The Tobacco Barn at the W.H. Outlaw Farm

I have never been too successful in selecting gifts for Nedra. (To tell the truth, my values don't tend toward what most would characterize as "finer things.") The notable exception is the Christmas I bought her some tools. I've kept trying to match that, and think I might have outdone myself this year, Christmas, 2010. I combined two interests she has. First, she collects small ceramic buildings, a small collection indeed and of no monetary value, but meaningful. Thus, she has a Gault figure (of a medical clinic) and two others that I purchased in France (probably on my trip to Montpellier). These "other two" were originally gifts to my sister (a school--she was a teacher) and to my mother (a grocery with outside produce stalls--she was a gardener). She has two other Gault figures (a dress maker's shop because of her interest in sewing, and a scientific laboratory because of my job), purchased on a mini-vacation in Paris, which was the launch point for a sleeping car on the Orient Express into Germany and subsequently to East Berlin (before the fall of the Iron Curtain). She also has a residence in Amsterdam (purchased there after business in Bonn), a half-timbered house from Tuebingen (where we lived as a family for four months, and where Nedra and I returned for a month research visit), and the plantation house from Shadows on the Teche, one of the Lousiana sugar plantations that we have enjoyed visiting. Finally, both Will and Liz attended William and Mary and both have gifted Nedra with Williamsburg structural figures. Thus, it was a given that a meaningful ceramic figure would interest her. Second, she has an emotional investment in our farm. I call this land the W.H. Outlaw Farm for my dad, who struggled mightily to keep his portion and buy out the remainder from his sole full sibling, Uncle Buren. I have laid out chain of ownership, which can be found on this link. My Suttons came to Berrien County long before it was a county (Click here for Buck's grandfather's grave marker.) In the end, the Buck Sutton Old Home Place (to distinguish it from the land he later bought up near Lenox, GA) has annexed an adjoining parcel that my mother's grandfather, Samuel W. Watson, settled on more than a century ago). My Watsons also came to Berrien County long before it was a county (Click here for Sam's grandmother's grave marker.) I've gone on a tangent because I wanted to and because it indicates my and her emotional attachment to that land. To cut to the chase--if it is possible at this point--I commissioned a ceramic likeness of the last tobacco barn and gave that to her as her main Christmas gift this year.

I chose the tobacco barn because it was the main source of income to our county when I was growing up, and it was the major cash crop for a farmer. Cotton had come and gone (and now it has come back). Corn was the other main field crop, and it was sold primarily as pigs. Farmers had cows, too, but most of the other crops and animals were relatively minor. (Most farmers had a few chickens, but poultry production was more of a sideline; some farmers had peanuts and other legumes as well as green forage, but all aimed toward beef or pork production. I also chose the tobacco barn as I have done almost every job in that industry from clearing new ground for seed beds, all phases of culture and harvesting, measurement of land to confirm adherence to allotments as a federal employee, and to being labor foreman for Monk-Henderson, then the leading exporter of U.S. tobacco. As an incidental point, I don't believe much in tobacco growing now as sarcastically essayed in footnote 15 of Plant Biology Lecture Topic 1, which can be accessed through this link.

Our farm had three tobacco barns that I am aware of. The oldest, already fallen over in my earliest memory, was located across the lane from the pond in the northwestern corner (31 11' 44.30"N, 83 11" 36.14"W) of the old pecan orchard that was planted by Grandpa Buck. I remember that Uncle Sam (Mama's brother) lost an expensive sow, a Yorkshire, when a part of the barn settled on her. Given the times, that was a serious blow. Everything there is gone now (I have one brick . . . .) and the area was subsequently used as a mustard patch for years, probably because of its out-of-the-way location and the enrichment of the soil from the animal pens. (Few care that I think I know where those brick are, and I don't know what happened to the large pile of tar cups that were stacked up down there.) The newest barn was simply a tin structure and it went with the Grandma Place (now owned by Mama's brother, Uncle Herbert). The barn itself (31 11' 56.16"N 83 11' 39.69" W), though, was on what is now mine. It was set off in the woods at the southwestern corner of the "little field," a triangular 4.5 acre field that I put in longleaf pines in 2006. There still is an opening there, but I don't know if anything remains of the structure (I have been trying to clean up wire fence that was pushed up over in there). The tobacco barn we focus on here was located about 125 feet east of the old house. You probably note the theme that tobacco barns were located away from other structures; it was not rare for one to burn. They were originally fired by wood, then by fuel oil, and later by gas. There was nothing automatic about them and men had to stay with them 24 hours a day--it doesn't take a rocket scientist to imagine how something could go terribly wrong when a man is tending a fire around the clock and working on the harvest during the day. Unfortunately, and to bare the ugly truth, accidental fires provided a cover for arson. . . . a disgruntled neighbor, a barn fire; it happened, and nothing could be proven. The principals of the episode in my mind are long gone and will not be revealed, but suffice it to note that they were "likely" in the role.

The use and construction of this barn have been discussed elsewhere. I will only note that I liked working in this barn; it felt solid whereas it was downright scary to get up in the top of one of Grandpa's barns, in which the tier poles in the top were weak and loose, being held in place by baling wire. The tier poles were smooth and round, easy on a boy's bare feet (to hang the tobacco sticks, climbing up into the barn was necessary, of course, and one worked by supporting himself with one foot on one pole and another foot on the parallel pole, nominally four feet separated). Newer barns often had tier poles of saw timber, fine for a booted foot, but painful for boy's foot.

Tobacco barns varied in every way in their construction, so my first job was to reverse engineer a plan for the building. I had only one image to work with, a photo I took of the barn after the side shelters were gone and after it started to settle (Not too long after the image was made, Mama allowed the city fire department to ignite it and use it for training.) I "corrected" the changes time made with Photoshop to get an elevation of the west wall, and I think the other images speak for themselves. Once I corrected the perspective, it was easy enough to get a roof pitch from the average, and I devised a scale from the average of various means (I remember that the door required bending over considerably to walk through, and the oblique angle of the door was ideal for scaling; I remember that the concrete foundation was about 18" tall, &c.) Although I did my best, I still refer to my plans as a likeness, not as a replica. The images are thumbnails, albeit large ones.

Mrs. Regina Coffee (120 Old Pearson Road, Willacoochee, GA 31650, (912) 384-3063) produced a beautiful artistic rendering of my plans. She was a pleasure to work with, very conscientious! I hope that I've not seen the last of her.