Restoration Road (2021–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Montana Grist Mill - full transcript

When you
first lay eyes on them,

there are places in America
that can actually
take your breath away.

And this is one of them.

The Schoharie Valley
of upstate New York.

The rich soil
and lush farmlands
of this valley

were one of
the earliest settlements

of the young
American colonies.

And looking around,
you can feel the history here.

I've come here
with Kevin Durkin
of Heritage Restorations

to explore
a centuries old structure

that stood watch
over a lot of that history.



Why are we here?

We're here for
that barn over there.

I'm Clint Harp.

And I'm traveling America
to shed a light

on some
incredible restorations
and transformations.

Get hands on
with some of the builders

bringing these
amazing places
back to life

and make sure
these new stories
live on for years to come.

Whoo! Isn't she a beauty?

This is
Restoration Road.

What's special
about this barn?

Well, Dutch barns are
like a work of art.

There are more
Stradivarius violins

in the world
than Dutch barns.



Really?

They're
an unusual barn dating
back to medieval times,

that the Dutch settlers
brought that farm.

So you had these wonderful
European craftsmen come

and meet the American forest
which was incredible wood.

So you had the most
amazing wood in the world

and great craftsmen.

And they built
these beautiful barns.

But most all were burned here.

Burned here?
So what do you mean
burned here?

They were growing
wheat here.

This valley,
believe it or not,

was the bread basket
of America at one time.

- Really?
- There was no mid-west.

This was the frontier.

- This is the frontier
right here.
- This is it.

Look at
those mountains.

This is the furthest
west settlement...

- Okay.
- ...at that time.

Settled about 1715.

And then the American
revolution comes up.

It was feeding
Washington's armies.

So, strategically, it was
a very important place.

The British Army's in Canada,
it's in New York City.

They can come here
and destroy the wheat supply.

- Hmm.
- And sure enough,

October 1780, they came.

- Who is they?
- Well,

- it was the British
out of Canada.
- Okay.

- Sir John Johnson came...
- Okay.

Joseph Brant
and about 1000 men came.

They started at
one end of the valley

and they burned their way

to the other end
of the valley.

About 600 buildings
were torched.

Mostly barns.

So that brings up
the question,

Did that survive the burning
of all this wheat and land
and other barns?

That's quite a story
if thousands of men

came down here,
burning everything in sight
and somehow,

this guy survives.

- Possible, but look at it.
- Possible.

Look at the hill
that we're on.

- Yeah.
- They may have gone by.

Let's go check it out.

So here we go.

Oh!

Kevin, my goodness!

I mean, I've seen
some messes in my life.

But wow, Kevin.

- Well, we gotta have vision.
- Yeah.

We're gonna read this.

I think there's
the bones in here...

Okay.

- ...of an early
Dutch barn.
- Right.

What we're looking at
is the skeleton.

The timber frame on the inside

- that we can work with.
- Okay.

And is that
salvageable to put back
together again

is what we want
to determine.

No matter how
the outside looks,

we wanna see
what's going on inside.

Where are we going with it?

We're gonna take it out
west to Montana

and turn it into a working
18th century gristmill.

- What a journey this thing's about to go on.
- -Yep.

Oh, man, this is
really and truly...

I mean, it's a mess,

but boy you can see
the beauty here. Wow.

How much of this place

is the original building?
And how early is it?

Which is kind of
the fun mystery
in all of this.

First of all, we're standing
about seven feet above
the original floor levels.

- So this...
- Really?

We're standing on
the floor they built.

This floor was not here.

There is a floor downstairs,

so we're up in
the barn right now.

This beam here
goes all the way down to...

- Oh, okay.
- It does. You got it.

- Exactly.
- Oh, my goodness.

Why is there
a downstairs?
What...

Well, they altered it

to have two floors
and a milking parlor

- downstairs.
- Okay.

So we're standing upstairs.

These beams would be
eleven feet in the air.

And they will be
when they restore it.

Wow.

That's crazy.
This is gonna be
an incredibly tall...

- Oh, yeah. Yes.
- Ceiling.

- Wow.
- Like 30 feet.

Oh, my God!

From the ridge
to the floor.

Oh.
That's gonna be beautiful.

What's original?
We've got original rafters.

Look at these rafters.

- They're hand-hewn.
- Right.

Okay.
That's a big deal

- on a Dutch barn.
- Okay.

Because it's such a wide roof,

these rafters
are almost 30 feet long.

One piece of wood.

We've got ten pairs
of rafters here.

Few missing ones.

That's wonderful right there.

- Okay.
- Look at this overhead.

This is the purlin plate
sitting on an arcade post.

And these big beams in here

are called anchors.

Uh, these anchors...

- Ah...
- Yeah.

- I mean.
- They're impressive.

- Wow.
- Look at this sign though.

- See the peak up here?
- Yes.

There is no
wedge beam in the barn.

- Right.
- This...

This... This is adding up,
earlier and earlier.

Look what you
see up there.
See that...

See where the rafters
are coming together

- up in there?
- Yes.

- Look at the size...
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
- Oh, look at the trunk.

- Good Lord, have mercy!
- Look at every one of them.

They're this long.

I've never seen
them like that.

This is pointing to a barn
that hasn't been moved.

It's originally here,
and it's... I'm saying,

talking an early barn,
but I'm...

We gotta... We gotta do
some more exploring.

You lead the way.

Careful.

Yeah, don't fall through
the floor, Kevin, please.

Oh, here, look.
This is doing it.

- This is telling us...
- Okay.

Here, now, I...
Look at this.

- Whoa!
- Yeah.

Look at that tenon.

Yeah.

That through tenon
is just glorious.

Wow!

It's distinctive
for a Dutch barn.

Okay.

