Help a wood worker

[Tom]

This fellow has wood from an old barn and is trying to find out what is.  Here is the information that I have gleaned so far.  

Would some of you who feel that you might know what it is, go to the address below and offer some assistance please? It wouldn't hurt to say you are from the Forestry Forum. ;D

click to help the woodworker
-----------------------------------------
Thank you all for your help in trying to solve my wood mistery. (I posted earlier as "Identifying Wood." Here's some more hints. When I took the plank down from the attic is was heavy as cement. 2" thick....10" wide...9 foot long. It was a beast to get down. The more I work with it....the more I think it is White Oak. It's rock hard and heavy as a cement block. Is Chestnut heavy?
-----------------------------------
The wood is from Michigan........near
Hastings....and is about 150 years old. Everytime I plane another board I find something different. The last one had purple in it.

[pasbuild]

white ash maybe, can we see pics?

[Tom]

no, the info above is all that is available.  :-/

[Texas Ranger]

Tom, don't know of a hardwood that has purple in it that is native to North American, could be heart pine.

[Fla._Deadheader]

Denim Heart Pine ??? : ;D ;D

[burlman]

after hearing about the steaks of purple in the wood I would suggest that is probably rock elm. I have some old barn beams from hear in south west Quebec, and found alot of elm was used for structural use. remember when these barns were built, dutch elm disease was not around yet, and massive clear trunks of elm were on every farm, and hardwood was not as valuable back then as was the spruce and pine, which the farmer sold for winter income, and used the secondary woods for his personal use. I know of a barn that is completly sheated in butternut, because that,s what they had so they used it. If our friend planes a board of this mystery wood, and rubs a little stain on it, if it is elm it should produce a figure simaler to what I wood describe as snake skin.