Agriculture was once the most important industry in West Flamborough Township, with almost every farm having a collection of out-buildings that included drive-sheds, silos, stables and barns. In recent years many family farms have disappeared from the township’s landscape as residential development has increased and with this change, has come the loss of numerous wooden buildings that were once an important part of rural life.
The Buttrum farm on Ofield Road is one of several properties in Wentworth County that this pioneer farming family has owned since Francis and Lydia Buttrum from Suffolk, England came to Canada West in 1863. This barn on the present family’s 150 acre farm is one of the finest remaining examples of a bank barn in the township and also one of the most unusual. Built by the Ofield family, it was reputedly located on the nearby LaFarge property and moved to its present site when the land was sold to the Canada Crushed & Cut Stone Company.
Quarrying for stone in the township, between Greensville and the brow of the Niagara Escarpment is recorded as early as 1847. During that year, Charles and Ewart Farquhar began development of a dolomitic limestone quarry, the rock being transported down the mountain side by horse and cart and taken to kilns below for the conversion to quicklime used in mortar and fertilizers. In 1912, the company became known as the Canada Crushed Stone company and expanded so rapidly that it was recognized as the largest in the province by the 1920s. New sites were acquired to meet the enormous demands, especially for road building, including a development north of the brow at a site on Highway #5 between Brock Road and Ofield Road.
This enormous timber-frame barn building sits on a rubble stone foundation, with a date stone inscribed 9 May 1903 set in one corner, possible indicating the time when the structure was erected. The barn contains three floors, all of tongue and groove construction, which were added during the time the building was owned by Tip-Top Canners who used it to house as many as 900 laying chickens. Later it became a livestock barn, with the upper floors providing storage for hay and straw and finally it was insulated to provide cold storage for the Buttrum’s cabbage crop.
The barn is unique in its design, for on the south facing façade, stretching for almost the length of the wall, there are three levels of small windows that provided necessary light to the chickens. Each of the individual windows opened and could be removed during the summer months to provide extra light and ventilation.
The majority of large livestock and storage barns were erected by second and third generation farmers, as they produced larger crops and housed more livestock. Original farm buildings had, like many of the first houses, been erected to answer the farmer’s immediate needs and they gradually became inadequate. Many were torn down, with some of the timber salvaged for a new barn, while others continued to be part of the farm, serving as storage areas for farm machinery as farmers began to mechanize their operations. One of this farm’s original barns, just a storey high, remains on the Buttrum property.
Whenever a new barn was to be erected, their size often necessitated that the construction was a community event. A barn-raising often saw as many as fifty men give their time and skill to help a neighbour complete such a project. Often a year or so in the planning, each step of the construction had to be organized, so that work would proceed without problems and was completed before winter arrived. Trees that were to provide the great beams for the framing were cut at least a year ahead and allowed to season.
Most farmers employed a stone mason to build the foundation walls in the Spring and then, under the direction of a ‘framer’, a small work crew would prepare the timber to be used, often a week or so ahead of the actual ‘Raising’. Under his supervision, each section or ‘bent’ was prepared on the ground, and each union pounded into place using a special mallet-like tool called a ‘beetle’. Joints were pinned with temporary nails called drift pins which could easily be hammered out and replaced after the beams were in place and well seasoned.
On the day of the ‘Raising’, working from early in the morning until dusk, farmers from the surrounding countryside with their farm labourers would come and help erect the barn. For the farmer’s wife and the women of the neighbourhood, such an event was also an important social occasion for them, for they were required to feed the men throughout the day – a never ending task!
© The Waterdown-East Flamborough Heritage Society 2004, 2024.
