![[1906 - The Coppock Barn, Monroe Township, Miami County, Ohio]](images/index/CoppockBarnMasthead2.jpg)
For the most part, the entries presented here are verbatim as originally recorded. However, most misspellings or word omissions have been corrected, while grammar and punctuation have not been. In a few cases, the language has been softened. The author sometimes became very frustrated with events, and that frustration was sometimes strongly reflected in an entry. On some occasions, entries stray a bit from the barn work at hand, but they none-the-less reflect what was on the author's mind at the time, and as such have been included here.
A number of identical footnotes appear throughout the log from month-to-month, so that each month's entries can be better understood on their own. For example, when a person is named in multiple month's log entries, that person is introduced by footnote at their first invocation in each month's log.
It should be noted that the author's primary concern was preserving the Pennsylvania Barn built by the Coppocks in 1857. As such, a great majority of the log entries concern work done there, as opposed to portions of the barn complex built many decades later, such as the milking parlor or grain storage bins.
When photographs were taken on the same day that a log entry was made, those photos can be viewed via the links in the calendar. In many cases, links to the photos can also be found within the log entry for that day.
Admittedly, reading this entire log would be a tedious task for almost all. It is, however, the only contemporaneous record of what occurred at the barn (along with photographs) during the period from its sale out of the Coppock family until it was demolished, and thus is rightly included on this website.
Days Logged in March: 14
Hours/Minutes Worked in March: Ken 20/20; Jim 19/20; Other(s) 8/00
Amount Expended in March: $704.30
| March 2004 |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |||
Blowing like hell at work today, so I drove by the barn on the way home. The northeast tarp 1 has been torn up; what a bunch of crap. Called Jim, 2 told him. We might work tomorrow if he doesn't have train 3 stuff. Weather is supposed to be crappy. Damn it, this means warm with more wind.
Saturday, the 6th
Drove by the barn, and both sides of the old north tarp are hosed up. The doors look like they might have moved some too on the west. There's nothing I can do, and of course I'm disappointed, so I haven't really gone up and looked up close. Will probably do that tomorrow morning, when I'm maybe more in the mood for bad news. I've made up my mind, we are really going to screw those boards down 4 this time - I'm tired of messing with it.
Monday, the 8th
Talked to Jim at length about how we could keep the tarps down. Looks like we'll use some sort of clamp, 5 or lash the wood to the rafters somehow. We talked about this on the phone for quite a while. It will involve working from inside and outside, but we need to keep the boards down - that's what keeps failing.
Wednesday, the 10th
Talked to Jim briefly and told him that Roscoe Black 6 was coming up 13 March (I called Roscoe 5 March and arranged it after he called mother 7 about it), and that Tom 8 would likely be there to clear the south fence too. He wasn't sure he could make it, but is supposed to let me know. I want to clear the area by the wall so Leshers 9 can park their cars there. Also verified Jim got my e-mail about Leshers asking him to plow them a garden. Jim mentioned we might be able to get the pump working in the Spring house. 10 Sometime last week he went out to get the top soil he wanted and checked the pump and saw water at 5 or 6 feet.
Saturday, the 13th
Arrived at the barn at around 8:30AM. Tom showed up and cleared the south fence, spending about 4 hours working. Jim worked from 9:30AM to 5PM on the tractor, clearing an incredible amount of brush. I walked and helped with brush clearing, and was horribly exhausted when done. As usual, Mark 11, Jim's friend, came up and spent a few hours working on the pump in the spring house, eventually installing a new motor but couldn't get water pressure. I can now paint the spring house and cover the windows and fix the roof leaks, which I hope to do soon. Beautiful day started out cold but was very comfortable until the end of the day when the wind picked up and I started to freeze. Roscoe Black came out to look at the barn, and talked a little about Sid 12 running a wagon into the top of the barn because the hay was too tall. He didn't like me not owning the land, 13 and was sad to hear houses would likely go in, because of kids and vandalism. He mentions the Culver? Homestead which suffered a similar fate and kids burned the barn down. Just what I needed to hear!
