March 27, 2005|By Mary Gail Hare | Mary Gail Hare,SUN STAFF
At first glance, the rambling old barn seems unremarkable in a countryside dotted with aging farm buildings. But the sturdy interior of this building at Coldsprings Farms in western Carroll County merits another look. Its log construction is an engineering feat that stands as a testament to 18th-century workmanship.
Its 50-foot beams, made of chestnut logs sawed, hewn and set by hand, have weathered centuries of wind and storms. The logs were notched together to form the walls and ceiling and floor. There is not a nail, peg, hinge or pin anywhere.
"It is as square today as when they built it more than 200 years ago," said Bob Jones, a retired Carroll County farm extension agent. "The logs are put together by notches. The door turned on a pole, not hinges. This is real craftsmanship from people who only had axes and crude saws."
Marlin K. Hoff ran Coldsprings Farms, the largest dairy operation in the county, for more than 40 years until his death in November. His family's ties to the New Windsor land date to 1869, but the barn predates the first Hoffs by more than 75 years.
"It's just a plain-Jane building outside, but you walk inside, and you have never seen anything like it," said Kathleen R. "Kathy" Hoff, Marlin's widow, who operates the farm with her sons. "The top of the roof is stick-straight."
On its lower level, the barn housed dairy cows, which occasionally still meander in from the pasture and peer through its lower windows, Kathy Hoff said. The top tier was often filled with piles of hay that fed the animals.
"This barn was big for its time," said Joe Schwartzbeck, owner of Peace and Plenty Farm in Union Bridge. "I would hate like the devil to have to fill this space with loose hay and a pitchfork."
Although the barn is no longer used, Marlin Hoff knew its worth. He had offered it to the Carroll County Farm Museum and hoped to raise the money to dismantle, move and rebuild the structure on the museum grounds.
"Marlin was a farmer first, not a preservationist," said Melvin Baile Sr., a New Windsor farmer. "But he loved that old barn. He didn't want to sell it off or tear it down."
Hoff once turned down a builder's offer of $40,000 for the chestnut logs.
"It has no real practical use for a modern farmer," said Kathy Hoff. "Most of these barns have fallen down or were sold for the chestnut logs. This one is worth saving. We can figure out a way to move it."
Hoff's family and friends, determined to continue his "barn razing" plans, relied on one of Coldsprings' prized Holstein calves to launch the fund-raising effort. They pooled their resources and bought the pedigreed calf, with the breed's signature bold black-and-lucent-white coloring. Then they donated it back at the annual Carroll County Calf Auction in Westminster.
"I didn't talk to a soul who didn't want to donate to this," said Schwartzbeck. "Everybody loved Marlin. This was a job he didn't get done."
The sale of Coldsprings Lartist 1285F, a June calf, produced $2,050 in seed money for the razing and reconstruction, which could cost about $100,000.
Weighing a respectable 735 pounds, 1285F - cows are recorded by number and no longer named - may have been the biggest calf of the nearly three dozen in the auction. Still, it is lineage, not stature and weight, that matters most.
Kathy Hoff said, "It is who are her mom and dad."
The calf claims a productive heritage, going back through generations of stellar heifers prized for milk and butter fat. Many of its line probably spent their milking hours in the vacant barn.
`Real museum piece'
Jones, Baile, Schwartzbeck and Kathy Hoff met at the barn last week to plan fund raising and marvel at the yeoman construction effort.
"When you look at the logs, you know they must have had to lift them with ropes and pulleys," said Jones.
Baile added, "Neighbors always stepped in to help."
The area's once-abundant chestnut trees are long gone, but the 40-foot-by-50-foot barn has stood since at least 1795 and probably earlier, according to historical documentation. Built on a foundation of fieldstone, the structure rises about 40 feet, an estimate reached by counting 13 logs high - all 50-footers notched together.
"The notches are different, probably made by different people or different axes," said Jones.
Schwartzbeck said, "Good thing they had chestnut. It is a fine-grained wood, durable and strong. How did they keep the cut right?"
Baile answered, "They cut the logs on the ground and then put them up."
Baile, chairman of the farm museum's board of directors, called the barn "a real museum piece, and the only one of its size in Maryland" - and possibly in the country, he said. "West of the Mississippi, they don't even know what a log barn is."
Authentic barn
Hoff's friends want the barn rebuilt exactly the way it stands now. Otherwise, Jones said, "It would be like getting a Model A Ford and putting air conditioning and a 1995 motor in it. This is a historic barn. We can't destroy its integrity."
