This Southampton Township, Somerset County PA barn, which was far back from the road on the John Wilson Korns family farm, was destroyed by fire in 1923. Calvin Bittner (the future father in law of John Wilson Korns' son Allen) was threshing there at the time, and it is believed that the threshing machinery caught the barn on fire. This photograph has been handed down in the Wilson Korns family line.
When I visited Lester Korns in July of 1998, he told me that this barn, which burned down when he was about 15, was built by Dan Korns, Jr.. He also said that there was once a log barn on this farm out by the road above the house; i.e. below where the driveway goes back to the "new barn".
Like most barns in the area, this one faces south, has a gabled roof, and is a banked barn that is built parallel to the hillside. The banked arrangement provided wagon access to the mow and threshing floor, and provided access for livestock on the ground floor. Note the overhanging mow, which provided shelter to livestock in inclement weather. The southern exposure would have lent warmth to the barnyard in the wintertime.
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