New York State has regionally distinct barn styles, agriculture, thresher, dairy barns, that sat on stone piers or a fieldstone foundationââ¬âbased on Dutch, English and German forms brought over by European immigrantsââ¬âthat relate to the types of farm animals kept and crops grown. The regionââ¬â¢s agricultural history began over 200 years ago with the settlement of the Military Tract by soldiers who were compensated for their Revolutionary War military service with 600 acres of wilderness. Full of old-growth oak, pine, maple and basswood, these trees were cut down and used to build farmhouses and barnsââ¬âpreferably near a reliable source of potable water from a creek or a hand-dug wellââ¬âwhile simultaneously clearing the land to grow crops for farm animals and families. The central upstate region traces its barn lineage to the New England families who settled the area in the late 18th-century. They built single-story English or ââ¬ÅYankeeââ¬Â barns that were typically rectilinear, longer than they were wide. Doorsââ¬âonce located on the gable or narrow end of a barnââ¬âshifted to the long side of a barn with the 19th-century invention of the roller-door used on railroad cars.
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