Caleb Miller isn’t working with a large crew today. There’s his brother, John, two other men whom they employ, and three others outsourced from an Amish construction company.
Miller specializes in the restoration and repair of existing barns. Nine years ago, Miller and his brother started Killbuck, Ohio-based JCM Timberworks.
“We do everything we can to repair the structural components with the same skills, techniques, and material that were used when they were constructed,” Miller said. “The bones are what’s important. The coverings, whether it’s roof, siding, flooring, are like the clothes on your body; when it gets old, get rid of it and replace it.”
For today’s agenda, there are three final pieces to get fitted to the stable barn before the job is done. All three need to get done, with time left to clean up and haul out before the weekend.
The project is about a week behind schedule. It’s obvious, driving down the narrow gravel road, that the conditions are still less than ideal.
The site is tucked down a side road off U.S. Rt. 33, up against Hocking Hills State Park. The driveway, an incline up the mountainside, is waterlogged and slick with orange mud after almost a week of rain. The morning air is biting.
The first crane wasn’t able to maneuver down the tight road. Another took one look at the driveway and turned around. A third operator had to be called out of retirement in order to master the machine onto the remote location. He sits in the operator’s cab now, down by the base of the foundation, feet up on the wheel, as he watches the other men at work.
The foundation of the house-to-be is set up in two sections. On one side stands the reconstructed timber frame barn. The dual-leveled hayloft is built to accommodate a conveyor, and the saw marks on the posts are rounded from a circular saw. Signs point to second-growth lumber and a late 19th-century build. It faces what is on its way to being the paired stable barn.
Both structures were disassembled at their original location in southwest Ohio and repaired in a workshop up east before being relocated here.
In between the two builds stands Miller. He is exactly the kind of guy you want building your barn–burly and bearded, donning a red flannel shirt, mud-caked boots and well-worn gloves.
Miller was born and raised in Holmes County, surrounded by woodlands. After high school, he served as a soldier before returning home and picking up trade work. He spent his 20s working as a motorcycle mechanic, metal fabricator, and welder, but was left uninspired by his work.
Miller returned to school on the GI Bill and was working on his master’s before the itch to do something new returned.
When the opportunity to work on a timber frame came up, Miller volunteered. Over the next 11 months, Miller not only learned the trade of timber framing, but also developed a deep respect for the art and an appreciation of its complexity and need for creativity. By the time he had finished his first project, he had also dropped out of his master’s program.
“Every timber frame is different, and every environmental situation that the frame exists in is different,” Miller said.
Miller’s appreciation for barns goes beyond their physical construction; he has also learned to appreciate their historical relevance.
“These structures that we work on are history books,” Miller said. “The craftsmanship can speak to the function, why they were built, and what the people were doing in that time period and geographical location. Like a history book, they can be misinterpreted.”
Two of the men work on assembling the front frame of the stable barn as it lies flat on the ground. It’s six parts: two posts, two beams, two braces. The top and bottom beams slot into the two posts, while the two braces connect to the top beam and each pole at 45-degree angles.
When the pieces slot into place and the frame is tethered to the crane’s hood, it slowly lifts. The two men stand, each with a foot pressed against the bottom of a pole to keep the frame level and sturdy as it rises to its full height before it picks up off the ground and lowered into place.
Next, a heavy upper beam, secured by two straps at its balance points, is gradually raised. It floats just above the head of one of the crew members, who lets it rock back and forth slightly in the air before turning it 180 degrees and signaling to the operator to let it rise.
Four other crew members watch the beam rise from their places up on the second-story floor joists of the stable barn. They stand about ten feet off the ground and each holds onto one of the four poles, which hit at about their chests. The entire frame sways slightly as they get into position.
Each with one hand on the post in front of them, the other reaches for the beam as it descends from overhead. The tenons on the top of the four poles are lined up with the mortises on the upper beam, but they don’t quite fit.
The squeak of the wood as the limbs struggle to fit together echoes loudly in the shallow valley. From below, Miller tosses up rubber mallets to the men on the joists, who catch them one-handed. Soon, the sound of rubber against wood ricochets through the forest as well.
Old wood doesn’t always want to go back together. Sometimes it needs a little persuasion.
It’s a standard issue in timber framing when restoring old barns. The parts are cut from green wood whose joints are secured with a wooden peg, driving the tenon tighter into the mortise. As the wood dries, it wants to warp but can’t under pressure. When the barn is deconstructed and the pegs are removed, the wood is given freedom to move.
“The tree grew a certain way,” explained Miller. “That’s the way it wants to move.”
When it comes time to put the pieces back together, what once fit just doesn’t sit right anymore.
Ohio once had the sixth-largest number of barns built before 1960, according to the 2007 USDA Census of Agriculture. But, as farms and farmland continue to disappear, so too do these historic structures.
New property owners purchase old farmsteads with unnecessary, and often unusable, barns and aren’t sure what to do with the slowly collapsing structures. There’s a rational inclination to scrap these barns, but another voice urges to preserve them.
Miller and his work as a contemporary timber framer operate between these two impulses.
The project that he’s working on today is a newly built home that is going to be constructed around the timber-frame structures. The final product will have the wood exposed on the inside of the house.
Although he can’t complain about steady gigs and an income for his crew, projects like this often leave a sour taste in his mouth.
“I think I have a problem when it all comes down to the aesthetics,” Miller said. “When you take away the function and have it be all about looks, it’s not a barn anymore.”
In what we now call “old-growth” forests, trees grew over 200 feet in height and three feet in diameter. Their growth was a slow and gradual process. Because of the roof-like canopy overhead, sunlight rarely reached the forest floor. As a result, trees that were a hundred years old could still look like saplings. It wasn’t until a neighboring tree was cut down or fell that the canopy would open up and let sunlight in so that others could grow in its place. This process, though slow, produced trees so dense in diameter that their growth rings can only be examined with a microscope. What it lacked in efficiency, it made up for in immeasurable durability.
The wood produced from Ohio’s once abundant old-growth forests is what the majority of Ohio’s timber frame barns were constructed with. They are some of the last living representations of the forests that once monopolized Ohio’s land.
“Barns are history books,” Miller said. “They will continue to stand and be that representation of those forests.”
One of the Amish crew members, who isn’t more than 20 years old, is struggling to join the brace on his side at the joint of the top beam. Someone on Miller’s crew notices and tosses him a ratchet handle – a crank that tightens two ends of a strap – to pull the two pieces into place. The kid grabs it with unsure hands, looping one strap around his pole before throwing the other across from him into the hands of his partner, who loops it on his end. He grasps the level and cranks it. Slowly. He barely bends his arm back before a “Hold up!” is shouted his way.
This is what Miller calls a “learning experience,” and he likes working with a younger crew for exactly this reason.
Miller calls over the crew and demonstrates how to correctly use the ratchet handle. He puts force behind his rapid pulls, quickly drawing the brace into the beam’s joint.
It’s rewarding to teach a younger generation these foundational skills and essential aspects of timber framing, but Miller thinks it’s more important that his crew takes these skills and adapts them to other aspects of the construction trade.
Even as trends fade in and out and home building aesthetics evolve, well-created frames and quality timber will withstand the test of time. One barn at a time, Miller and his team of preservationists will be there to ensure that this rich legacy continues.
To learn more about Miller’s barn preservation work, visit jcmtimberworks.com
Selah Griffin wrote for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.