Records indicate that the house at 21 Lakemans Lane was constructed by John Manning 3rd after he inherited the farm from his father in 1795, having a “dwelling house, outhouses, fences, orchards, trees, woods, herbage, springs, water courses, ways, rights, benefits, profits, commodities, conveniences, accommodations, privileges and appurtenances.”

Charlotte Lindgren at her family’s poultry farm on Lakemans Lane in the 1930’s

Inside the John Manning barn on Lakemans Lane

The John Manning Barn

The barn to the west of the house features hand-hewn post and beam framing with gunstock corner posts, and may predate the farm house. The form of construction can be traced to England before American colonization, but persisted into the mid-19th Century in Eastern New England. From “Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn: The Connected Farm Buildings of New England“:

“In the older agricultural areas of southern New England, the English barn was frequently enlarged laterally with additions added to either side of the central drive. This produced a long, multiple-door barn type similar to earlier English examples.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the English barn is its elaborate framing system, particularly the complex corner joint, often called a flared or gunstock-post system. This method of joining structural members predates the fourteenth century in England, and it is a remarkable example of the persistence of a medieval construction system into the middle of the nineteenth century. Although complicated from a modern perspective, this elaborate connection solved a difficult jointing problem involving the junction of four major structural members within a system of all-wood construction (without the use of metal connectors or nails for structural reinforcement).

The roof framing system of English barns in Maine, eastern Massachusetts, and New Hampshire is generally a major-rafter, minor-purlin system. Its distinctive tapered or gunstock rafter and multiple purlins are identical to those employed in almost all pre-1810 houses of the region.”

Gunstock wall post in the John Manning barn.

Sources:

• Publications of the Ipswich Historical Society, Volume 12
• Genealogical and biographical history of the Manning families of New England and descendants
• Charlotte Lindgren
• 1832 Ipswich map
• 1872 Ipswich map
• Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn: The Connected Farm Buildings of New England
• Charlotte Lindgren’s story about growing up on Lakemans Lane.