Catamount Tavern

 

The Catamount

 “Ethan needs us at Ti! Ethan needs us at Ti!” 

The shouts rang out throughout the countryside. But what did this mean and where was it?

Ethan Allen needed troops to take Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain in New York State. The time was May 1775 along the border of New York State in what would become Vermont. Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain boys would mount a dawn attack taking back the fort from a British garrison. This would be the first battle won by the Americans in the Revolutionary War.

Why were riders sent out across the countryside with such a cry? The Green Mountain Boys were not a regular army. They were more like Bo and Luke Duke from the 1970’s tv show The Dukes of Hazzard. They were good old boys— a group of men coming together for a cause they believed in. Originally formed in 1770, their initial goal was to defend the rights of property owners. They were mostly farmers with tradesmen thrown in as well. They came from the farms in the hills and mountains of Vermont as well as some areas in the easternmost part of New York. All of them rallied under the leadership of Ethan Allen.

Only about a hundred men were rounded up for that early dawn siege. However, it was enough and the British fell. Not only a strategic spot at the south end of Lake Champlain but cannons from Fort Ticonderoga were also used the following spring in the successful siege of Boston. It was a morale booster and provided key artillery for the Continental Army.

How was this all planned and where was it all planned? Men met in a small tavern on the hill on the edge of Bennington Vermont. It was the headquarters for Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys. The tavern was the Catamount tavern owned by Stephen Fay and originally called simply Fay’s Tavern. However, when New York was trying to take over the land of present-day Vermont, a stuffed catamount was placed in front of the tavern and it became better known by that name. What is a catamount? It is a mountain lion, a wildcat, or a bobcat, or probably at least a dozen different names in different regions of North America.

Bennington, Vermont is better known today as the site of the battle of Bennington, which actually took place across the border in New York You will find on the street that leads to the famed Bennington Monument a granite and copper statue of a catamount. Looking away from the street, you will find a stately house built likely during the Victorian period. The tavern was built on this site in 1769 and stood until a fire destroyed it in 1871. General John Stark planned the Battle of Bennington in this tavern. As well, in 1775, the Vermont Council of Safety— Vermont's only independent form of government— met here.

The Catamount Tavern was an important part of the Revolutionary War in this part of our new country. For me, the tavern has some different connections that make it important.

The first connection is that of the tavern keeper, Stephen Fay. He was the grandson of John Fay and his first wife, Mary Brigham. John would later marry Susanna Shattuck and one of their four children was David. David who was the father of Deacon John Fay. Deacon John surely must have at least known of his cousin in Bennington. He lived in Southborough, Massachusetts in the eastern part of the state. Did these cousins ever meet? I wonder because Deacon John was my 5th great-grandfather.

And that battle that John Stark planned. The battle, that before it he famously stated: 

"There are your enemies, the Red Coats and the Tories. They are ours, or this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow!" 

Spoiler alert: Molly Stark slept just fine, she was not a widow that night. The Battle of Bennington took place a few miles west of the tavern in an area known as White Creek in present-day Washington County, New York. There is a park there today, and the land touches on the land once owned by Seth Chase. His tavern is less than a mile off the battlefield, and they must have seen at least some of the battle that day. Seth Chase is yet another of my 5th great-grandfathers.

Seth Chase's Tavern today

So much history is tied up in that one tavern that existed during the Revolutionary War, both the countries and my own personal history.