Raise High the Barn Beam, Carpenters

Britt Robson

published: October 06, 2004

The potential for disheartening chaos, if not outright disaster, couldn't be discounted. Last May, organic farmers Dan Guenthner and his wife Margaret Pennings realized that they would have to tear down their 110-year-old barn in Osceola, Wisconsin, because the foundation had crumbled. Clearly, a replacement was needed. How to go about it was the question.

With dogged optimism, Guenthner looked to the past for a solution: He decided to organize an old-fashioned barn raising. For expertise, he sought out Levi Miller, a member of the Amish community in Loyal, Wisconsin, located about 140 miles southeast of Guenthner's Common Harvest Farm. Guenthner first met Miller a few years ago when he was in the market for a horse-drawn cultivator. Miller was the regional representative for the model he eventually purchased, and the two have been friends ever since.

Eschewing easier methods of modern construction, Guenthner settled on a post-and-beam barn design. In post-and-beam barns, most of the weight-bearing components are joined without any metal fastening. Instead, they employ hand-chiseled mortises and tenons, which are secured by wooden pegs that must be carved by hand.

Levi Miller hadn't built such a barn in 25 years. The Amish, at least in Wisconsin, had stopped using post-and-beam long ago. That was one reason Miller ultimately agreed to help out with the project. He wanted his son, Emmanuel, to see how things used to be done.

"As we were planning it, Levi kept asking me, 'Who will you get to help?'" Guenthner recalls. Miller, Guenthner explains, worried that city people might not have the necessary skill or patience for the task. Nonetheless, Guenthner had ready access to a pool of volunteer labor. Over the past 15 years, Common Harvest has amassed a customer base of more than 200 families, most of whom--including me--come from the Twin Cities. Customers pay a set fee at the beginning of the growing season and in exchange receive a box of fresh produce every week until the supply is exhausted. In their regular newsletter, Guenthner and Pennings announced that a barn raising would be held September 24 and 25, and invited anyone interested to pitch in.

Throughout the summer, planning proceeded at a frenzied pace. Because Miller's family owns a sawmill, he agreed to take care of the sill plates, the truss material, and the rafters. Guenthner took responsibility for the sheeting and decking. Meanwhile, some Common Harvest customers who are affiliated with the nonprofit organization Habitat for Humanity volunteered to help with the organizing. Others customers who possess advanced carpentry skills were put in charge of the windows, along with the construction of a lean-to that was to be affixed to the barn's north end.

Planning was complicated. The Amish don't use telephones, so in addition to constant letter writing, Guenthner had to make four trips to Loyal to coordinate with the Millers.

Guenthner estimated that 40 to 50 volunteers would be needed for the first day of construction and another 60 to 75 on second. Nearly 100 people showed up on day one, and more than twice that many on day two. The overwhelming majority were like me--romantic city slickers who'd take a week to fashion a bookshelf. Maybe they were seduced by the barn-raising scene in the movie Witness. Or maybe they were simply anxious to put their uncallused hands in service to a genuine community event.

When I arrived at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, the first floor and deck had been constructed and the A-frame truss on the north end had just been raised. Ninety minutes later, the south end truss, with a circular window near the peak, also went up. There was great applause. Buzz saws were blazing. Hammers generated a polyrhythmic clatter. Dozens and dozens of people clambered up, on, and around the barn. It looked like an ant colony.

For six hours, I worked harder than I have since high school: sorting, stacking, and hauling boards to the saw; passing 12-foot 2x6s to nailers on the roof; and using a power drill to screw in the floor over the hayloft deck. Romance became intoxication. Everyone was busting their ass, goaded by the barn taking shape before our eyes. Young teens patiently tapped in nails on boards near the foundation. A crew made up entirely of women took it upon themselves to erect the horse stalls. Three Amish, led by the mathematical wizard Danny Schwartztruber, supervised the cutting and labeling of the vital parts of the framework. Shortly after noon, we broke for lunch--the entrée provided by Common Harvest, the side dishes and desserts a cornucopia of potluck brought by the volunteers.

By 7:00 p.m. Saturday, only one task remained: to cover half the roof with steel sheeting (that was finished by a smaller crew the following Thursday). The exhausted workers celebrated with a bonfire and another hearty meal.

The entire time I was there, among nearly 200 people, not one person required first aid beyond a Band-Aid. Not one curse word--hell, not one cross word--was uttered. Not one cigarette was lit. This wasn't political or moral correctness. This just was.

"Some force was working with people that day that elevated them to a higher place," Guenthner says. "The greatest tribute came when Levi told me that he thought this was as organized, and people worked as hard, as at an Amish barn raising. He thought all the 'English,' as they call us, were isolated from each other and don't have unity. So when all the people started showing up, he was excited and amazed. He had as much fun as the rest of us.

"'These are incredible, incredible people,' he told me. How great is that?"