Canal Fever by Chuck Ayers

Author:Chuck Ayers
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781606350133
Publisher: The Kent State University Press

The Upright and Wing style of house migrated to Ohio along with the early settlers (photo by Glenn Harper).

Another house type, the I-house, is more prevalent south of the Western Reserve. Though their form varies slightly, all I-houses share several basic characteristics. They all have side-facing gables, are one room deep and at least two rooms wide, and have two full stories. The majority of I-houses were constructed with timber frames and sided with horizontal clapboards, though brick and stone examples can also be found. The facade is usually symmetrical, with a central door and two or four windows on either side.19 Like the Upright and Wing and New England One and a Half, I-houses may be embellished in Greek Revival details. Gothic and Italianate examples can also be found, but the form is essentially the same. I-houses may be found in hamlets and small villages, where they are often built on small lots with little or no setback from the street, or as part of a farmstead, where they symbolized the nineteenth-century agricultural prosperity of the Midwest. Many people find old houses difficult to care for, which results in many of the region’s Greek Revival houses and churches being clad in metal or vinyl siding, concealing and often destroying much of their architectural character.

The arrangement of structures and space commonly known as the American farmstead lies deep in European history. Europeans had long distinguished between temporary, rude habitations and larger, better-built permanent houses. Ultimately, the permanence of the house led to the construction of a rough rectangular complex of buildings, fences, and walls which were called “steads” in English. Later this word was incorporated into the words “homestead” and “farmstead.” Though steads varied somewhat across central and western Europe, the basic form was a rectangular enclosure that included the house, perhaps a small stable or cow house, and a granary. Inside the enclosure was the yard, a small garden, and possibly several fruit trees. There is little question that the long tradition of the stead contributed to the evolution of similar complexes in America. However, the freestanding farmstead (house, barn, and outbuildings enclosed in a system of fences to create fields, a barnyard, yard, and kitchen garden) is a distinctly American institution. It evolved in response to seemingly endless land resources, while its location and distribution were strongly influenced by the rectangular grid of the Land Ordinance of 1785. These forces soon established a pattern of farmsteads located some distance from each other and often set in the midst of contiguous fields. This prototype farmstead was reproduced in countless places as the tide of settlement moved west.20

By the mid-nineteenth century, Lewis F. Allen’s Rural Architecture was promoting the farmstead as a “workshop,” with every structure designed to “facilitate organized industry.” If Allen’s description was correct, the barn was the largest and most important machine. Originally designed for grain threshing and winnowing, straw storage, and occasionally animal shelter, the multipurpose barn continued as the industrial center of farm life until well into the twentieth century.

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