ArchiCamp barn raising

ArchiCamp in Delphi is a hands-on camp where youth ages 8-12 have fun while learning about history, architecture, and restoration.

The award-winning camp is sponsored by Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana, the Wabash & Erie Canal Interpretive Center, and Delphi Preservation Society.

Seventeen kids attended this year's camp June 23 and 24 at Canal Park and on the John and Mary Mears farm, near Delphi.

On the first day, they traveled by trolley to the Mears farm and then time-traveled back to 19th century farm life. They learned about barn types, experienced using old barn building tools, and as a team, actually built a 6-foot, scale model barn.

Al Auffart led the tool lesson, giving youth a chance to try the cross cut saw, shaving horse, draw knife for making pegs, and augers for drilling holes.

Claire Wilcher, Indiana State Fair education program coordinator, gave instructions while the children built the model timber frame barn, also called a peg barn. As they worked, the youth learned a barnbuilding vocabulary, such as mortise and tenon, bent, girt, and brace.

Wilcher said settlers would build their barn before their home, and neighbors would all pitch in to help.

Joe Kitchel explained the various barn types, led the campers on a tour of the Mears barn, and narrated a barn trolley tour through Carroll County's Rural Historic District, which includes the Mears property.

At mid day, the youth traveled in a horse-drawn wagon and ate a sack lunch along historic Deer Creek.

On the second day, campers saw a barn slide show, presented by Tom Ives, went on a walking tour of urban barns with Ives and Kitchel, and built their own barn frame models from kits - a souvenir to take home.

Other highlights of the day were riding and having lunch on a replica canal boat and touring the interactive Interpretive Center.