George Washington: The United States President Who Designed a Sixteen Sided Barn

by DerdriuMarriner

First U.S. President George Washington derived personal satisfaction from completed construction of his innovative barn design for Mount Vernon, his family's Virginia plantation.

Devoting his adult life to his homeland, first U.S. President George Washington (February 22, 1732–December 14, 1799) stood virtually unequalled in his outstanding military and political achievements in colonial and antebellum America.

Interlaced with his commitment to Providence and to his country was his devotion to his family's Virginia estate, Mount Vernon. In letters written over a 17-month time line, from Sunday, October 28, 1792, to Sunday, March 30, 1794, at the end of his first presidential term and early in his second term, the busy president revealed concerns about actualizing his innovative design for a barn at Mount Vernon.

Three years before the end of his reluctantly-served second term (March 4, 1793-March 4, 1797), George was able to tick the completed barn off his long list of dream improvements for Mount Vernon.

Drawing by George Washington of his design for 16-sided barn was included with his letter of October 28, 1792, to Anthony Whiting, estate manager for Mount Vernon farms.

Dogue Run Farm, on which 16-sided barn was sited, was located in northwestern sector of Mount Vernon landholdings.
Dogue Run Farm, on which 16-sided barn was sited, was located in northwestern sector of Mount Vernon landholdings.

George Washington: a dream barn for the first president of a new nation

 

On Sunday, October 28, 1792, five days before the start of the second U.S. presidential election, which was held from Friday, November 2, to Wednesday, December 5, George Washington enclosed a design for a sixteen-sided (decahexagonal) brick barn with his letter to his estate manager, Anthony Whiting. The President expressed his expectation that Anthony would supervise the construction by Thomas Green, overseer of Mount Vernon's carpenters, in time for the next harvesting of wheat.

Anthony succumbed to consumption and rheumatism on June 21, 1793. Six months later, in December 1793, William Pearce, an experienced farmer from nearby Kent County, on Maryland's Eastern Shore, succeeded to the careworn position, which entailed weekly reports back and forth with the President.

 

ca.1801 map based upon map drawn by George Washington and included in letter dated December 12, 1793, to English agriculturist and economist Arthur Young (September 11, 1741 – April 12, 1820).

Dogue Run Farm, site of 16-sided barn, is located in northwestern sector (upper right).
Letters from His Excellency George Washington, to Arthur Young (London, 1801)
Letters from His Excellency George Washington, to Arthur Young (London, 1801)

 

George Washington designed his sixteen-sided barn as a grain processing and storage facility for Dogue Run Farm, one of four working farms (Muddy Hole, River, and Union) on his 7,600-acre plantation at Mount Vernon, Virginia. The design called for nested polygons, with the exterior sixteen sides decreasing to eight for the interior granary. The second story treading floor was circular. One side of the barn was banked to the second story in order to allow a direct, ground-level access to the threshing floor. Horses reported to the upper level threshing site by way of earthen ramps. An innovation was the creation of open spaces between floorboards to allow grain, separated from stalks by the horses' treading, to fall down into the granary below. The President envisaged experimentation in determining the perfect spacing distance between floorboards.

Construction materials specified by the President included white oak for the threshing floor, cypress for the roof, and pine for everything else. The barn's masonry used English brick bond, in which headers (facing with wide short side of bricks) alternated rows with stretchers (facing with long narrow side of bricks).

The cypress roof, although appearing steep, was sloped at about 43 degrees, which fell within the typical pitch range of 42 to 48 degrees for barn architecture in the eighteenth century. Steep pitches were favored for their encouragement of fast runoff, which reduced soggy pooling of rain or snow on roof shingles.

Construction of the President's innovative barn, a project dear to his heart, stalled because of delays in laying the brick foundation.

  • In at least a trio of letters in 1793, dated February 17, March 3, and April 29, the President reminded his nephew, William Augustine Washington (November 25, 1757-October 2, 1810), of his prior promise to supply Mount Vernon with oyster shells, which were direly necessary for lime in making mortar for laying the barn's foundation. Because spoilage did not occur during storage, oyster shells were the President's preferred source for lime.
  • In his letter of April 28, 1793, the President expressed his gladness that Anthony had found a temporary supply of lime and his hope that laying the foundation would occur immediately.

In March 1794, the President finally realized his dream of a better barn for his ancestral home.

