Winton - Marsh
Guest House

Two hundred years ago, our barn frame was built by a Master Framer along with the farmer, his sons and farmhands. They girdled and felled choice old growth hemlock from the nearby wood lot years ahead to allow to season. These workmen formed, shaped & hewed post & beam timbers by hand with broad axe and adze. Mortises and tenons were dressed and beveled using mallets, chisels, mauls & mortise axe. Interlocking holes were cut by auger, to receive hardwood pegs of maple or oak greased with beeswax. Each barn frame section, called “bents”, was framed on the ground, using beetles to pound the beams into place. Once the bents were fashioned on the ground, neighbors for miles around came to help in the raising, using long poles called pikes to erect the bents to a standing position. Barn raising in early America became a vital tradition and as eagerly anticipated as a wedding.