The Patriot Ledger has posted some great photos of North Bennett Street students working on rebuilding the Brookwood Farm barn. Click here to check out the photos and electronic version of the below article. (Photo: students cutting the ‘cogs’ that the floor joists will lay into.)
use hand power, not horsepower
The Patriot Ledger, Posted Dec 03, 2009
CANTON – Students from North Bennett Street School in Boston are using their hands and heads – no power tools allowed – to rebuild an 18th-century barn at the Brookwood Farm in Canton. Students in the school’s preservation carpentry class are using tools and technology from that era to rebuild the post-and-beam barn. The work includes shaping logs into beams by hand and using a hammer and a chisel to fashion wooden joints. Holes are drilled using hand-powered augers.
The students are learning how to restore and preserve architecturally and historically significant buildings. Former insurance executive Henry Saltonstall Howe gave the 70-acre property to the state in 1976 but continued living at Brookwood Farm until his death in 1994. The state Department of Conservation and Recreation uses the farm for education programs, including the annual Maple Sugar Days.