  • In his letter of March 9, 1794 to William Pearce, the President expressed gladness that Thomas Green and his crew essentially had finished the barn.
  • In his letter of March 16th-17th, 1794, to William Pearce, the President discussed the final concern in the barn's architecture: the safety of horses' hooves from catching or turning and the efficient downflow of separated grain heads necessitated precision in the spaced placement of threshing floorboards
  • In his letter dated March 30, 1794, to William Pearce, the President agreed with the estate manager's finding of 1 ½ inch interstitial spaces as the correct spacing between each threshing floorboard.

George Washington's sixteen-sided barn survived until the 1870s. A glass plate negative, taken shortly before the barn's demise, testified to its derelict condition.

 

barn interior: view of treading floor

1996 replica of George Washington's 16-sided treading barn, Mount Vernon Pioneer Farm site
1996 replica of George Washington's 16-sided treading barn, Mount Vernon Pioneer Farm site

Resurrection: George Washington, Pioneer Farmer

 

At Mount Vernon on Friday, September 27, 1996, the dedication of replicas of George's 16-sided treading barn and its associated stables and corn houses celebrated the completion of "George Washington: Pioneer Farmer," a project of more than five years. With a wealth of information on the structures uncovered through researching sources such as George Washington's correspondence during his presidency, the initial idea of reconstruction of the barn and outbuildings for use as an interpretive space was expanded to authentic replication for use as a working complex.

During the construction phase of the meticulous reconstruction, Mount Vernon crew and consultants regularly faced perplexities posed by the barn's unusual shape. The most demanding, ongoing challenges involved a multiplicity of calculations to assure smooth, sturdy framing of pieces that joined at various angles along the structural units (floor, roof, walls). Even the cypress shingles required an unusual arrangement of butting rather than the normal pattern of alternately superimposed rows.

 

1996 replica of George Washington's 16-sided barn and associated stables and corn houses: four-acre Pioneer Farm site

Mount Vernon, Fairfax County, northern Virginia
Mount Vernon, Fairfax County, northern Virginia

Conclusion: George Washington's ingenuity, Thomas Green's skill

 

An interesting realization for the reconstructors was that the 18 months required for them to complete five structures (the barn, two stables, two corn houses), with such advantages as pocket calculators and sawmills, was about the same or only two months less than the 18 to 20 months required for Thomas Green and his crew to construct four structures (the barn, two stables, one corn house). Most of the wood used by Thomas Green was prepared, not by a sawmill, but instead by hand hewing and pit sawing.

A visit to the four-acre Pioneer Farm section of Mount Vernon evokes admiration, not only for George Washington's ingenuity, but also for Thomas Green's skill.

 

1996 replica of George Washington's 16-sided barn: interior of roof evokes admiration for George Washington's ingenuity and for Thomas Green's skill.

"Wooden Splendor"
"Wooden Splendor"

Acknowledgment

 

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet. 

 

Image Credits

Drawing by George Washington of his design for 16-sided barn was included with his letter of October 28, 1792, to Anthony Whiting, estate manager for Mount Vernon farms.
Dogue Run Farm, on which 16-sided barn was sited, was located in northwestern sector of Mount Vernon landholdings.: Public Domain, via Library of Congress/American Memory @ http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mgw/mgw4/102/0800/0823.jpg

ca.1801 map based upon map drawn by George Washington and included in letter dated December 12, 1793, to English agriculturist and economist Arthur Young (September 11, 1741 – April 12, 1820).
Dogue Run Farm, site of 16-sided barn, is located in northwestern sector (upper right).
Letters from His Excellency George Washington, to Arthur Young (London, 1801): No known copyright restrictions, via Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division @ https://www.loc.gov/item/99466780 (digital ID: https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3882m.ct000367/)

barn interior: view of treading floor
1996 replica of George Washington's 16-sided treading barn, Mount Vernon Pioneer Farm site: Galen Parks Smith, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GW_treading_barn_int1.JPG

1996 replica of George Washington's 16-sided barn and associated stables and corn houses: four-acre Pioneer Farm site
Mount Vernon, Fairfax County, northern Virginia: Galen Parks Smith, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GW_Pioneer_Farmer_site1.JPG

1996 replica of George Washington's 16-sided barn: interior of roof evokes admiration for George Washington's ingenuity and for Thomas Green's skill.
"Wooden Splendor": Rob Shenk, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/rcsj/7428328774/

