Acadian Archives

Original photo caption: “Landry’s East Side of Barn. has a cellar used as a potato bin. used to be used as an animal bin.”

This image showcases the gambrel roof style prevalent in barns of northern Aroostook County, another feature that marks County barns as distinct, according to Don Perkins’ The Barns of Maine. He credits this to “a combination of ethnic influence and the region’s [comparatively] late settlement.” Perkins notes that this roof style can help date a barn, as most were built after 1900, between the first and second world wars -- and that the design’s popularity seems to have spread to the rest of the state from Aroostook County. Gambrel roofs are locally called colm-casse, or broken comb.

David Gilbert's pictures of the Landry barn did not include a specific location either as a caption or as a descriptor. Other items in his collection featured buildings in Eagle Lake and on the Little Black River. When contacted in 2022, Mr. Gilbert could not be certain of the Landry barn's exact location, but proved fairly confident that these pictures were taken on the north side of the main road in St. Francis.