RESOURCE CENTER

A barn is an expression of the people who built it. When we lose one, we’ve lost a part of our history, a part of ourselves.

Historic barns are elements of the Massachusetts rural countryside and a unique part of America.  M. J. Auer, US Department of the Interior noted, “From the days when Thomas Jefferson envisioned the new republic as a nation dependent on citizen-farmers for its stability and freedom, the family farm has been a vital image in the American consciousness. The main structure of farms, barns evoke a sense of tradition and security, of closeness to the land and community and with the people who built them, and make the past present. In imagination they represent a whole way of life.”