Backcountry Notes

Note: Click on any image to view a larger version.

The buildings comprising the 18th-century German Farm at the Frontier Culture Museum originally stood in the Rhineland-Palitinate in western Germany. At that time, Germany was a region, not a nation. Most of the region was included in the Holy Roman Empire, but it was fractionated into smaller principalities. A legal system held over from the Dark Ages, a seemingly endless series of internecine wars, religious persecutions and frequent droughts made life hard in much of Germany. Beginning in the late 17th century, an estimated one million Germans pulled up stakes and went looking for better places - - including more than 120,000 who migrated to the American colonies.

View of German farmhouse. Some German migrants landed in Georgia, and some of these moved into the Catawba Valley in western North Carolina. Others landed in New York, where they were ill-treated, causing many to move on. See The Story of Old Fort Plain and the Middle Mohawk Valley.  Most Germans came into the colonies by way of Philadelphia and Baltimore. The Germans who came to Pennsylvania soon began spreading out to the west, into the Cumberland Valley, and from there into the Valley of Virginia.

German farmhouse on left, barns on rightThe German settlers were strongly agricultural; they founded only a few towns. Their communities were comprised of artisan-farmers, men and women who both tended farms and had a trade or craft, permitting the communities to develop a high degree of independence from the outside world. The strongest German presence was established in Pennsylvania, but substantial communities developed also in western Maryland, the Shenandoah Valley, and central North Carolina.

Front door of German farmhouse. The beam ends visible near the top of the wall are for the support beams which carry the loft.A windowless gable end, left, and the back door, right. Note the framing timbers, which include more angled braces than support posts.The Museum's German Farm highlights the timber-frame method of construction. The image on the right shows the framing of a double window. Posts and beams form weight-bearing rectangles around the window, with across-brace below and angled braces on either side. The braces kept the structure from racking.

Below: This view of the front of the house displays numerous construction details. A brick wall stands in the center of the image. Heavy posts carry the weight of the beams on which the tile roof is constructed. The exposed timber ends show placement of the beams which carry the floor of the loft. On either side of the frame are braces, which were liberally supplied by the builders of this house.

Below: This closeup shows the pegged post-and-beam joinery.

The interior of the German house is whitewashed, or painted white, giving it a bright interior. Below: view of the main room. The double window in the left of the image is the same one shown in the exterior view above.

Below: entrance to small bedchamber located off of the main living room.

Cooking in the German farmhouse was done on a raised, open hearth. The height of the hearth eliminated a lot of stooping and bending. Small fires were built on the top of the hearth and cooking pots were placed or suspended over them. Below: view of the hearth.

Below: view of kitchen opposite the hearth, showing storage area and vessels.

These German folks were serious about their barns. The construction of the barns is every bit as sound as the construction of the house, with large supporting posts, liberal use of bracing, and tile roofing.

This view shows the fronts of side-by-side barns.

Above: massive, full-height double barn doors would permit the entry of a wagon piled high with hay or straw. These big doors are Z-bucked. The view to the right shows the small, regular-sized door that is set in the right-hand barn door.

Interior view of barn, showing wattle-and-daub construction of wall panels.View of interior of barn showing construction details, including method of roofing.OTHER ARTICLES IN THIS SERIES:

Virginia's Frontier Culture Museum

Reconstructing and Replicating Vintage Log Buildings

Frontier Culture Museum -- 1600s English Farm

Frontier Culture Museum -- 1700s Irish Forge

Frontier Culture Museum -- 1700s Irish Farmstead