Tuesday, the 16th
Major snow storm - base closed, but of course not until after I got down there. I called about electric to the barn. It was kind of a goofy call, because the girl I talked to couldn't get it straight where the barn was. Then, I confused her with "owning the barn, leasing the land" explanation. The head of utilities is supposed to call me back about it. 14 I'm thinking I'll have to get BS 15 involved.
Saturday, the 20th
Jim and I went to Lowes 16 and I bought a push mower. We also scoped out Turpentine, and some rods for installing tarp hold downs. On the way back, Jim came up with an interesting twist on the tarp hold downs - putting them down and stretching the tarp between them. I'm mulling that over this afternoon. We spent an hour on the Lowes trip. Jim's friend Mark may have located a pump for the spring house for free. Stopped by gg-grandfather's grave 17, as I had also done in 2002 and 2003. Later in the day, Jim called and he and Mark were at the spring house and wanted to try it again, as they got the prime plug out. They came down and helped me get the generator into the SUV, and we went up, and worked about an hour. No luck, but we did take the well pipe off and brought it up through a hole in the roof. I'm really thinking it's time just to get a new one, as I don't want them to waste any more time on it (and I don't want to pay Jim anymore to screw with it).
Monday, the 22nd
Talked to Jim at length on the phone about how we are going to hold the tarps down this time. We are definitely going to lash or clamp the boards to the rafters, and then probably lay the tarp down on top and then Jim can "quickly" nail boards on top the tarp to hold the tarp down. We plan to try to install one set of hold-down boards this weekend on the roof if Jim doesn't have train stuff come up. We can see how well it works, and how long it takes, and then we can decide if we want to deploy hold-down boards over the rest of the roof still not covered.
Thursday, the 25th
Jim called; we discussed further out strategy for how to do the roof hold-downs to rafters. He figured we can do it using a rope so I can feed up stuff from the inside and we don't have to climb inside. We plan to get the stuff we need Saturday and work on putting up one good set by the end of the weekend. I asked about how much time he put-in on the moron 18 last Saturday, and he said one hour.
Friday, the 26th
Talked before and after the train net 19 about what we do tomorrow.
Saturday, the 27th
We started at 9:30am and ended about 3:45pm. Given our breaks, Jim charged for 5.5 hours work. We went to Lowes and got enough hardware to do a couple prototype clamps for the board/rafter clamps we had come up with, and then we made two of them in Jim's garage. Then went out to the barn and decided where we should try it, and how many we would have to make in total and where all the boards would be placed. A nice warn Saturday, finally. It also seems the rotted purlin to the north had moved more, so we talked about how to stop that. We agreed to work again tomorrow morning, and try to mount one board using clamps. If it works, then we'll buy more materials soon and get Jim working on producing the 80 some we will likely need. Also looked at well pumps at Lowes, and Dalton 20 sent me an e-mail earlier about his friend's pump for sale. I also purchased some paint scrapers, and found out scraping will be like running my nails over a chalk board! Looked at some slides Don Jr. sent. They include our farm sale!!!! 21
Sunday, the 28th
Jim and I worked 3 hrs. 35 min. in the morning and early afternoon on installing the first two hold-down clamps on the roof. We got them installed, and the board mounted on top. Jim reports it is very secure. Took about two hours. We then went up to Lowes and got materials so he could make more brackets during the week.
Tuesday, the 30th
Jim called and we talked about how to deploy the tarps. Agreed to go out tomorrow night and inventory the boards.
Wednesday, the 31st
Jim and I went up to take inventory of the boards I had we could use on the roof, and he checked out some more things about the rafters. Didn't charge me - it took about 45 minutes. He thought he would make around 20 more tomorrow. We agreed to work this weekend and try to install all of them.
