Dendrochronological dating of the Warner House and barn (20LV334), Livingston County, Michigan, USA

The Timothy and Lucretia (Jones) Warner Homestead is located in Brighton, Michigan. For over eight years, a descendant of the Warner family has been excavating the site and restoring the Greek Revival house located on the property. Although already listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), a dendrochronological study of the property provides independent scientific evidence to verify the dating of the house and present a possible construction timeline for the homestead. A total of 13 timber samples, 10 from the Warner House and three saved from a previously destroyed barn, were sent to us for dendrochronological dating. Eight of the samples, six from the house and two from the barn, crossdated statistically with each other and were used to build a floating 181- year tree-ring chronology. Using a white oak (Quercus alba L.) reference chronology (Cranbrook Institute in Michigan, MI005.crn) available from the International Tree-Ring Data Bank, we absolutely dated the tree-ring chronology from the Warner House and barn to the period 1718-1898 (r = 0.45, n = 181 years, t = 6.74, p < 0.0001). The two crossdated white oak samples from the barn indicated harvest between fall 1876 and spring 1877. Five samples from the Warner House indicated tree harvesting occurred between fall 1853 and spring 1855, which corroborates the year of construction (1855) determined by documentary analysis for the NRHP. Findings also support one phase of construction for the house, rather than multiple phases, which had originally been postulated based on architectural details. One sample that dated to 1899 also suggests a later renovation with the erection of a dividing wall. The two samples from the barn post-date the construction of the house, supporting the progressive farm model that suggests that large barns were built only after a timber frame home was erected. The dates returned for the barn support the WPA Rural Property Inventory that states the barn was built around 1880. Even with relatively few samples, this study demonstrated how tree-ring dating can corroborate and elaborate on documentary evidence of construction dates of multiple structures at one historic site.