8144 Searsburg Road, Trumansburg

This barn has an unusual and fortunate asset: the diary from the original builder, Seymore Bates. By the mid-1800s his family had a large 200-acre farm. His diary reveals much about the construction of the barn, from gathering the timber himself. On January 29, 1872, his diary states: "Mercury zero, high winds, snow squalls, went after logs. Roads full of snow South of Steamburg and had to return home without a load." Once the lumber had cured, the structure was framed. The July 15, 1874 diary entry describes the barn raising: "Fully one hundred friends and neighbors helped raise the bents and get the plates up on the upper beams by 1 PM and the plates were put to their places after dinner which was on a table 60 feet long in the dooryard."

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