Eli Whitney completed the barn in 1816 after a year of transition in which the War of 1812 had ended, his armory had won a new federal contract, and he had turned 50. Writing to his friend Josiah Stebbins in Maine for help securing timbers, Whitney inspired Stebbins to guess that he was beginning to construct a life for himself, and Stebbins teased that a proper house and then a wife might follow; the bachelor Whitney married Henrietta Frances Edwards in 1817. The barn is the largest surviving artifact of Whitney's mind at work, with Square Rule construction that early applied precision and interchangeability practices to barn building. It housed the draft animals, horses and oxen, that moved materials and products between the site and the harbor. Its New England end-gable orientation let farmers drive wagons through it, and its four levels allowed efficient unloading, storage, and feeding of hay and fodder. Its inventive details impressed travel writers and visiting American presidents, while its simple elegance and Palladian arches confirmed Stebbins' sense that Whitney had become mindful of respectability and legacy. In the same year Whitney finished the barn, New Haven architect Ithiel Town completed Trinity Church on the Green, and as Whitney quarried stone for the barn's foundation he also supplied Town with stone for the church. Preservation and changing uses have sustained the barn over time: in 1816 Whitney's 10-year-old nephew Philos Blake made simple drawings that later guided preservation; in 1860 Whitney's son built the large dam and the New Haven Water Company, Whitney Avenue moved closer to the barn, and the water company used and maintained it with little change until 1979; in 1904 a filtration plant rose on the hillside behind it, a slate roof replaced the cedar shake roof, and a gabled wing replaced the original oxen wing on the south; in 1930 the last draft horses retired; in 1950 the floor decking was replaced; in 1979 the Water Authority contributed the barn to help establish the museum, where music, dance, theater, and cultural programs are presented; in 2001 a new Whitney Water Treatment Plant was built with a landscape plan resembling the barn's original setting; and in 2012 a major restoration funded by the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development rebuilt the South Wing to resemble its original configuration and to accommodate an independent Artist-in-Residence.

Photo: Conrad Ward

Photo: Conrad Ward