Outbuildings are structures designed to house specific tasks or built for a specific purpose, away from the main house. Outbuildings are found on farms and in town. These structures were often specialized and differed slightly from farm to farm, depending on the farmer, his background, what type of farming operation he had, and whether he had labor outside of his own family members.  

There are two types of outbuildings – there are the ones clustered close to the house, such as the smokehouse or a detached kitchen – known as domestic outbuildings. Then there are agricultural outbuildings – the ones located away from the house and the space around it (referred to in this survey as the “domestic yard”) – structures like stock and tobacco barns, granaries and corn cribs.