- Details
- Category: Past Issues
captions, page 6:
clockwise from top left: Moving the straps up before the big "up and over" onto the new foundation.
Bob and Myra Anderson with the intricately supported silo behind them on the trailer.
Left: Lifting the silo off the trailer at the Brunn Barn site at the Woodstock Fairgrounds.
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
WOODSTOCK --- Calling the transfer of a 1920s silo from a farm on Joy Road to its new home next to the Brunn Barn at the Woodstock Fairgrounds "breathtaking" was an understatement.
In an all-day effort, volunteers, King and Clark crane services and Olde New England Building & Salvage workers, gingerly moved the almost 90-year old Unadilla wood stave corn silage silo . Marty Clark, the crane operator, placed the silo on the recently poured foundation at the fairgrounds, neat as you please. And not one board moved, although the creaking straps and a spreader bar that bent did drew some gasps.
Myra and Robert Anderson of Troll Knoll Farm on Joy Road donated the old silo. Myra Anderson said the silo would live a longer life and be seen by many more people in its new home at the fairgrounds.
The rotting wooden staves along the bottom of the silo, possibly yellow pine according to Glenn Pianka, of Olde New England Building & Salvage, were cut away. The silo was supported with a labyrinth of boards, the roof removed and the silo was transferred onto a bed of old tires on a trailer. The original spreader bar began to bend when the lifting began so a much more sturdy, triangular-shaped bar borrowed from a neighboring farm was attached. A tractor pulled the silo about five miles down the road to the Woodstock Fairgrounds. There the massive cloth straps were attached to a lull and the King and Clark crane and it was slowly transferred from the trailer to the ground and then it was lifted upright, creaking the whole way.
Clark asked the group which way they wanted the silo door to face, they said toward the old Brunn Barn, and Clark deftly placed the silo on the foundation, door facing the barn.
This silo was built by the former owners, Vilhelm and Sara Pedersen of Sunny Acres Farm. The Society has been planning the move for over a year and a project to install a new wall and foundation in preparation for the silo was completed this summer. George Looby of the silo subcommittee said the group was not successful in getting a grant for the silo site preparation and move and reconstruction; however, the Woodstock fair did well enough to cover the costs.
Clark said he's done many historic building moves, but never a wooden silo. "I've moved a steel silo, but never a wood one. This move was much more, ummm, breathtaking."
Everyone exhale!