John T. Hanou, has spent over 40 years photographing and documenting North America’s round barns, beginning in Indiana and later expanding to Wisconsin, Illinois, other Midwestern states, and recently Vermont, New Hampshire, and Quebec’s Eastern Townships in Canada. You might say he is the ultimate specialist on the subject of round barns.

In his books he traces the development of octagonal and round barns in North America. His research shows that Vermont, Quebec, and New Hampshire followed these national origins but then evolved their own distinctive designs, including Quebec’s oval and octagonal barns and the Eastern Townships’ three‑story “half‑silo” barns with gambrel roofs.

His five books about Round Barns are:

A Round Illinois, the Round and Multi-sided Barns in the Prairie State

A Round Wisconsin, The Round and Multi-sided Barns in the Badger State

A Grand Isle Masterwork: The Davis/Parker True-Circular Barn

The Round and Multi-Sided Barns of North America

The Round and Multi-Sided Barns in Vermont, New Hampshire and Quebec

All of his books can be purchased at Blurb.com with this link:

https://www.blurb.ca/user/nhojuonah?filter=bookstore

The following is an excerpt from John’s Vermont, New Hampshire and Quebec book published in January 2025.  Thank you John for creating this valuable history and including our Canadian barns.

1907: William H. Holmes True-Circular Barn, Barnston-Ouest, Quebec – it was built by Ways Mills carpenter Willis Cramer in 1907 after Holmes lost his rectangular barn to fire. Fourteen posts hold up the barn’s 2-pitch gambrel roof, which is topped with a cupola.

Willis Cramer, Ways Mills, Coaticook, Quebec

Willis Adam Cramer (1870–1952) from Ways Mills, Quebec owned and operated the local lumber mill and he was also a builder. At least four round barns were built by him and his crew in the area around Barnston-Ouest and Coaticook, Quebec. These barns were built between 1907 and 1917, and three of the four are still standing. These are the Hiram William Henry Holmes barn (1907), the Hiram Wheeler barn (1907/1908), the Wright Parsons barn (1907–1915) and the James Arthur Breaky barn (1917). Because of their location, other barns that he may have built include the Walter Cooper Hanson barn (1905–1908), the Charles (Chas.) Cleveland barn (1915), the Thomas H. Walker barn (1908) and the Henry John Rudd barn (1910).

We believe Cramer probably got the idea from Charles H. Jackson who was building round barns just a few miles west of the Cramer barns. We speculate that the Harold S. B. Wheeler’s barn (Hiram Wheeler’s son) was built by Charles H. Jackson in 1905 and that Cramer may have furnished the lumber and perhaps helped Jackson build this barn, then once Cramer knew how to build a round barn he went on the build others. This is how F. L. Marsh, Emery McNamee, Benton Steele, Horace Duncan often worked where they would get a crew started on a barn then move on to other projects. Jackson probably did the same thing with Cramer.