1996 replica of 16-sided barn designed by George Washington, Mount Vernon, Virginia
view of access to treading floor
c.1980-2006 photo by Carol M. Highsmith (born 1946); Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Carol M. Highsmith Archive: No known restrictions on publication, via Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) @ https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2011631437/

Mount Vernon viewed from the Maryland side of the Potomac River
Mount Vernon, Fairfax County, northern Virginia: baldeaglebluff, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MTVernonseenfromtheriver.jpg

 

1996 replica of 16-sided barn designed by George Washington, Mount Vernon, Virginia

view of access to treading floor
c.1980-2006 photo by Carol M. Highsmith (born 1946); Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Carol M. Highsmith Archive
c.1980-2006 photo by Carol M. Highsmith (born 1946); Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Carol M. Highsmith Archive

Sources Consulted

 

"A Circular Barn." George Washington's Mount Vernon. 2014. Mount Vernon Ladies' Association. Web. www.mountvernon.org. Retrieved October 9, 2014.

  • Available at: www.mountvernon.org/visit-his-estate/preserving-his-estate/restoration-projects/16-sidedbarn

Manca, Joseph. George Washington's Eye: Landscape, Architecture, and Design at Mount Vernon. Baltimore MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.

Patrick, Christine Sternberg, ed. The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series. Volume 11: August 1792 - January 1793. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2002.

Patrick, Christine Sternberg, ed. The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series. Volume 12: January - May 1793. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2005.

Patrick, Christine Sternberg, ed. The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series. Volume 13: 1 June - 31 August 1793. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2007.

Patrick, Christine Sternberg, ed. The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series. Volume 14: 1 September - 31 December 1793. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2008.

Patrick, Christine Sternberg, ed. The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series. Volume 15: 1 January - 30 April 1794. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2009.

Pogue, Dennis J. "16-Sided Barn." George Washington's Mount Vernon: Education > Digital
Encyclopedia of George Washington > Agriculture. 2014. Mount Vernon Ladies' Association. Web. www.mountvernon.org. Retrieved October 9, 2014.

  • Available at: www.mountvernon.org/educational-resources/encyclopedia/dogue-run-barn

Snowden, W. H. (William H.) Some Old Historic Landmarks of Virginia and Maryland Described in a Hand-Book for the Tourist over the Washington, Alexandria and Mount Vernon Electric Railway. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1894.

  • Available via Internet Archive at: https://archive.org/details/someoldhistoricl00will

 

Mount Vernon viewed from the Maryland side of the Potomac River

Mount Vernon, Fairfax County, northern Virginia
Mount Vernon, Fairfax County, northern Virginia
the end which is also the beginning
the end which is also the beginning

George Washington's Eye: Landscape, Architecture, and Design at Mount Vernon by Joseph Manca ~ Available via Amazon

Art historian Joseph Manca systematically examines Mount Vernon -- its stylistic, moral, and historical dimensions -- offering a complete picture of this national treasure and the man behind its enduring design.
Mount Vernon-themed books

USA Watercolor Map: black t-shirt ~ Available via AllPosters

map of continental United States = "lower 48"
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DerdriuMarriner, All Rights Reserved
DerdriuMarriner, All Rights Reserved
Updated: 10/01/2024, DerdriuMarriner
 
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DerdriuMarriner on 06/14/2023

Thank you for commenting, WriterArtist!

Me too, I agree that the past needs to be kept generally and regarding such Unitedstatesian people, places and things as those "belonging to the first US president should be conserved."

A miniseries -- called Washington -- on George Washington came out during COVID. It's well done even as it did not mention his eminently attractive and functional barn.

George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and John Kennedy are among my favorite presidents. I like Richard Nixon because all environmental legislation traces back to him and he ended the Vietnam war, established diplomatic relations with China, gave the right to vote to 18-year-olds and practiced his Quaker religion.

WriterArtist on 06/14/2023

The decahexagonal barn's aesthetics has improved after restoration. The picture says it all. It is an unusual barn though, haven't heard of 16 sides before. I can imagine why the President wanted it - it looks amazing. At a distance it looks somewhat like a circular dome. Thanks for the details of construction and the pictures. A thing of past but belonging to the first US president should be conserved.

DerdriuMarriner on 10/10/2014

burntchestnut, Me, too, I also enjoy preserved or restored sites. I appreciate that Mount Vernon is being carefully maintained.

AngelaJohnson on 10/10/2014

I'd love to visit Mt. Vernon. I enjoy visiting preserved or restored homesteads and forts.

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