Round Barns of America: 75 Icons of History

Yes, these barns were round or any polygonal shape without a right angle: circular, octagonal, even hexadecagonal. Many--but not all--farmers who built them were affluent, prosperous enough to take a chance on an eccentric shape. Their histories are equally unique. The oldest existing round barn, a nine-sided one, located in the town of Angelica in western New York, features the story of John Church and his wife Angelica, sister of Elizabeth Schuyler, wife of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. Did Thomas Jefferson's love of the octagonal rub off on Angelica, who spent years in Paris with Jefferson? Did President George Washington's 16-sided barn play a role in Angelica's design? Join the author as he documents these curious barns--from the east coast to the west coast--and enjoy the colorful stories, some of them intriguing rags to riches tales such as Absalom Jennings and his Nutwood, the brick round barn, built in 1858 in Ohio, and Schandor Herz, born in Slovakia in the 19th century and raised in Chicago, finishing his years on a sumptuous Kentucky horse farm in Bourbon County and its rare tetradecagonal barn. Together, these 75 round barns represent a cross section of American pioneers, dating from years before the American Revolution to the glory decades of round barns--1870s to 1920s. It's quintessential Americana.