1. The barn's roof was arguably the most serious problem among the many causing the barn's slow decay. As such, as soon as I took control of the barn, my first priority was to cover the roof to stop the many leaks that were responsible for so much damage inside the barn. Comments about the tarps come up quite often throughout my log entries, as covering the roof was so critical to the barn's continued survival. It also turned out to be a very difficult thing to do effectively, as winds passing over the roof played havoc with the tarps, no matter how they were held in place. The tarps were by far the most frustrating thing I dealt with in my time working at the barn. Return to March 5th entry
2. James C. Gumbert, a close friend of mine since we met in elementary school around 1965. Jim did much of the most dangerous and physically demanding work on the barn. This entire barn preservation project would not have been possible without him. He also took hundreds of photographs initially to help us document the barn as we first found it. Return to March 5th entry
3. Jim is a railroading enthusiast, and he may have had some sort of meeting or otherwise, related to that hobby. Return to March 5th entry
4. To continue with the comments found in footnote 1 above, we used 2x4 boards in an attempt to hold the tarps down on the roof. The initial procedure was to nail a 2x4 to the rafter (the nails would pass through the shingles) just underneath it. The tarp would then be placed on top of the 2x4, and another 2x4 would be placed on top of the tarp and nailed down. This sandwiched the tarp tightly between the boards. Jim and I found that nailing didn't work well, so we moved to lag bolts. They also failed over time, as the wind was constantly trying to lift the tarps off the roof, eventually loosening one or both 2x4's. It became clear that nailing or screwing the 2x4's through the shingles to the rafters would not work. We came up with a type of clamp, described in more detail in footnote #5 below, to solve this problem. Return to March 6th entry
5. The successful solution to holding down the 2x4's (and thus the tarp - see footnotes 1 and 4) was to attach the roof 2x4's to the rafters using a sort of hook, or clamp as I called it. It was Jim's idea - we bought threaded rod, around 3/16 of an inch in diameter, and cut it into lengths of 16 inches or so. We also procured thin strap steel that was cut into short lengths, heated, and bent around one end of the threaded rod. Enough room remained on the rod for a nut and washer to be attached, effectively preventing the strap steel from ever sliding off that end of the rod. This resulted in a rod with a piece of steel at one end about four inches long, forming an L-shaped object. On the roof, Jim would drill a hole through a set of 2x4's previously installed on the roof, sandwiching the tarp. This hole was large enough for the 3/16-inch rod to pass through. Once the hole was drilled, Jim would pass fishing line through the hole and down to me on the upper level floor of the barn. I would tape the line to the threaded rod, and Jim would pull the clamp up, with the rod passing through the hole he drilled. Using walkie talkies, I would tell Jim when the steel strap on the rod was perpendicular to the line of the rafter, and he would place a large washer and nut on the end he had. By tightening the nut and washer down onto the board, Jim effectively clamped the boards on the roof to the underlying rafter. Several of these clamps were applied to each of the 2x4's across the entire run of the roof. It was quite ingenious and worked well. It took a long time to fabricate and place the more than 80 clamps, but it was one of our biggest successes at the barn. Return to March 8th entry
6. Roscoe B. Black (June 29, 1918 - October 28, 2014). As I understand it, Roscoe's mother Florence (Pearson) Black was a sister to my grandmother, Olive (Pearson) Coppock. Roscoe was quite a character. He had an artificial arm with hook; I believe he lost his arm in a farming accident in his youth. As with so many I knew from his generation, I wish I would have had the foresight to ask him about his family and their part in the history of Tipp City and the surrounding area. Return to March 10th entry
7. My mother, Martha Coppock Noffsinger Roberts (December 1, 1920 - January 12, 2017). Mother was born in the farmhouse about 200 feet from the barn. She died at Randall Residence of Tipp City, mere feet from where the Coppock barn once stood. Return to March 10th entry
8. Tom Kielbaso was a co-worker of mine at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Return to March 10th entry
