1808 Double Pen Barn

With the intention of becoming a "gentleman farmer,"" John Johnston began development of his Upper Piqua farm in 1808 with a two-story log cabin and one of his "other buildings," this double pen log barn.

The surrounding outer sheds were built to protect the log pens from the weather.

One of the oldest structures of its kind in Ohio, the barn is built around two hand-hewn log pens, each sixty-foot square.

The barn served the family’s farming activities and was a storage facility for trade goods Johnston needed when the farm was the Piqua Indian Agency.

"Expense of building a log house 26 x 36, two stories high, $300; clearing and fencing ten acres of meadow $200; twenty acres of upland, etc.,$200, other buildings, $300."

John Johnston Memorandum book, 1808