Harvest Time

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

No new map today. I spent a good part of my early-October weekend cleaning up the family garden after our final harvests of tomatoes and peppers. The bush beans produced their last good beans a few weeks ago; they got tough and stringy after about mid-September.

It’s just the sort of thing Mary Turck Clark and the Clark children would have done in the 1840s and ’50s at the Jonathan Clark house, though I assume the Clarks grew and “put by” a good deal more in their family garden and root cellar than we do in our suburban backyard and chest freezer.

When I finished work, I put my tools and garden supplies in the garage for the winter. The Clark family didn’t have a garage. They had this sturdy fieldstone barn:

Historic American Buildings Survey, Creator, Jonathan Clark, and John Doyle. Jonathan Clark Barn, Cedarburg Road & Bonniwell Road, Mequon, Ozaukee County, WI. Photograph, HABS No. WI-311-A, 3, taken December, 1988. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, (link)
Click to open larger image in new window.

This is the view to the northwest, showing the east and south sides of the barn, with the main entrance. Like the main house, the barn was built of fieldstone in the Greek-revival style. It stood to the east of the house, just across Cedarburg Road. It was demolished when the road was widened in 1988. Before it was razed, the barn was documented for the Historic American Buildings Survey. You can read the full report and view more photos at this Library of Congress link.

Best wishes for a good harvest and a fine autumn. See you Wednesday.

10 thoughts on “Harvest Time”

  1. Thanks for posting the barn picture, Reed. SO very sorry it got demolished, I forget; was anything salvaged?

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      • Hey Mr.Perkins interesting question this last sunday I was metal detecting down there now looking back on it I don’t believe I went far enough in a certain way looking at the picture. But did fine individual rock beds and did get some scattered hits along there a lot of them at least 5-8 inch’s deep some time I might try to pursue that area again.

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        • Also supposedly there are remains on the other side of the stone barn I was told but I have not yet swept the entire area to confirm that.

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    • Excellent question! The short answer is yes, this information was collected in great detail by the decennial federal census in 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880 and by those states that took a census in 1885. So, in the case of JMC and his Mequon neighbors, there were once detailed “agricultural schedules” with information on crops grown, animals raised, acres of farmland in cultivation, acres of land in orchard use, etc. FYI, very small farms did not fill out agricultural schedules.

      Once the Census Bureau received these “supplemental schedules,” they compiled, analyzed and aggregated the data by county and that info was published (usually in table form) in the official decennial census report. Many of the official paper schedules (or microfilm copies) still exist. Very few of the agricultural schedules are available online. From what I can tell, Wisconsin’s 1850-1880 schedules have been microfilmed and are viewable at the Wisconsin Historical Society or one of it’s Area Resource Center branches. Once the archives open again, I’d really like to see the 1850 and 1860 agricultural schedules for the Clarks, Turcks, and some of the neighbors (Hubbards, Bonniwells, etc.)

      There were also a manufacturers/industrial schedules for the 1850-1880 censuses. Those might shed light on Peter Turck’s sawmill business as well as other local non-farm businesses.

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