9. Joe Lesher (April 18, 1941 - June 3, 2019) and wife Emilie purchased the Coppock Homestead house and immediate surrounding grounds (not including the barn and most out-buildings) on May 29, 2002. Emilie and Joe kindly permitted Jim Gumbert and I access to the barn via their driveway. Without permission to use their drive, the barn work would have been impossible. For that, I'll always be thankful to them. Return to March 10th entry
10. "Spring house" refers to the building that I call the Milk House on this website. It was used to store milk until it could be consumed or sold. A well inside the house supplied water to cool the milk. It probably dated to around 1900. Return to March 10th entry
11. Mark Ward from Franklin, Ohio. Mark was a friend of Jim's; they met at R. L. Drake Company when Jim worked there. Mark became a friend of mine also as he made several helpful visits to the barn to assist Jim and me. All three of us are Amateur (ham) Radio operators, and we operated from the barn on a few occasions. Return to March 13th entry
12. The land directly east of the barn, and just across the road, was owned by the Smith family and their heirs for probably more than 100 years. The last person to live on the land, Sid Smith, died around 1971. Sid was friends with many of the Coppocks for the eight or so decades he lived across from the Coppock Homestead. Return to March 13th entry
13. I told Roscoe about my purchase of the barn itself, but with a promise of land and access later. He wasn't shy about telling me that it was a bad deal. I, in turn, tried to make him understand I didn't make the deal under those terms because I was stupid, but because those were the ONLY terms the owner would agree to. To save the barn, it was that arrangement, or none. I'm not sure he was convinced I couldn't have somehow done better. He wanted a photo of himself with the barn. I took one, printed it and sent it to him. I understand he liked it. Return to March 13th entry
14. An unimportant point now, but I don't think I ever got a call back. We eventually brought Jim's large generator out to the barn, and that supplied our electrical needs for the time we were working there. Return to March 16th entry
15. "BS" refers to the "Barn Seller", the person who sold me the Coppock barn. Return to March 16th entry
16. This is the Lowes Home Improvement Warehouse located on the west side of Troy, Ohio on State Route 41. On very rare occasions Jim and I would visit the Lowes in Huber Heights, Ohio. Return to March 20th entry
17. My great-great-grandparents, Samuel and Delana Coppock, built the Coppock Homestead in the late 1850's, as detailed elsewhere on this site. After the sale of the Homestead out of the family in 2001, in addition to trying to preserve the barn, I developed a strong interest in genealogy. I soon came upon accounts of my great-great-grandparents' lives, including their birth and death dates, as well as their place of burial. I decided at that time to visit their graves at Maple Hill Cemetery in Tipp City, on the 101st anniversary of Samuel's death on March 20, 2002. Each year since then, I've come back on that date to pay my respects at their graves. Sometime around the year 2012 the visit slipped my mind and I was a day or two late, but other than that, I have been there faithfully each year. I will continue to return each year, as long as I'm physically able, for the rest of my life. As of this writing, it's been just a few weeks since my 2020 visit. My visitation each year is a physical manifestation of my respect for all of my ancestors, and people like them, that lived very challenging lives during the early years of the territory. I also regularly virtually visit many relatives' graves on the Find A Grave website. Return to March 20th entry
18. This is obviously a misspelling introduced when I created the entry originally. I am unable to determine what word should have been typed, but I'm certain it shouldn't have been "moron". Return to March 25th entry
19. Jim and I are Amateur (ham) Radio operators. The "train net" was a meeting of ham operators who would gather on a particular ham radio frequency at a specific time, to discuss various railroading related topics. Although not a railroading hobbyist like Jim, I did enjoy participating in the net, none-the-less. Return to March 26th entry
20. David Dalton was a co-worker of mine at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Return to March 27th entry
21. Don Jr. is my cousin, Donald Elsworth Kessler, Jr. (April 26, 1946 - August 8, 2009). His father, my uncle Donald E. Kessler Sr., was a shutterbug. I contacted Don Jr. about gaining access to his late father's photographs, in hopes some might augment my genealogical research. Don eventually brought me hundreds of his father's 35 mm slides taken over many years. A number of them were of great interest to me, including the ones alluded to in my entry about my parents' auction of our farm buildings, equipment and animals in February, 1964. Return to March 27th entry