How so? Rounded?

The rounded,
and it's what you said.

It's a through tenon,
it comes through
the arcade.

Normally, tenons are
cut off here.

Why did they leave this on?

- Yeah.
- Why did they do that?

They say that
they thought that

that they would
help the structure.

But I think they know today
through engineering

it doesn't,
but they were distinctive.

- Yeah. It's very distinctive.
- Yeah.

And every maker

would do his differently.

Like, some of them
are square,

Some of them
are clipped corners.

- Some come out further.
- Okay.

It's a distinctive
kind of thing.

- It's gorgeous.
I love it.
- Yeah.

But this is interesting.
This dates it early.

What's that.
And what is that?

- These marking here.
- Yeah.

I've heard you say
marriage marks before.

It's the marriage marks.

That's what this is.

This is how they
married the building together.

Why did they have
one, two, three here,
one, two, three here,

five over there and five...

When this barn,
before it was stood

and it was all laying
in parts on the ground,

the builder went around
one, two, three,
one, two, three,

telling himself
where all the parts go.

This is the most simple...
And we still do it today.

Yeah.

These went away
about early 1800s.

So this is before 1800.

Okay.

Is this an early Dutch barn?

Did this survive
the burnings and...

the invasion of this valley
in other words?

- Yes.
- Correct?

It's looking like it,
because the size...

Look at the size
of this beam here.

I mean this...

I mean...
I mean this,

- it's majestic.
- Yeah.

So, taking it all in,

all the marriage marks,

the raising holes...
I mean, all of this,

how confident are you
that this barn

is in fact from 1700s,
pre-Revolutionary War,

and didn't get burned down

in the invasion
coming down from Canada,
etcetera, etcetera?

Well, we've done
a lot of Dutch barns.

Intuitively, it's got
all these signs.

I'm thinking,
by a lot of things,

it's a pre-Revolutionary War
Dutch barn.

Wow.

To think that
this barn survived

the British raids of 1780
is truly remarkable,

and makes me
appreciate even more

what a rare treasure
this structure is.

Where do we go from here?
What's next?

Well, let's bring on the guys
to disassemble it.

That survived
the British raids of 1780,

and Kevin has just the crew
to get the job done.

This is pretty sketchy here,
just so you know.

It's all fun and games
until...

- Exactly.
- ...somebody falls.

Dismantling a barn this old
and this is bad a shape
is going to take a while.

So we're going
one step at a time.

First step,
peel off this roof.

Start ripping
the roof, guys.

Hop in.

So, one important
thing to remember,

- once you've got to the roof board...
- -Yeah?

...try to keep
your weight over a rafter.

Yeah. I'm on
this one over here.

I love how right before
we dug into this, you said,

"I hope there's
no bees in there."

They didn't
waste any nails.

Yeah.

At least this isn't hard work.
Good Lord.

Now you get appreciation
how I deserve my money, Kevin?

Work continues
on deconstructing

this 270-year-old barn
in Upstate New York.

As Steve's guys work
on stripping away
the roof up top,

Kevin and I get
busy down below.

We've got to go right
around the whole building,
take everything off.

Heads up, Clint.
It could come
right in our face.

See, we'll save these boards.
What do you think?

These are wire nails?

- No, these are...
- Is that a rosette?

- No, it's a...
- So it's not that old.

- It's a cut nail.
- It's a cut nail.

Yeah, see? It's cut.

So, they'd feed a piece
of steel into a cutter,

so it jogs it as it goes in
so you get a taper on it.

- Right.
- And then they'd
later form the head,

so they'd cut
these blanks out.

And you can see. See how
this edge is rounded off?

- Yes.
- -That's where the cutter

smashed down on it.

So, this would go
through the machine

and it would drop
a nail off every time.

That's, you know,
19th century,

so I'm a little surprised
this siding is...

That's wire nails in it, too,

where they kind of
bolstered it up later on.

- That's cool.
- -Pretty interesting stuff.

You should show up
to these sites

with, like, your
Dick Tracy outfit on.

A detective.

Private investigator.

- That's what we are.
- Yeah.

You're a BI.
A barn investigator.

You don't like
that name, Kevin?

No, that doesn't stick.

You can be the BI.

Slowly but surely,
board by board, nail by nail,

the barn starts to come down.

While the crew continues
to strip everything away

to get to the hand-hewn frame,

Kevin and I decide to
explore this gorgeous valley
a bit more

and to talk about
the tumultuous times
this barn was created in.

Hearing this
sound of the river,

seeing these trees...

They're beautiful,
by the way,
'cause it's fall.

I am taken back.

It's not like
it's changed a whole lot
since the 1750s.

This was the frontier
at that time.

We're in the area of
James Fenimore Cooper,
The Last of the Mohicans.

A dangerous area.

The French and Indian War
is that clash between
the French and their allies,

and the British
and the American
colonists at the time,

right on this frontier.
So, you had...

You had raids going on
back and forth,

you had a young man
who became a British officer.

They say he fired
the first shot and killed
a French officer.

- Really?
- And kind of ignited the war.

His name was
George Washington.

I think I've heard that name.

But the French
and Indian War ignited
the American Revolution.

Mm-hm.

Because Britain won that war,
got Canada,

and had to pay for the war.

So, who are they going to get
to pay for the war?

- American colonists.
- Right.

And then, they said
"No taxation without
representation,"

and that's what sparked
the American Revolution
and resulted

in the British raiding
this valley in 1780.

There's just an immense amount
of history all around us.

It's literally woven
into the barn.

This is amazing.

Over the next few weeks,

Kevin's crew continues
to take this barn down
timber by timber.

And, after several weeks,

that barn that survived
the British raids of 1780

is fully deconstructed
and ready
for its next chapter.