Mish Barn

Built by Henry Mish, who migrated from York County, Pennsylvania, to this farm in 1839, this impressive brick barn with a frame forebay illustrates the diffusion of the forebay bank barn from southeastern Pennsylvania into the Shenandoah Valley. Although the bank barn became the most popular form in Augusta County during the nineteenth century, this is the only known pre–Civil War brick example to have survived in the county, where the majority of early barns are of log construction. Lending distinction to the barn are the decorative brick lattice ventilators in the gable ends. The barn has remained in continual use on this family farm, which also includes a mid-nineteenth-century Greek Revival brick farmhouse with a Georgian plan, a log tenant house, and several outbuildings.