Plank Frame Barn Construction — A Closer Reading

A System Born of Scarcity

The plank frame system, as Shawver presents it, is explicitly a response to timber scarcity. He lists five numbered advantages, the first being “a saving in timber of from 40 to 60 per cent.” The second advantage notes that the method allows using timber that “could scarcely receive consideration” for traditional mortise-and-tenon frames. This emphasis on economy is not abstract: Shawver repeatedly ties material savings to local conditions, mentioning “sections of the country where timber for building purposes is not in plentiful supply.” The system, he claims, has been “gradually improved” over twenty years in Central Ohio, reaching “very near perfection as regards economy of material and labor.”

Correspondence as Construction Critique

A distinctive feature of the excerpts is the inclusion of reader letters and Shawver’s detailed replies. For example, a correspondent from Minneapolis (signed “S. H.”) submits a barn frame design, and Shawver responds with specific criticisms: the hay chutes appear “directly over one of the main girders,” the plates are placed “flatwise” when they should be “on edge,” and the nailers, if cut to fit between posts, require “mortised, gained or toe nailed”—the first two being unnecessary work, the latter “not strong enough.” Another letter from “J. M. B.” of Pennsylvania questions the strength of a gable plate spanning 30 feet, estimating hay weight at “45 to 50 tons.” Shawver does not dismiss these critiques; instead, he offers alternative constructions, such as building posts from “two 2 × 8’s and two 2 × 4’s, box pattern” to avoid dry rot.

Numbers, Names, and Practical Proof

Shawver grounds his advice in concrete examples. He cites the barn of Dr. W. I. Chamberlain near Cleveland, Ohio—a structure “40 × 82 feet in size”—which required “four carpenters two and a half days to frame and two hours and fifteen minutes to raise.” Such specifics lend credibility and offer a benchmark for readers. Shawver also warns against common pitfalls: staging is unnecessary, he says, because “most men can work more rapidly on the ground.” He even suggests that “S. H.” could “save enough on labor alone to pay his expenses to go to some point and see one of our plank frame constructions.” The text thus functions as both manual and invitation to observe the method in action.

Readers should approach Plank Frame Barn Construction as a period document of practical engineering, not a comprehensive guide. The excerpts reveal a dialogue between author and audience, with Shawver adapting his advice to specific queries. The book’s value lies in its concrete details—timber dimensions, joint critiques, and labor estimates—rather than general principles. Those interested in historical building techniques will find a firsthand account of a system designed for efficiency in an era of material constraint.

Holding this old framing manual, I remembered my grandfather’s barn—the way its plank joints held firm without pretending to be pretty. Shawver’s patient replies to carpenters felt like letters across decades. That same quiet reverence for humble endurance stirred in me once, reading Bell's Cathedrals: The Church of St. Martin, Canterbury An Illustrated Account of its History and Fabric — Themes and Context—where stone, like wood, carries every season’s weight without a word.