On the left above is how the house looks today.  Two or more additions were built onto the back in more recent years, and at some point modern vinyl siding was applied to the building.  So the original house was much smaller, and may have looked somewhat like the old log house (on the right, above, with its modern siding stripped away) currently being remodeled in the Borough of New Berlin. 

 

We think it unlikely that the Barber's lived here from the time they were married in 1822, for deed records show three adjoining small parcels comprising this property coming into Rev. Barber's possession later, in the 1830's.  Likely they acquired this home to accomodate their growing family. 

 

The present owner of the property graciously allowed us to tour through the house.  In the original portion of the structure, we were able to verify that the floor and ceiling joists and rafters are hewn logs.  Local lore has it that the building dates back to the early 1800's or earlier, and may at one time have been a fort.  The workman who finished the house with modern vinyl siding claimed to have found musket balls and arrowheads embedded in the logs. 

 

Other local lore has it that the locale near the house was once a small village which was never rebuilt after a devastating fire.  It may be that this village was informally dubbed "Barbersburg."  (There is no official record in State of Pennsylvania records to document the town of Barbersburg, but one Barber ancestor is recorded as having been born there.)

 

Your Webmaster has many more still photographs and video's of the house than can be shown here, and will share copies on a DVD upon request.

 

One imagines Rev. James Barber departing his home for another assignment as a travelling preacher in various parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and western New York.  This is the view from his front porch, and some 150 years ago, smaller trees would have afforded him a view of the Borough of New Berlin across Penn's Creek, and the last image in his memory as he rode away would have been of his beloved Evangelical Association church building where he was ordained as a junior preacher in 1817.  That first church did not survive to the present day, but a project has been proposed to rebuild a replica of it in time for the 200th anniversary of its construction in 1816.

home in August, 2007.

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