A Township-Wide Survey
Beginning in January 2002, a six-member Oakland Township Historical Society team documented barns and farmsteads across the township.
The team photographed and measured buildings, studied historic maps, recorded construction methods, and gathered information about the people and farms connected to each site.
This work helped preserve a detailed record of Oakland Township's agricultural landscape as historic barns and farmsteads continued to disappear.
“It's a good example of a five-bay, gable-roof dairy barn. It's post-and-beam construction with mortise-and-tenon joints and hand-hewn timbers with the bark still on them.”
— Mary Asmus, OTHS Barn Survey team memberHow the Survey Began
The team began by contacting the Barn Survey Project of the Michigan Barn Preservation Network and the Michigan State University Museum in Lansing. Using a barn-survey handbook, volunteers learned to recognize historic Midwestern barn styles, building methods, and architectural characteristics.
The statewide project asked local volunteers to identify and document barns that were generally fifty years old or older. Surveyors recorded each building's style, use, materials, and method of construction.
Before visiting a property, OTHS volunteers obtained the owner's permission, researched the farm through township maps dating back to 1857, and prepared documentation forms. During the visit, they photographed, measured, and recorded the interior and exterior features of the barn and its related buildings.
From Barn to Farmstead
The surveyors quickly learned that documenting a barn often meant documenting an entire farmstead. Outbuildings, windmill remains, wells, fences, farmhouses, milk houses, pump houses, granaries, and machine sheds all helped explain how a property had been used.
Almost every site contained an unusual feature. One barn had a carriage lift used to raise carriages into an upper loft during the winter. Others contained intricate brickwork, wooden hay tracks, distinctive cow stanchions, unusual door hardware, or hand-hewn timbers cut from a single tree.
One barn contained a gravestone marker. Another preserved an owner's name and the date June 22, 1879, written in stylized script on an interior wall. Details such as these connected the buildings to the families, industries, and daily life of rural Oakland Township.
Most of the barns documented were gable- or gambrel-roofed, and many displayed construction methods associated with the late nineteenth century. Dairy farming and orchard work were especially visible in the surviving buildings and features.
Lessons from the Field
- Bring a sturdy tape measure—preferably two—along with a camera, flashlight, survey forms, paper, and pencils.
- Use two people for measurements, including estimates of a building's height.
- Let the team's strongest photographer concentrate on photographs while other volunteers speak with the property owner.
- Ask about the farm's name, its history, surviving artifacts, and any unusual features the current owner has noticed.
- Look carefully for dates, signatures, hardware, and construction details on the structure.
- Allow enough time for every site. Even a property with one barn may contain far more history than expected.
- Dress warmly during winter surveys and carry water during summer fieldwork.
- Bring information about OTHS and the survey project to explain the team's purpose and establish its credentials.
- Send each property owner a prompt and gracious thank-you letter that mentions something specific about the site.
- Most importantly, get into the field and begin documenting before more historic buildings and their stories are lost.
Preserving the Record
The completed survey materials preserve site histories, photographs, measurements, structural details, and other information about Oakland Township's historic barns and farmsteads. Together, these records document an important part of the township's rural heritage for future research and education.