Word: babcock
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Good money might be made in this trade. But Babcock is not in barns for the sake of business; he is in business for the sake of barns. "They are our strongest link with the colonial past," he says. "Preserving them, we preserve history; we preserve art." And sometimes, the subjects of art. From her window, Grandma Moses painted the Bakers' barn where it once stood in upstate New York, on land, it so happens, belonging to a Yankee Babcock forebear, six generations back...
From his dusty work yard in the northwest Massachusetts hamlet of Hancock (colonial, of course, incorporated in 1776), Babcock has mapped virtually every colonial barn standing, or collapsing, in New England. Racing against mildew and termites, he buys more barns than he can afford from farmers glad to be rid of debris. "It's bad business, but I don't know how to stop," he explains without remorse. "I'm barn rich, cash poor...
...Babcock is crouching over one promising timber in the Baker backyard, like a detective on the trail of colonial history. His blunt fingers run over the surface, ivory with age, tracing arcs and circles cut 300 years ago. "They didn't have rulers. They did everything by compass." Another beam reveals a row of auger holes, evidence of a hayrack. "Too low for horses," declares the Sherlock Holmes of barns. "Sheep, undoubtedly...
...Babcock's grandfather, a builder himself, who taught Richard the secrets of colonial barns, chief among them the fact that they were designed to be recycled. "Gramps loved barns, so I did too," he says. "Barns used to be family heirlooms. When you moved, you pulled the pegs and took them with you. The old builders would understand my work...
...rafters of oak and white pine that predate the Constitution, Babcock reads colonial minidramas. He describes his discoveries with delight: stalls on worn threshing floors that mark a farmer's shift from wheat to cattle; scrawled symbols on a rafter commemorating a son who moved his father's barn; boards, sealing the huge doors of a cavernous Dutch barn, that reveal the date of its sale to a German, who then cut smaller doors...