HVVA
NEWSLETTER, July 1999 Part Two From the Editor...The unofficial and unstructured Mid-Hudson Chapter now has 34 members and $190 in the bank, according to the written records, which we all know are sometimes incorrect. Annual dues remain $10 and assure you of future issues of this newsletter. Sorry Nancy, I didn't get the zip code for Kew Gardens. Many timber frame construction projects are underway in Ulster County, most visible is the Dutch barn going up at the 1765 Wyncoop/Londsbury house (Mar-13) on Route 209 in Stone Ridge. This circa 1823-30 barn frame is being restored and re-assembled by Bob Hedges and the Scheff brothers, Roger and Todd with some help from John Sherringer and an antique mechanical crane from Krumville. It was the last example of a Dutch barn in Otsego County before being moved here, Ulster County.
Two of the most interesting deviations from the Dutch-American tradition in the Otsego County barn (Cla-1) are the tie-beam resting on, perhaps joined to the purlin plate, and the raising holes drilled in the columns longitudinally (with the ridge of the roof rather than transverse as is normal. (Mar-13) has end-wall tie-beams joined to the columns bellow the purlins and transverse raising-holes. The position of the tie-beam in (Cla-1) may show English
or German influence but it may also Saturday July 31, George Van Sickle, a native and long-time student of the history and pre-history of Marbletown, will take us from the Oliver Dutch up-the-road a short-way to the 1832 Marbletown one-room stone school and then down the hill toward the creek to what local lore maintains, are the remains of an old road and a stone foundation for a bridge built by the British army in the seventeenth century. Originally the bridge spanned the Esopus Creek and connected the village of Marbletown with Andreas DeWitt's farm and the Hurley Mountain Road that runs along the base of the Catskill Mountains. In the early eighteenth century the Esopus Creek changed course washing out the bridge and forcing the people to find another crossing point. A small stream known as the Dovekill (dove rhyming with stove, as George says it) now passes by the old bridge foundation. George says the Esopus itself was sometimes called the Dovekill in old records. One returning to the Marbletown stone school, there will a workshop conducted on documenting an historic structure. The results will be given to Jody Ford at the Marbletown Library. She is actively collecting photographs and information on the towns one-room-schools. The Saturday, July 24 tour of Orange County, will begin at The Bull Family homestead at 10 AM. Mike Brown will show us through the 1722 Stone house and the early Dutch barn that are preserved by the William Bull and Sarah Wells Stone House Association. This is the only remaining Dutch barn in Orange County. There is a nearby restaurant for those wishing to have lunch. Others who bring lunch can stay on at the Bull Homestead. The next two visits have been arranged by Robert Eurich who has studied local architecture for many years. At 2 PM we will meet at the 1769 English Georgian stone house and English barn in Hillhold, Campbell Hall. This is a County Parks Department site that has a good collection of local furniture. At 3:30 PM we will meet at the 1768 Brick house and Farm Museum in Montgomery, another county site. There will be a $2 entry fee at both county sites. Peter Sinclair SCRIBE-RULE and SQUARE-RULE There are very few timber frame barns with dates of construction carved in the timbers but there are a number of features in the framing of barns that help in dating them. One of these is evidence of scribe rule and square-rule. Hudson Valley carpenters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries followed a scribe-rule system based on early European carpentry. In this system the major timbers of the frame were brought together, the cuts to be made scribed with an awl and the joints fit individually. The columns, braces and beams were marked with marriage-marks, matching numbers and symbols that allowed the carpenter to correctly reassemble the timbers later. Roman numerals, in which each line was cut with two opposing cuts of a straight-chisel, are the most frequently found marriage-marks in the Hudson Valley. In Ulster County and northern New Jersey cup-marks, cut with a gouge-chisel, have been found on some Dutch barns dating before the American Revolution (1776) but Roman numerals are the type most used to match timbers. In Dutchess, Columbia and some northern Counties of New York, marriage-marks are frequently cut with a race-knife and race-knife-compass. Square-rule is a system that may have originated in New England in the late eighteenth century. Its first publIc use in Pine Plains, Dutchess County, in 1815, was described as a new wonder. The carpenter, Elijah B. Northrop, prepared his timbers in the forest and cut his mortises and tenons there, without physically matching them, side-by-side.
Eventually square-rule would replace scribe-rule as
the method used in laying out timber Evidence of square-rule joining can be seen in the lack of marriage marks and in the frequent diminishing of timbers at the tenon. Hewn timbers have irregular surfaces and dimensions. Square-rule is based on the idea that a perfect timber lies within the rough hewn one and so the beam is diminished to that perfect dimension at the joint. Mortises and tenons of beams and braces are made uniform and interchangeable. Over-all square-rule saved time. The American scribe-rule traditions, whether Dutch, English, French or German in origin, were all oral traditions and forgotten when square-rule was adopted. The survival of French and German scribe-rule carpentry in Europe and its recent exchange of information through the Timber Framers Guild of North America has added to the understanding of our lost Dutch-American traditions here. Copyright © 2004. Hudson Valley Vernacular Architecture. All rights reserved. All items on the site are copyrighted. While we welcome you to use the information provided on this web site by copying it, or downloading it; this information is copyrighted and not to be reproduced for distribution, sale, or profit. |
