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  • Mark Evers stands with his barn construction crew and fan club. His son Nathan 14, and his youngest son Andy 5. The family is building an "Old World" barn in Wolcottville. DL PERRIN

    0628 Old barn_0506.jpg
June 30, 2012

After barn burns, Wolcottville man looks to past construction

By DL PERRIN THE GOSHEN NEWS

WOLCOTTVILLE —  Mark Evers is the eldest of nine children born to Frank and Evelyn Evers. He was raised on his family’s Wolcottville farm which he loves and farms with his father like generations before him since 1854.

Mark’s great-great-grandfather Frank Ellsworth Myers hand built the family farm’s barn and home out of fieldstone and brick. From the age of 6, Frank personally collected and stored fieldstone from the surrounding area. When he inherited the family farming business, he saved enough money to begin building in the early 1920s. For three years he and a few hired hands built the 6,800-square-foot barn and the three-story 30-by-60-foot home.

Upon its completion in 1923, the barn’s size and fortress-like construction earned it coverage in local, as well as Chicago newspapers. Over the years the farm has earned recognition and honors, including Centennial Farm, Hoosier Homestead Farm, Indiana Historic Landmarks Foundation and it joined the national “Barn Again” historic program to encourage restoration and preservation of antique barns.

According to the Evers, it is the largest stone barn in the state.

When Mark married Sara and started his own family, he stayed in the family farming business with his father Frank. He moved a hundred feet down the road from his father. So, it is not surprising when his (not the Myer) barn burned this past January, he decided to replace it with an equally spectacular barn to complement his family’s stone barn on the opposite side of the road.

“We had a fire January 2011 that completely destroyed our barn,” Sara said. “The previous barn was a 100 year old, bank barn.”

In its stead, the family wanted more than just an uninteresting pole building.

“Construction runs in the family,” Sara said. “Mark is acting as his own contractor and has been heavily involved in the construction.”

“This construction method is amazing and very strong” Mark said. “Old World” joinery like this is called mortise-and-tenon. It has been used in boat and building construction for more than 6,000 years.

The design and lumber is imported from Harvest Moon Timber Frame in Connecticut. Two workers sent from the design company helped Mark set up the basic framing along with his brother Scott and assorted friends.

The framing lumber is usually joined at a 90-degree angle. A protruding tenon, cut at the end of one piece, fits into a corresponding recess, called a mortise and is further secured with four wooden pegs driven through holes in both pieces. No nails, bolts or screws are used in framing. The lumber is single-tree, hand-cut 12-by-12-inch girders of Eastern hemlock and 12-by-14-inch continuous posts of Douglas fir. The inside measures nearly 4,000 square feet and is more than four stories high.

Editor’s note:

Mark’s most recent venture with his brother Scott — breeding Texas Longhorns — is featured on Page D1 in today’s edition.

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