Dismantling the past

Liz Barry / Lynchburg News & Advance
Published: January 26, 2008

Dead vines creep up the side of the old tobacco barn, straining to reach the red tin roof. Once a source of income for the Shull family, the barn now holds little more than scrap wood and a rusted corn planter.

"I ain't used it for 40 years," said Tom Shull, 74, a retired farmer from Concord.

The century-old barn is a remnant of the tobacco and dairy farm Shull inherited from his father years ago. The farm deteriorated piece by piece. First to go was the dairy, then the tobacco. By 1971, Shull was working full-time at Babcock & Wilcox, and his farm was virtually defunct.

"Small farms just can't make it," Shull said. "I worked from daylight to dark to keep that farm going."

Decades later, the tobacco barn serves as a reminder of what once was. Its sturdy American chestnut logs are what have kept it standing all these years.

But even American chestnut will rot.

Instead of letting nature run its course, Shull made a decision that would give the barn a new life. For $2,000 he sold it to Timothy Robinson, who will use the logs to preserve a historic log cabin once occupied by Kit Carson, an American explorer and frontiersman.

"I'll just miss the old thing," said Shull, as he stood outside his barn. "I've been looking at it for 62 years."

Not long after, the barn was dismantled, log by log.

Robinson, a Forest native who now lives in Madison, makes his living restoring historic wood buildings. He purchased the barn for its distinct hand-hewn logs, the same type used in the Carson cabin.

Robinson tried to buy the barn three years ago, but Shull wasn't ready to sell. He tried again this year, knowing time was running short.

"Tom's barn was beginning to rot," Robinson said later. "I said, 'Tom, if we don't do something, we're going to lose it entirely.'"

Tom agreed to sell.

Link to the Past

Fifty years ago, the barn was filled to the rafters with fresh-cut tobacco hanging from wooden slats. A small fire was lighted beneath the crop to dry it out.

The Shulls sold the tobacco by the pound at the Farmer's Tobacco Market on Main Street in Lynchburg. The barn was surrounded by fields of corn and wheat used to feed the cows, whose milk was sold to Westover Dairy in Appomattox.

In later years the barn stood empty, the cows were gone, and the fields were covered with weeds.

Shull took over the farm from his father in 1969. The year before, he had taken a job at B&W to make ends meet. For a while, he worked two jobs but quit farming by 1971 when it became too much.

The farm that covered nearly 70 acres was divided up. Today, his son owns a section of the land, and other parts are rented out.

Lost & Found

An interest in the old tobacco barn is what ties Shull and Robinson together.

Robinson saves old wood buildings that may fall to rot or be torn down by developers. He started his company, Heartland Restoration, in Leon in Madison County, 27 years ago.

"I am a preservationist," he said. "I emphasize restoring buildings where they sit."

But Robinson is also a pragmatist. He would rather see a historic building restored in a new location than destroyed. That's where his business comes in.

Robinson is using Shull's tobacco barn to save the older and more historically significant cabin that Robinson said figured in the life of Carson.

Robinson's parents, who live in Concord, spotted the old tobacco barn during a drive through the country.

"They are my eyes and ears for finding buildings," Robinson said.

Bob and Lois Robinson did not stumble upon the barn by accident. Their son hires them to scope out old wood he can use for his projects.

"We just ride around until we find an old house," Bob said. "When you see an old house, you know that probably the first house was a log cabin, and generally the barn was, too."

Log by Log

Robinson specializes in restoring log cabins from the early 1700s to the mid-1800s. He's a fourth generation woodworker. His great grandfather was a log smith, his grandfather was a clockmaker and his father built churches.

"I think woodworking's in your blood," Robinson said. "You can't escape it."

He grew up in Federal Hill, built by James Steptoe, a former clerk of Bedford County and friend of Thomas Jefferson. As a teen, Robinson wandered next door to Poplar Forest, the abandoned home of Jefferson. Since childhood, he has had an appreciation for old log cabins and historical buildings.

Robinson, who majored in architecture at the University of Florida, is like a volcano, overflowing with history on all the cabins he has restored and why they are significant. Among his projects, Robinson is working on the restoration of Tusculum, a historic house in Amherst County that was owned by Elijah Fletcher, father of Sweet Briar College founder Indiana Fletcher Williams. The building has been taken down log by log and will be erected on Sweet Briar by the summer of 2009, Robinson said.

Robinson's restorations require time, patience and physical labor. They typically take between one and two years to complete.

"It does take a physical toll," said Robinson, who's been working with wood for more than 27 years.

"I've broken my back and a leg or two."

But Robinson just wants to do his part to save a slice of history. He plans to keep going for at least five more years.

"Wooden buildings are important," he said. "We need to save the early ones to see where we came from and where we are."

And for Shull and his tobacco barn, that means giving up a bit of his past.