“Render Therefore to All Their Dues”: Absalom Jennings, William Stover, Charles Rathbun, and the Round Barn at Nutwood Farm, Urbana, Ohio

In 1858, Absalom C. Jennings, a prosperous farmer and breeder of thoroughbred race horses, commissioned a circular barn at Nutwood Farm in Champaign County, Ohio. The barn was designed by architect Charles T. Rathbun, who had grown up less than ten miles from the circular barn built by the Shakers at Hancock, Massachusetts. The Shaker barn, the first true round barn built in the U.S., likely inspired Rathbun’s design of the round barn in Ohio. The Nutwood round barn, the second oldest in the country, was built by William Stover, who expended $11,000 in its construction. When Jennings refused to pay the full amount due, Stover sued and, after several years of legal wrangling, won his case but at a considerable financial loss. Author Cornelis J. van der Veen recounts the story of Nutwood Farm and its round barn, the extended legal disputes between the barn’s builder and owner, and the history of the farm and barn in the twentieth century.