Page 2 - WELD 3332 Collingwood Street

History of the Property

In 1823, John McPherson immigrated to Brant County near Paris, Ontario,
from Genessee county, New York. In 1872 his son Daniel McPherson,
also a successful farmer, bought his own land and two magnificent barns
nearby in what became known as The McPherson School Community.
His land and barns are still owned by Daniel’s descendants.

In 1997 James and Dawn McPherson began the task, under the guidance
of James Campbell architect, to deconstruct these barns for exciting new
purposes. Over the next 15 years, with the help of Creemore and St.
Jacobs based builders, they were moved and reborn as the Barn House
and the Multipurpose Barn at 3332 Collingwood St Creemore.

The size, hue and texture of the beams reflect their origins in the
magnificent Carolinian forests that once covered the valley of the Grand.
They were taken and shaped before the era of sawmills and power tools
and bear the patina imparted by crops stored from 150 harvests. The
parasol-like rack lifters are an ancient labour saving device found only
in the oldest of barns. Many of the timbers (one is nearly 60 feet long)
reflect the fact that they had had been part of even earlier buildings in
Brant.

The height, width, door placement, warmth, integrity and history of these
buildings show their classic roots in the great monasterial tithe barns of
Europe. Some, as in the UK, are still standing, preserved as a national
priority because they were the precursors to the great cathedrals.

The Barnhouse floor boards are original, some imprinted by the
horseshoes on pounding hooves of sweating teams pulling towering
loads of sheaves onto the threshing floor. The entrance way granary
boards show the size of trees then growing, and have telltales of the
struggles of early farm labour. These beams and boards will remain as
an unwritten but forceful testament to the strength, vision and endurance
of those who built first these barns, and then our Canada.