The 30th barn quilt for the Barn Quilts of Oconto County project was hung June 30 at the Koehne family farm in Little Suamico. The Koehnes treated the barn quilt painters and volunteers to a cookout and hayride as part of the installation celebration.
The Koehne family farm was homesteaded by Henry Koehne, who served in the Civil War from 1861 to 1863. Bill Koehne, the current owner, is Henry Koehne’s great-grandson. Henry moved into the Little Suamico area as a hunter and a trapper, then cleared the timber off the land with oxen and began dairy farming.
Henry’s son, Fred, and his wife, Hattie, continued dairy farming, as did Bill’s father and mother, Henry and May. Bill and his wife, Pat, continued dairy and crop farming and later started a log home business on the property.
The barn was lifted up 8 feet using jacks. The basement (lower half) was then constructed using fieldstone and mortar. This created room for 34 Holstein cows, calf pens and two teams of Belgian horses. The top half became the haymow. The cornerstone of the basement area remains today and is dated 1884.
After the cows moved out, the log home business operated out of the barn’s top half as the saw and finishing mill. The top half of the barn was built around 1881, and is post and beam construction, with 40-foot long, hand-hewn beams 12- by 16-inch in size.
Bill and Pat Koehne live in one of their log homes milled from the farm. Five children were raised on the farm. A total of seven generations of the Koehne family have lived on the farm, and it continues to be family-owned today.
Volunteers from Oconto Electric Cooperative installed the quilt.
For information about the Barn Quilts of Oconto County project, visit barnquiltsofocontocounty.weebly.com.
