackets.
Historical significance:
The New England barn or gable front barn was the successor to the English barn and relies on a gable entry rather than an entry under the eaves. The gable front offers many practical advantages. Roofs drain off the side, rather than flooding the dooryard. With the main drive floor running parallel to the ridge, the size of the barn could be increased to accommodate larger herds by adding additional bays to the rear gable end. Although it was seen by many as an improvement over the earlier side-entry English Barn, the New England barn did not replace its predecessor but rather coexisted with it.
Historical background:
The Chaplin Historic District is an entire village built between 1815 and 1840, standing today in complete integrity, free of intrusions. The church, tavern, Town Hall, store and nineteen houses in late Federal and early Greek Revival styles provide a unique example of the architecture and ambience of a New England village - entirely constructed in a compressed period of time a century and a half ago, and unaltered since that time. Connecticut has many villages which are older than Chaplin and many towns founded earlier than Chaplin in which can be traced continuing architectural and community developments from a century or more before through a century or more after the fabric demonstrated by Chaplin. Chaplin is unique because it was created on site where before there had been no settlement, was created complete in a brief span of time, and subsequently has experienced no development or changes. Chaplin provides a unique record of the architecture and community planning of the 1820's and 1830's (Ransom, p. 7).
Field Notes
Date (given sources): c.1825, c.1830 National Register and Local Historic District