This building is recorded in the U.S. Direct Tax of 1798 (known as the "Window Tax") where it was taxed to Christian Hershey on 5 October 1798 as a stone barn 75' x 31'. The total tax valuation was $8,910 which included a smaller, stone barn 70' x 31' and a stone smith shop.
The ground floor is a random construction stone barn, and some of the beams exhibit marks of having been cut with a pit-saw. There are at present five doors across the northeast facade. Masonry between each of these shows evidence that there were once small windows (about 2' x 2') evenly spaced between each door. Such ventilating windows often had wide louvers and shutters which could be closed in winter. According to Arthur C Lord's "Barns of Lancaster County: 1798", (Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society, Vol. 77 #1, p. 35), Donegal Township had the greatest number of stone barns (61) in the county in 1798. Red Barn (75' x 31") is slightly larger than the average which measured 70' x 31' 6". There is a shed on the southwest facade. The ground level of this shows evidence of having been excavated after the original barn was constructed. The large frame superstructure was added circa 1875. It contains four rows of louvers which could be tilted to permit the curing of large quantities of tobacco. (Lancaster County grew a great deal of large-leaf tobacco which was used to wrap cigars.)
According to Miss Elizabeth B. Miley (who lived all of her ninety-odd years until the late1970's in the red brick mansion south of the barn), mules were stabled in it during the time that the anthracite iron industry flourished between Marietta and Columbia (circa 1840-1890). These animals hauled heavy ore wagons from the mine holes (located less than 1/2 mile northwest of the barn on the "Andrew Hershey Farm") over Mount Pleasant Road to A.H. Musselman's Furnace along the Susquehanna River. Numerous pieces of harness hardware and at least one whole horseshoe was dug from the dirt floor prior to its being concreted.
In 1893 when the Marietta and Columbia Trolly Line was laid out, the route followed the course of the Donegal Creek from its confluence with the Chiques Creek to the Rd Barn. John D. Denney, Jr., in his article "The Marietta Trolley" (Souvenir Booklet of the Marietta Sesquicentennial, 1962, p. 51) states, "The cars then continued on the level ground swinging onto the Marietta at a point below known to trolly men as the "Red Barn". And thus, this local landmark has been designated for almost 150 years.