This structure was built in 1795 as a store, according to its recorded history in the Vermont Historic Sites and Structures Survey. The store name, in the early days of the Rabbit Hill Inn, was The Briar Patch (now it is rooms for the inn, instead). Inn legend says that Samuel Hodby built it as both a tavern and general store, where dry goods and notions were sold. In the early years, people called it the Brick Front Store because of its ground floor front of local brick, made at a nearby clay pit. The two front piazzas are supported by four log pillars.
Subsequent storekeepers are said to have included Mr. Stoddard, two sisters named Winch and Wilbur, the Bowman boys, M. A. Farr (1842), and Solomon Wood (1844). For another period, "Mr. Hunt" used it for a workshop.
After 1922, the structure was owned and occupied by a sister of Mrs. John W. Davies (Mr. Davies owned many structures in the village at that time, creating the White Village). This sister's name was Miss Beye, which led to the building's next name, the Beye-way. Also in this building, for a few years, was the town's library, operated by Mrs. Davies; she eventually moved the library across the street into the former Goss store, now called the Davies Memorial Library.
The next set of photos will show what became the main building of the inn -- also assigned a construction date of 1795.
Please do mark your calendar for the Rabbit Hill Reminiscence Reunion, a special evening of memories of the inn over the past three generations, in the Community Room (downstairs of the church) across the road from the inn, on Wednesday July 25, 2018, at 6:30 pm (free event; refreshments provided; some handicap access).
I always thought The Briar Patch, in the late 1950s-early 1960s, was used for overflow guests from the main inn, no? We never stayed there. Always room 8 in the "motor inn" section in the retrofitted ballroom. Never slept in that building until the 1980s.
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