National Register Listing

Chimney Point Tavern

VT 125, Addison, VT

03/13 1609 - Chimney Point has played an important part in the history of the Champlain Valley since it was first discovered by a white man. On his exploratory voyage in 1609, Samuel de Champlain proceeded south on the lake to Crown Point where he engaged in a short, but fateful battle with the Iroquois. "After the battle, Champlain, his Algonquin allies, and their Iroquois prisoners crossed the lake, only a few hundred yards wide at this place. At Chimney Point, on the shore opposite the battlefield, he gave his name to the 'grandicime lac'. ... Coolidge.

1609-1690 - During these years Chimney Point is mentioned repeatedly in connection with the French occupation of the Valley and their Indian campaigns. "De Courcelles' party started up the lake arriving at Bulwagga Bay (opposite Addison). They took the route across to the headwaters of the Hudson. The expedition proved very disastrous and on the way back they stopped two days at Chimney Point"... Tuttle

"Tradition persists that the French first came to Chimney Point soon after the construction of Fort Sainte-Anne in 1666 and built a small fort and village there. It is certain that the Point was a frequent campsite for those traveling through the Champlain Valley. From vague references to the point in the official Correspondence' it appears that the French and Indians habitually met there for trading and that proposals for the establishment of a permanent post were frequently under Consideration"... Coolidge.

1690 - On March 26, 1690, the governor of New York ordered Captain Jacobus de Warm, a Dutchman of Fort Orange, to advance to Crown Point, with a party of 20 Mohawks and 12 English, to Watch the French. He was to select a spot other than Crown Point for his base; so on Chimney Point across the lake, he built a little stone fort' where his party remained for a month"... Coolidge.

11730 - About 1730, a few French families settled near Chimney Point where they built a stockaded fort (Fort de Pieux), probably using the materials from the "little stone fort". This was the first permanent settlement made by the French in the valley of the Lake "in pursuance of their plan to extend their settlement and fortifications and set limits to those of the English"..Swift. These first settlers immediately began the construction of a windmill near the site later occupied by the old tavern now owned by the Barnes family.

1749 - "During the years from 1749 to 1750 the settlers
1759 - built their homes and cabins along a road extending four miles north from the point. In 1867, the cellar holes and deserted gardens indicated a much more populous "street" during the French regime than in that year"... Hemenway.

"Samuel Swift, the author of the History of Middlebury and Addison County, visited the site of these villages in 1859, just one hundred years after the French settlement ended. At that time the earthen ramparts which had protected the fortified mill still existed; old plum and apple trees could be seen as well as the cellar holes of houses; four were on the farm of John Strong, three or four on the Vallance farm, ten or twelve on the Barnes property". ... Coolidge.

1759 - 'The French inhabitants followed the troops in the retreat of 1759, leaving their farms forever. Before leaving they burned the barns, the cabins, the houses, everything. When the English arrived nothing remained of the French villages but the blackened chimneys, standing as grim sentinels amid the surrounding ruin. From these ruined chimneys came the name Chimney Point, given by the English.".. Coolidge.

1759-1784 - The coming of the British to Chimney Point heralded the end of a brave, but a futile attempt by the French to colonize the Champlain Valley. It also began a new era in the history of the point which has continued to the present day.
Chimney Point figured prominently throughout the years of the Revolutionary War, being the terminus of General Amherst's Military Road from "No. 4", (Charlestown, N.H.)

1784 - In 1784 the Town of Addison was organized. At the first Town Meeting, Benjamin Paine was made a lister. Paine was one of the early proprietors of the Town and a large land-owner. He built the old Tavern at Chimney Point which was later enclosed in brick by Asahel Barnes.

1784-1803 - "Benjamin Paine, who lived at Chimney Point, ran a ferry boat from 1785 until his death in 1803. His wife, Jemima Paine, "a woman of strong mind and energy' continued to run the ferry boat until 1811, when it was taken over by Robert Lewis on the third of April, 1811 for ten years"..Warner & Hall 1821 - In a manuscript dated 15 August 1890, Rector Gage, a surveyor, refers to a deed for the Chimney Point property from James Lewis to Asahel Barnes as having been executed November 7, 1821. Since the early records of the Town of Addison were destroyed by fire, it can be assumed that this is the date on which Chimney Point came into the ownership of the Barnes family where it remains at the time of this writing.

Purchased by State of Vermont, October 1968.

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1971.