Barn with ornate cupola, Avon, Connecticut
© 2015 J. G. Coleman
Long shadows reach across the landscape as the sun sits low upon the horizon in Connecticut’s Farmington Valley. Nestled among the shadows and vivid foliage of shade trees, a barn hoists its tall weather vane into the air atop a stately cupola.
For the first two centuries after European settlement, farmers in New England sided their barns with a single layer of long boards. This kept out rain and snow, but the narrow gaps between each board meant that the barn interior was still rather drafty. Livestock housed within needed to eat plenty of food in order to stay warm in spite of the chills. So, in the spirit of efficiency, 19th-century farmers began trying to seal the sides of their barns with shingles or additional boards, letting in less cold air so that livestock would consume less feed in the wintertime.
It worked, but there was one glaring problem: those gaps had served as much-needed barn ventilation. Without any air circulation, manure fumes grew overwhelming and the excess humidity caused rampant mold growth. Simple cupolas solved the problem, venting stale, damp air through the roof. By the late 1800s, intricate cupola designs emerged which were just as beautiful as they were functional.
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