Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: 363/365

The Thorp Barn

24 Feb 2015 1 646
This barn's standing alone and abandoned south of Sunfield, Michigan. Being me, I had to find out more. The farm currently belongs to the George L and Mary Thorp Trust, but the barn was apparently built by another George Thorp in the 1880s. The farm was Thorp family property in 1860, if not earlier, but was substantially unimproved. According to self-provided information published 1891, George B and Betsey moved to the farm in 1883, but a federal agricultural census has George (and presumably Betsey, since they'd married in 1870) on the farm in 1880, growing a little bit of everything. What's clear is that George and Betsey transformed the land from a substantially-forested place to a working farm. One of those improvements was this large barn. The barn's now abandoned, as you can see. A sad fate for a proud structure. Sources: Chapman Publishers' 1891 Portrait and Biographical Album of Barry and Eaton Counties , and information from Ancestry.com.