The administration building was built in the mid-19th century. We’re fairly sure of that much, although it’s certainly possible that there were buildings on that specific site that predated that time.
Separately from the construction of the original building — and we can date this only approximately as well — a wing was constructed on the side closer to the furnace. We cannot say if the addition was constructed elsewhere and moved to the site, or whether it was constructed in its present location, but at a slightly different time.
The Administration Building was an important part of the East Canaan operations of the Barnum Richardson Company. Today, few people — even people who spend quite a while visiting the site — even notice what was once the administration building for the entire East Canaan works of the Barnum Richardson Company and is now the Barnum and Richardson Study Center. From Lower Road, apart from the signage, it looks like a smallish private home (which, for a period of years, following the closing of the iron industry, it was).
And, from the furnace complex, it towers a bit forbiddingly above, some distance away.
What we know about the physical building:
We know that it’s actually two buildings.
When volunteers re-did the crumbling plaster in what had been the kitchen when the building was a residence, they discovered two separately framed structures, fitted adjacently to each other. When they installed drywall in place of the plaster, they left a window so we could see the separate structures.
Left exposed to demonstrate this point were two vertical structural elements of the main building and the wing. Clearly the element on the left was sawn by a “sash saw” — leaving its telltale up and down marks, while the one on the right was sawn by a circular saw, which does not tend to leave such a pattern. The regular saw marks in the beam on the left suggest that it was cut in a separate process from the one on the right, and that the two most likely were cut in different historical periods.
How the building was used in the Barnum and Richardson years:
We know from several sources that the building served as the administration building for the East Canaan facilities of the Barnum and Richardson Company until around 1920. During this period it also was a Western Union telegraph office, and very likely a smallish company store. Additionally, in in the later years of this period, a metallurgy laboratory was in the building.
For the workers in the furnace complex, the paymaster’s window was the most important feature of the building.
The administration building served, we know, the entire East Canaan complex of the Barnum Richardson Company, as well as subsidiaries and affiliates. That means that three blast furnaces, with a fourth under construction but never used, a chemical company (the notion of distilling charcoal instead of creating it in the woods by controlled burning was in use here, creating an opportunity to sell the volatiles driven off in the distilling process), the slag company (we have a page to come all about slag), a sawmill, and who knows what we’ll learn of next…..
Restoration of the building:
Following the demise of the Barnum and Richardson Company, the building was repurposed as a residence. Many structural modifications took place during this period.
For example, the former vault became a bedroom. The wing closest to the furnace, which had been both an office and a storeroom, likewise became a bedroom. A fireplace was built in what had been the public room and was now the living room. And stucco was applied to the building’s exterior.
In the 1990s, the office building began its current evolution into the Barnum and Richardson Research Center of the Beckley Furnace Industrial Monument. Other changes were made in this period, including removal of the interior staircase (not shown on either plan) that provided basement access from the public room/living room area.
This bookcase was once in the Barnum and Richardson corporate headquarters in Lime Rock
Future of the building:
Today, evolution of the building continues, with both maintenance and restoration projects intended both to preserve the structure and to make is more useful in its new role.
The sign outside the building calls it the Barnum and Richardson Study Center. While we’re not near the stage when it can really become that, we do currently plan to make what was the waiting room in B&R days, then the living room when it was a private home, into a mini-museum. One article in it for sure will be this bookcase, on permanent loan from the Canaan/Falls Village Historical Society. It was previously in Barnum and Richardson corporate headquarters in Lime Rock.
Just one last stop on the tour.
Proceed to the picnic table overlooking the Blackberry River and dam. A great place to sit and enjoy a break.
Last stop on tour.
Now click on the following link and proceed to the last exhibit.
