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Deciphering secrets of the Barn

Guest Commentary

By MICHAEL SMITH

Published: September 20, 2009

Golfers from the Champions Tour have been prowling the Rock Barn course, hoping to discover the secrets that Robert Trent Jones Jr. strategically designed into the undulating environs of Lyle's Creek.

Meanwhile, not far from the Jones course, two antiquity sleuths have been investigating the remnants of the original Rock Barn.

This impressive stone structure once served as a community landmark.

Empty now, weathered and almost forgotten, it no longer hosts military musters, dances, or political rallies.

Local tradition holds that it was built in the 1820s by Squire Frederick Hoke, who had moved to Lyle's Creek from York County, Pennsylvania. German settlers in that county were noted for building splendid stone barns, though none had been documented this far south.

But now, two experts — Dr. Robert Hart, renowned for the many 18th- and 19th-century buildings he painstakingly re-constructed at the famous Hart's Square, and Professor Robert Ensminger, author of "The Pennsylvania Barn, Its Origin, Evolution, and Distribution in North America" – have decoded the history of the Rock Barn.

Hart visited the barn and examined rafters, nails, pegs, stone assembly and other indicators only an expert could decipher.

Ensminger analyzed photos, including close-ups, and conferred with Dr. Hart by phone.

They agreed that the rock barn represents a Pennsylvania-type bank barn, built in the early 1800's.

Frederick Hoke was in the vanguard of the "Pennsylvania-Dutch" German migration into the Catawba valley. His impressive stone barn made a statement: I am here, enduring, and I intend to prosper.

And prosper he did, acquiring vast land holdings known as the Rock Barn Plantation, also called Hokesville.

It is here, many years later, that gladiators of the Champions Tour do Battle at the Barn.

Note: Michael Smith is a retired history professor now living in Conover. He is currently researching and writing a history of Rock Barn Golf and Spa. He thanks Dr. Hart and Professor Ensminger for their expertise in documenting the original Rock Barn.