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Dedicated to the Study
and Preservation of
New World Dutch Barns
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| The New World Dutch Barn, as it has come to be known, is one of the last physical reminders of the pre-industrial agricultural heritage of eastern New York and New Jersey. The efficient, heavy timber structural system adapted from Northern European precedents, reflects the practical construction and engineering skills of the predominately Dutch immigrants who settled the area, and their descendants. These barns are now rapidly disappearing from our rural landscapes and are in urgent need of increased study and preservation efforts. |
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Historic Legacy
Built in large numbers between 1630 and 1825, New World Dutch barns served as all-purpose working farm buildings in a region dominated by grain farming.
These buildings represented the center of historic farm activity during this period, providing housing for farm animals, a facility for threshing grain, and storage for both hay and grain. Although rapidly disappearing from the rural landscape, a few hundred Dutch barns survive in the area roughly corresponding to the seventeenth century Colony of New Netherland.
Historic Dutch barns can still be found in rural portions of the Hudson, Mohawk and Schoharie valleys, and in northern and central New Jersey. Examples have also been reported on Long Island, in Pennsylvania, and from the Province of Quebec, Canada. |
