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which Colonial Williamsburg is part of today, had different building Tobacco barns, or tobacco houses as they would have been called in
traditions than the New England or South Carolina colonies, even the period, are a building type that is based almost solely on function.
though they were part of the same family tree with roots in England. After growing all summer, tobacco plants were harvested in late August
Similarly, the ethnic background of the people who built and used and hung to dry before being packed and shipped to England for
the buildings is important to consider. The British colonists had trade. These specialized barns had understated exteriors clad in sawn
different building traditions than the Dutch colonists in New York, for weatherboards or riven clapboards, while the interiors were designed
example, or the Germanic settlers in the Shenandoah Valley. Physical specifically for drying the tobacco. The harvested tobacco plants were
location—urban towns versus rural homesteads and plantations— speared on poles and then hung in tiers throughout the barn. Dirt
was another factor. floors and earth set posts were common features. If the tobacco was
In the period, there was a multitude of building types specialized for packed too tightly in the building it would not dry properly and
various agricultural purposes. Barns, stables, granaries, livestock shel- would mold, destroying the crop. Over time, new tobacco barns with
ters, smokehouses, and dairies, were all valuable assets to any farmstead. integrated shutters replaced the simpler colonial tobacco houses.
Before the late-18th century, most barns were built for a set purpose. Shutters allowed for more controlled ventilation, though the tobacco
Tobacco houses, threshing barns, and corn cribs were generally built for was still hung and arranged the same inside.
one function. Sometimes shed additions would provide additional
storage or animal housing, but generally, livestock was not housed Threshing Barns
within multipurpose barns until the post-revolution era.

Tobacco Barns

The interior of the threshing barn at Clover Hill in Albemarle County, Virginia
features many original 18th century architectural elements including posts ornamented
with chamfers and lambs tongue stops. photo by Jennifer Wilkoski, 2017
The reconstructed tobacco barn stands in a field of tobacco at Great Hopes
Plantation at Colonial Williamsburg. The barn was reconstructed by the historic By the end of the 18th century, tobacco production was declining.
trade carpenters in 2006 based on early Chesapeake examples. Tobacco plants favor virgin soil to flourish. By the end of the century,
photo by David M. Doody for The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2007 fresh, cleared land was in short supply forcing farmers to diversify their
crops. Corn, already a staple crop for feeding both livestock and
humans, increased in production. Wheat, meanwhile, was added to the
rotation and eventually became a dominant crop in the 19th century.
With increased wheat production came the need for a specialized barn
for processing and storing the grain.
Wheat was notoriously labor-intensive to prepare for the market.
The kernel had to be removed from the stalk in a multi-step process.
First, the wheat was threshed. This was done either manually by beating
the stalks with wooden flails, or under animal power by treading or
dragging a threshing board over the stalks. After the grain was separated
from the stalk, a process called winnowing sorted the edible kernels
from the non-edible chafe or stalks. This was also done by hand. The
flailed wheat was thrown up into the air while there was a slight breeze.
The heavier kernels fell back down while the lighter chafe would be
caught on the breeze and carried away. After the grain and chaff
were sorted, the grain was then stored in special bins, either in a shed
addition to the threshing barn or in a separate building called a granary.
The tobacco barn at Elk Hill in Nelson County, Virginia features an early tobacco Barns purpose-built for treading or threshing appeared throughout
press used to pack harvested and dried tobacco into hogshead barrels. the Chesapeake. George Washington famously built a sixteen-sided
The building is a testament of Virginia’s colonial tobacco tradition. Drawing by barn at Mount Vernon specifically for processing wheat. Sturdy thresh-
Mark Schara for The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1981 ing floors, often made of oak two to three inches thick and “trunneled”
or secured with stout wooden pegs that could hold up to the rough
These singular-focus barns provide an important peek into the era threshing process, are a distinct feature of these barns.
where tobacco was king and currency and the most important crop for Later, when horse-powered machines were invented in the 1780s
the Chesapeake colonists. Pre-revolution Virginia and Maryland were owners throughout the Chesapeake adapted their barns for the new
built on tobacco. Today, the rural landscapes of Southern Maryland technology. Founding Fathers including Washington, Jefferson, and
still provide a small glimpse into the tobacco-based economy of the Madison, amongst others, embraced the new technology and incorpo-
colonial Chesapeake. Tobacco barns continue to dot the landscape, a rated threshing machines into their process. In 1796, Thomas Jefferson
remnant of the past. visited William Douglas Meriwether at Cloverfields—his Albemarle

28 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles