Designations
Historic Significance
Architectural description:
There are two structures of note.
Structure I is a 1 ½ story, eave-entry bank barn with a gable-roof and a gable-roof addition with gable-entry projecting from the west gable-end of the original structure. The main façade faces south, the ridgeline running east-west, perpendicular to Washington Road, which lies to the west. The east gable-end is at grade, and the ground slopes away to the west. Principal entry is provided by what appears to be pair of double-height hinged doors located in the center of the main façade of the barn. To the west, at the southwest corner of the main façade of the original barn is a stable window with trim. Continuing west, there are two twelve-pane stable windows with trim on the western half of the main façade of the gable-roof addition. On the west gable-end of the gable-roof addition are a pair of sliding doors constructed of vertical wood boards. On the southwest corner of the west gable-end of the original barn is a six over six double-hung sash window with trim. Below the apex of the gable on the west gable-end of the original barn is a six-pane stable window with trim. The walls are covered with vertical board siding painted red with white trim and cornerboards. A girt-line siding divide is visible on the main façade of the original barn. The foundation is mortared fieldstone arranged in regular courses. The roof is covered with asphalt shingles and has a slight projecting overhang.
Structure II is located to the south of Structure I. This is a 1-½ story gable-entry shed. Its main façade faces west, and its ridgeline runs parallel to that of Structure I. Principal entry is provided by a sliding pass-through door mounted on an external track. Above the door is a four-pane stable window with trim. On the south eave-side of the shed is a nine-pane stable window. There appears to be a stable window on the east gable-end. The walls are covered with vertical board siding painted red with white trim and cornerboards. The roof is covered with asphalt shingles. The foundation appears to be unmortared fieldstone.
Historical significance:
The oldest barns still found in the state are called the "English Barn,” “side-entry barn,” “eave entry,” or a 30 x 40. They are simple buildings with rectangular plan, pitched gable roof, and a door or doors located on one or both of the eave sides of the building based on the grain warehouses of the English colonists' homeland. The name "30 by 40" originates from its size (in feet), which was large enough for 1 family and could service about 100 acres. The multi-purpose use of the English barn is reflected by the building's construction in three distinct bays - one for each use. The middle bay was used for threshing, which is separating the seed from the stalk in wheat and oat by beating the stalks with a flail. The flanking bays would be for animals and hay storage.
The 19th century saw the introduction of a basement under the barn to allow for the easy collection and storage of a winter's worth of manure from the animals sheltered within the building. The bank barn is characterized by the location of its main floor above grade, either through building into a hillside or by raising the building on a foundation. This innovation, aided by the introduction of windows for light and ventilation, would eventually be joined by the introduction of space to shelter more animals under the main floor of the barn.
The New England barn or gable front barn was the successor to the English barn and relied on a gable entry rather than an entry under the eaves. The gable front offered many practical advantages. Roofs drained 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; both types continued to be constructed.
A shed is typically a simple, single-story structure in a back garden or on an allotment that is used for storage, hobbies, or as a workshop. Sheds vary considerably in the complexity of their construction and their size, from small open-sided tin-roofed structures to large wood-framed sheds with shingled roofs, windows, and electrical outlets. Sheds used on farms or in industry can be large structures.
Historical background:
“The Hotchkissville Historic District encompasses an exceptionally cohesive and well preserved rural industrial village, one that illustrates how a dispersed colonial farming community was transfigured by extensive participation in the market economy of the nineteenth century but retained much of its traditional culture and values. Not only did the eighteenth-century agrarian base survive and prosper, entrepreneurial industry perpetuated the colonial family-based economic system. For much of the century colonial architectural traditions prevailed in the district, producing a highly significant collection of well-preserved vernacular architecture, highlighted by many examples of Colonial, Federal, and Greek Revival, as well as a few individual examples of the Gothic Revival and Italianate styles. Further significance is derived from the exceptional integrity of the district's historic setting, in which period landscapes and outbuildings evoke its nineteenth-century heritage.”
Other significant aspects of the district are its remarkable cohesiveness and the integrity of its historic rural setting, which conveys a remarkable sense of time and place. Because there has been so little modern intrusion, and some of that hidden behind uninterrupted historic streetscapes, the historic interrelationship of the built environment with its pastoral landscape is virtually unchanged in much of the district. Although hill pastures have reverted to woodland, open vistas of the Weekeepeemee River meadows appear today much as they did in the nineteenth century, an effect heightened by cows still grazing in the several fields there. This agrarian tradition is further conveyed by the truly exceptional number of historic outbuildings that have survived in the district, which include many well-preserved nineteenth-century barns.”
The c. 1820 house was constructed by Reuben Hotchkiss (b. 1797), a local textile mill owner.
Field Notes
Large New England barn and two smaller outbuildings, one used as garage. Hotchkissville Historic District.