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| Indian Barnes "They make heaps like molehills, each about two and a half feet from the others, which they sow or plant in April with Maize, in each heap five or six grains,'' wrote Isaack de Rasieres, a Dutchman who visited an Indian community in western Long Island in the early 1600s. When the English arrived on the East End in the early 1640s, they discovered another feature of Indian agricultural practices -- deep holes covered with woven mats that were used to store food during winter. The English called them ``Indian barnes'' and they disliked them because their livestock frequently fell through the mat roofs. The old fields and villages of the Indians are long gone and memories have faded. But there are treasures of the past. One of them is a photograph taken in 1900 that shows a Shinnecock man named John Henry Thompson, dressed for the photographer in a three-piece suit. He is standing alongside a ``barne,'' he has just made. It is covered with grass and sticks. | |||||||||||||
The first hayrick in the US? Manatvs gelegen op de Noot Riuver (ca. 1 639)This anonymous manuscript map is to be found at the Library of Congress. It is a copy made around 1670 of a map that was probably drawn in New Netherland. The original map is usually dated ca. 1639, but may have been drawn as early as 1630. The earliest known map of Manhattan and its vicinity, it is frequently attributed to Joan Vinckeboons, but there is no real evidence that he was actually the cartographer. The title of the map can be translated as "Manhattan on the North River." (The Dutch called the Hudson River the North River.) The map shows the area around New York City, including Staten Island and Coney Island. Both Dutch and Indian settlements are shown, with the Native settlements indicated by long houses. On Manhattan, the Dutch fort, windmills, and some farms are depicted. The map does not show all of the individual houses on Manhattan, which was already more heavily settled than appears here. Source | |||||||||||||
| The last haybarrack in New Jersey thanks to a contribution of Mr. Rick Detwiller.
Hay Barrack at 18th century Reuben Ayres, later Kelly House at Oak Tree. On June 26, 1777 Ayres lost “one barn 18 ft. by 30 ft. “ and “one good gun £ 3” among other items in his Middlesex County Inventory No. 305 then at Woodbridge, NJ . Photo by F. C. Detwiller ca. 1970 | |||||||||||||
 Rick"Detwiller completed his story 30-01-2004:For completeness, I also attach photos of the Ayres House; the damage to the barn mentioned in the caption on the Hay Barrack photo was during the American Revolution by the British during the Battle of Short Hills, June 26, 1777. Also attached is a jpeg of the 1906 watercolor of the Westfield NJ farm with the hay barrack at the right. Thanks for going to the trouble of having your esoteric website! Also to the other sites that contributed information. Rick Detwiller BARRACK - Definition from Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) 2. A movable roof sliding on four posts, to cover hay, straw, etc [Local, U.S.] H.L. Mencken (18801956). The American Language. 1921: Page 54 The contributions of the Dutch during the half century of their conflicts with the English included cruller, cold-slaw, dominie (for parson), cookey, stoop, span (of horses), pit (as in peach-pit), waffle, hook (a point of land), scow, boss, smearcase and Santa Claus. 16 Schele de Vere credits them with hay-barrack, a corruption of hooiberg. That they established the use of bush as a designation for back-country is very probable; the word has also got into South African English and has been borrowed by Australian English from American. In American it has produced a number of familiar derivatives, e. g., bush-whacker and bush-town. Barrère and Leland also credit the Dutch with dander, which is commonly assumed to be an American corruption of dandruff. They say that it is from the Dutch word donder (=thunder). Op donderen, in Dutch, means to burst into a sudden rage. Story of a Hay Barrack in the Revolution - Staten Island, 1779 http://www.royalprovincial.com/military/courts/cmbutl.htmPlans to Reconstruct a Hay Barrack Rockingham, Princeton NJ http://www.rockingham.net/restoration.htmlLandis Valley Museum, Lancaster, PA http://www.ptn.org |
