By Jeff Helsdon
The old green barn may be gone from its longtime home on the Douglas family farm along Highway 54 near Brant County 22, but it will soon be enjoying a new lease on life – in several forms.
Don Douglas grew up on the farm; he’s the fifth generation of his family to live and work on the land with his wife, Lois B., and their daughters, Dawna and Pam.
The barn on the farm dated back to 1902, just over 40 years after Don’s ancestor, William Douglas, first settled on the land. It was a working structure though the years, mostly used for housing livestock and storing hay.
The latter became a particularly prevalent use starting in the 1960s, when Don’s father, Wallace Gilbert, started a company marketing extra hay and straw from his two farms, and friends and neighbours’ farms. The small, square bales were used at agricultural enterprises such as racetracks and horse, dairy and beef farms, as well as other purposes, such as erosion control along highways and winter protection in construction.
“We always had (the barns) painted to keep them looking good. Most of the dairy farmers around here painted their barns red. And I think a lot … of the pig farmers, they had theirs painted as orange. I guess that was the reason – we were growing hay – that we painted the barns green,” Don said.
Processing and selling hay was a lot of work.
Lois recalled, “We would bale and bale and bale.”
“And fill (the barn),” Don added. “We filled it full of hay every year.”
Even when the pair retired from their hay business, they still kept the barn in good repair.
“It wasn’t falling down; the wind wasn’t blowing it down … We kept it in good shape, so there wasn’t stuff falling off all the time,” Don said, though he noted from time to time, “We had barn boards to nail on sometimes, or a door might blow off and you had to get it back on.”
Lois added with a laugh, “They were heavy.”
She also noted, “The roof was always good, because you didn’t want the hay ruined.”
The old barn had a place in the family’s history. Besides being the centre of their livelihood, it was also incorporated into the family’s celebrations.
When the Douglas’ daughter Pam got married about two years ago, the wedding was held in the backyard of the farmhouse, and the barn was used as a site for some of the photos, including a few with Pam “swinging on the rope in the barn,” Lois said. (The reception was held in the barn on the family’s other farm).
Don shared that as they were preparing for Pam’s wedding, he looked at the barn and thought it was looking a bit shabby.
“The south and the west side get all the sun and wind pretty well, and they were fading,” he said.
So, he called for an estimate to get the two barns and the grainery painted, and was told it would be around $12,000.
Before the Douglases committed to the job, the wedding planner visited the farm.
“She walked around the barn and said, ‘You don’t want to paint those; that’s rustic,’” Don said with a laugh.
It ended up being money well saved, because in fall of 2023, the family started working on a plan to tear the barn down.
Lois said, “We always said we would not let it collapse in on itself; it was too sad,” and the time had come that the barn “had outlived its usefulness and had problems.”
Through a friend, the family was able to connect with a Mennonite community that was interested in getting the barn.
Don said he was told that they plan to rebuild the barn, likely in spring 2025, on a farm outside of Linwood, Ont.
“They’ll store the barn on a farm or something over the winter, throw tarps over it. They marked every beam…. They knew every cross beam and every post up and down, every one wherever it came from. When they loaded it, they’ve got everything put together; they can put it back up the same way it was taken down,” he said, adding that he hopes to visit the barn once it’s reconstructed, and that it will be “nice to see it used again, renovated and (people) making use of it.”
The barn came down in early August.
Lois said she was impressed with how quickly and efficiently the crew worked.
“They don’t miss a second,” she said, adding that on the first full work day, “They drove in the lane at 8:06 a.m. Saturday morning; 8:08 a.m., two machines were running; and 8:10 a.m., two guys were on the roof.” Don added, “These guys, they all knew their jobs. They don’t have to be told ‘Do this’ and ‘Do that.’ They had a young fella out underneath the spruce tree … he stood there and he pulled nails all day.”
In total, it took the crew five days to get the barn down to its stone foundation.
While the Mennonite crew took most of the barn, there were some pieces that they didn’t want, because of damage, wear, etc.
Pam and her husband, Jay, put a post on social media for people to come and get some of the leftover beams, timber, etc. Within hours, the first interested parties showed up, and a stream of others followed over the course of several days.
These included a couple from St. Thomas who took some of the beams for their horse shelters; a man from Hamilton who said he was planning to use the wood to make furniture, including tables and benches; and one person who said they were shooting a movie in the Bolton area, and wanted some of the wood for their set.
Don was pleased to see the barn would continue on.
“It’s better to see it being reused as burned or just dumped in the landfill someplace,” he said. Interestingly, it’s possible that the Douglas family farm wasn’t actually the barn’s first home.
Don said one of the crew leaders told him that “this barn had been up someplace else before, because it had already been what they call mortise-and-tenon, where they put the pieces together, but they’re not nailed together.”
Lois added that while they couldn’t say for sure that that was the case, it was interesting to think that “The barn might have had a previous life.”
Whatever the barn’s possible previous history, it was still a big part of the Douglas family’s story.
Lois said, “It was sad. That Saturday when it was finally gone, it was a hard day.”
Soon, though, a new chapter will begin for the family where the barn once stood – they’re planning to build a second living space – a ‘barndominium’ – so that Pam and Jay can live on the farm, too.
The family kept a few pieces from the old barn, including the dormer window, some hardware and some wood, that they plan to incorporate into the new building as decorative accents.
And so the barn’s legacy will continue on on the Douglas farm, too.
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