Barn History
 Only a handful of round barns survive today, and so few remain that they are considered "an endangered species" and are registered with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Most round barns were built between 1900 and 1920, primarily in the Northeast and then the Midwest. The Shakers, who built the first round barn, believed the circle to be the most perfect shape (the devil couldn't trap you in the corner).
There are two distinct shapes of round barns: the polygonal barn, which consists of five or more equal sides and the truly round barn, which is also known as the "barrel barn". One example of the barrel barn is still very much alive and well in Adams County, Pennsylvania, and is well-known as one of the counties special landmarks. The Historic Round Barn, a spectacular structure, was built in 1914 by the Noah Sheely family.
Having lost there conventional barn to fire, the Sheelys needed a new barn. As the family was well-known at the time for being innovative, it followed that son Daniel, who had seen a round barn near Hershey, Pennsylvania, convinced his father and brother that a round barn is what they needed. They wrote to the Illinois Agriculture Experiment Station for information and hired an architect, Morris Rhodes, from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania to do the design.
It is an awesome sight to stand on the top floor of the barn and gaze up and up and up to view the incredible skeletal structure of the roof. What is even more amazing is realizing that when the barn was built there were no high-tech, high-powered machines -- just ingenuity and manpower. In fact, the builder, John Fritz of nearby Cashtown, one of Adams County's best builders, armed only with his trusty saw, axe, and square, bicycled the five miles from his home each morning to work on the round barn construction project. Mr. Fritz was assisted by Bob Mickley, a widely known "mechanic", plus some laborers.
This was no ordinary "barn raising"! Two hundred and fifty barrels of cement were poured to form the foundation and first floor. Large hemlocks, chestnuts, oaks, and pines were felled on the farms woodlands and sawed on the farm's sawmill. The logs were then hauled by mule-drawn wagons over the mountain to Chambersburg where they were finished and then brought back to the farm.
The circumference of the barn is 282 feet, with a diameter of over 87 feet. As was characteristic of round barns, the barn was constructed around a central silo measuring 60 feet high and 12 feet wide, with storage capacity of 145 tons of silage. The silo acts as the "hub" of a wheel, with 38 "spokes" that form the interior structure and support for the second floor. All but one of the "spokes" are single lengths of wood -- each nearly 37 feet long!! The barn as it was originally constructed could house 50 head of cattle and about 16 mules or horses.
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The Round Barn Farm also has it's place in the history of Adams County and the fruit industry. In 1878 Noah Sheely planted the first large commercial apple acreage of 2,000 trees on what is now know as the Round Barn Farm. Word has it that his neighbors thought him somewhat foolish until the orchard began paying off. His most notable sale was negotiated at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. The deal was for the shipment of 1,500 three-bushel barrels of apples for, $1.50 a barrel to a Chicago based company. As Sheely's success continued, more and more farmers began to plant fruit trees, leading to the industry for which Adams County is famous.
