William Fisher Polygonal Barn, Bowers Indiana

Date added: April 22, 2023 Categories: Indiana Barn Round Barn

The original owner of the barn was William Fisher, a local farmer who constructed a beautiful Queen Anne frame house on his property, followed by the ten-sided barn. Mr. Fisher was a prominent citizen who dominated the area, as evidenced by the decorative details on both the house (constructed in 1913) and the barn, with the barn details being executed by Ellsworth Dain.

Dain was an itinerant carpenter who traveled the land offering his services in exchange for room, board and a small cash payment. The details range from an unusual metal roof to siding patterns, fascia boards and the multi-light windows. Timber used for the construction of the balloon frame was native oak, cut and milled nearby. Originally, the lower level contained eight or nine stalls on both sides of the central drive with houses on the west and milk cows on the east. The interior was reconfigured around 1941 and now there is one large pen on the west along with a corn crib and three smaller pens on the east. The upper level, as originally intended, is still in use for the storage of hay, straw and grain.

Ownership of the property is both an interesting and a sad tale. Mr. Fisher tried to expand his farming operation and began buying up additional land with his house, barn and acreage as collateral. Around 1920, a depression hit the farming community which caused Mr. Fisher to default on his loan and the farm and barn went to the bank at Crawfordsville. The bank at Crawfordsville owned the property until 1937 when Clarence N. Dykes, a local farmer, purchased the farm and its buildings. Dykes maintained the property and in 1979, his son J.A. inherited the farm.

In Indiana, of the 219 round and polygonal barns that were constructed, only two were ten-sided examples. Aside from the Fisher (Dykes) barn, the other ten-sided example can be found in Madison County's Union Township (extant). In addition to the unusually low number of ten-sided examples, this barn is unique in that the main facades on the north and south are wider than the other eight sides. Both the north and south walls are twenty-eight feet wide, allowing for easy access to the central drive while the other eight sides are sixteen feet wide. This results in an overall dimension of fifty-six feet by fifty-four feet, a shape slightly skewed from a true circle.

The William Fisher (Dykes) Barn is a fascinating and unique example of a polygonal barn, being one of two ten-sided barns built in the state and the only one with unequal sides. The barn also has an unusual metal roof and decorative details that fit in nicely with the adjoining farmhouse.

Barn Description

Near Darlington, Indiana, in Montgomery County stands the William Fisher Polygonal Barn, a ten-sided structure constructed in 1914 by an itinerant carpenter, Ellsworth Dain. The barn, located at the end of a long gravel drive that passes the large farmhouse, garage and rectangular barn in surrounded mature trees and cultivated fields.

The ten-sided, two-storied barn is capped by a sectional two-pitch gambrel with flared eaves and is crowned by a six-sided cupola with a pyramid roof. Oddly, the north and south walls of the barn (which contain the main doors) were constructed twenty-eight feet wide while the other eight sides are only sixteen feet in width. Consequently, the overall shape of the barn is quite distinctive and unique, being 56 feet by 54 feet inside. The cupola contains four, four-light windows with a ten-light transom above each. These windows help to provide much-needed light and ventilation to the upper level of the barn. The balloon-framed walls of the barn rest on the poured concrete foundation and the floor has been left earthen.

The roof surfaces of the barn are covered in a red-painted standing seam metal, the only one of its kind on a round or polygonal barn in Indiana. There is a slight overhang to the eaves and the rafters are exposed. The wall surfaces are of the original vertical wood siding with decorative details that lend an aesthetic quality usually only afforded to housing. On the cupola walls, there is a prominent fascia board and then a 1" x 6" board some twelve inches below, followed by vertical siding. The bottoms of the siding boards between the fascia and trim boards are cut in a decorative, repeating pattern that is made up of the first board being blunt cut, followed by a circular cut that extends over the trim board, followed by a blunt cut and finally a triangular cut that also laps over the trim board. Similarly, the main walls have the trim board and fascia with the trim board located at the top of the main door height. The siding ends are cut in the same manner as the cupola.

The principal or south facade is characterized by a large central doorway. The doors are now missing but the overhead track on which they slid is still present. Located above the door is a four light window. Proceeding around the barn in a clockwise manner, the next four sides (sides 2 through 5) have nine light windows (three rows of three panes) centered on their faces. The sixth side contains another main door like that one on the south, complete with a four light window above. The seventh side contains another nine light window and the eighth side contains another large opening similar to the other two on the north and south. The remaining three sides contain centered nine light windows. The upper level openings are all centered on each wall face in the region between the trim and fascia boards. In the upper level centered over the doorways are four light windows. The other wall sections contain fifteen light windows (three rows of five panes) centered above the lower level examples. All of these openings combine the give much needed light to the barn's interior.

The interior of the barn is efficiently arranged with the central north/south drive and an additional drive that links the main drive to the door on the northeast. Along either side of the main drive are support posts that support the floor joists of the upper level and pens are constructed on both sides. On the west side is a long and narrow corn crib (that extends into the upper level) with pen space between the crib and the outside walls. On the east, just inside of the south door, are two pens nestled into the space between the outside walls and the drives. One of the pens is irregularly shaped due to the angles of the exterior walls and the other pen is a rectangular one constructed at the northwest corner of this region. On the north side of the east drive is the final pen. Originally, there were eight or nine stalls on both sides of the drive with the west being reserved for horses and the east for milk cows. However, in 1941 due to mechanization, most of the interior pens were reconfigured and the corn crib was added, and thus the arrangement seen on the floor plans was created.

The upper level is reached by a portable ladder and is comprised of the upper corn crib, a raised center section to accommodate the main drive and an open area to the lower level located on the south end of the barn. There is a high timber framework above this open area, that facilitated the moving of hay and straw to the upper level. The framing system of the roof is quite interesting with the north and south sections resembling standard stick roof framing for a gabled roof. The other roof sections that comprise the east and west halves of the barn meet the north and south sections in pie-shaped wedges that are framed similar to a hip roof and are braced midway down by posts that extend to the corn crib on the west and the lower supports on the east. The cupola's light source and framing can also be seen in the photo below, whereby the straight roof framing of the north and south were extended over the cupola's base, creating a web-like support network.

Aside from changes that have garnered their own significance through time, the William Fisher Polygonal Barn is amazingly close to its original appearance.