Chronicles of Notre Dame du Lac
Edward Sorin, CSC -- Translated by John M. Toohey, CSC, 1895

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1845

pg 80                              Chapter IV.  Year 1845 
 
                                        1.  The Barn

                  Poverty alone had caused the question of a barn to be left so 
             long as a mere project.  On a farm of such an extent everybody 
             agreed that if was an immediate necessity; but it would be an 
             expense of about 4000fr.  Finally, the matter having been agreed 
             upon in council, the foundations were dug at the beginning of this 
             summer, and everything was in readiness for the harvest.  
                  The dimensions were 80 x 40 ft.  Under the entire length and 
             breadth of the building is a basement of 8 ft in height which can 
             winter two hundred sheep, and in which all the potatoes and other 
             roots that the farm produces and that need to be protected from 
             freezing may be stored away.
                  This barn is the finest in the whole surrounding country.  
             The ground floor can hold in sheaves 2,000 bushels of wheat, 
             1000bu. of oats, 500 bu. of barley, leaving in the middle plenty
             of room for threshing, winnowing, etc.  In a word, it is the bank 
             and the treasury of the farm.  It is solid enough to last twenty-
             five or thirty years.