This is another in the Women in History series, more particularly a historic Vermont heroine sometimes called the mother of the Green Mountain Boys.
Do not go to the listed coordinates. There is no cache there. It is close to where the original Ann Story Cabin was built, but that is on private property and currently the site is not open to the public.
To get the cache you will need to read the story of Ann Story, and answer the quiz. All answers can be found in or derived from the reading.
Pioneer woman: Ann Story was mother, hunter, rebel, spy
BY LOUIS VARRICCHIO JANUARY 31, 2013 10:23 AM (from the Sun)
Ann Story was an 18th century heroine who cast a long shadow across Vermont’s landscape. Pioneer woman, wife, mother, horsebreaker, farmer, expert shooter, hunter, trapper, rebel spy and Indian fighter, Story was an all-American woman with the intelligence, courage, and stamina of a modern action hero. As a pioneer, Ann was an early American who embodied the fighting spirit that built the United States. From poor Connecticut stock, she endured the rugged wilderness of Vermont’s frontier days with its variable northern climate, Abenaki raiding parties, and brutish British soldiers accompanied by their Tory minions.
Born Hannah (nickname Ann) Reynolds in 1735, in Preston, Conn., she grew up in spartan surroundings. According to her most recent biographer Michael T. Hahn, author of “Ann Story: Vermont’s Heroine of Independence”, published by New England Press, recorded details of Ann’s pioneer life are few and far between. Ann married farmer Amos Story in 1755. In 1761, she gave birth to a son, Solomon. Two years later, Ephraim was born followed by three daughters in successive years.
During the 1700s, Vermont was contested frontier territory referred to as either the New Hampshire Grants or simply as part of northern New York Province. What you called this region depended upon your colony of origin as well as your factional loyalties. Most of the locals and transplants to Vermont from lower New England disliked the New York settlers, or “Yorkers” as they derisively called them.
In September 1774, the Storys left Connecticut to pioneer along the Otter Creek Valley near the Middlebury-Salisbury town line. Leaving his wife and most of the children at Fort Ranger in Rutland, Amos took eldest son Solomon to trek north along the creek and stake out a homestead, within site of today’s Shard Villa, on Shard Villa Road, in Salisbury. Amos and Solomon trudged through 35 miles of deep, fly- and mosquito-infested forest and swamp lands to get to their homesite. The Storys were the second family to pioneer the wilderness along the Middlebury-Salisbury line. Pioneer Joshua Graves’ cabin was nearby, but he spent his summers farther south. On 100 acres, Amos and Solomon erected a lean-to cabin as a base camp for land-clearing work. They returned south to Ann, and the rest of the family, in late autumn; they spent that winter in the safety of the Rutland fort.
In spring 1775, Amos and Solomon once again resumed their land-clearing work in Salisbury. “Amos was cutting down a large maple tree,” according to Hahn’s Ann Story 1996 book. “He swung the ax powerfully notching the trunk facing the area where he wanted the tree to fall. Then he started chopping through the opposite side... As he whittled away the trunk, the great tree... started to fall... A lower limb swung around and hit Amos, knocking him to the ground. Before he could get up, the maple tree smashed down on top of him.” Amos Story was dead. Young Solomon was alone, but reacted quickly. He located Benjamin Smalley, a neighbor, located a few miles north in Middlebury. Smalley helped young Solomon retrieve Amos. The two carried Amos’ body to Smalley’s cabin where Amos was buried in a grave alongside the remains of Smalley’s own daughter and sister. Solomon thanked Smalley for the help and set off to Fort Ranger to his mother, brother, and sisters with the sad news.
Ann Story did not let the death of her husband end her dream of building a new life of freedom on the frontier. A tall, athletic woman, Ann purchased a packhorse at the fort and the family trekked overland to the Salisbury lean-to. Within days, Ann and her children began work on the partially built cabin. She certainly wasn’t afraid to fire her long rifle at Abenaki scouts lurking in the shadows nearby.
From Findagrave: Hannah still moved with her children to this farm and completed its clearing. She was renowned for her physical strength and prowess with an axe in clearing trees. And when her neighbors fled the area during the Revolutionary War, Hannah and her children remained on their farm throughout the war, during which Hannah became famous as the heroine Ann Story. She carved out a hidden sleeping quarters for herself and her children in a cave on a nearby river, rescued a captive pregnant woman who had been left in the forest, refused to provide information to Loyalist spy Ezekiel Jenny at gunpoint, and afterward relayed a crucial, detailed warning to Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys that they were being pursued.
After the Revolution, Ann remarried twice. She is buried within 2 miles of where her cabin stood.
SOLVE FOR N 43 5A.BCD W073 0E.FGH
A: True or False: Ann was born in Vermont. True = 6. False = 7
BCD: True or False: Amos Story was killed by a bear. True =586 False = 786
E: T/F: Solomon Story had to walk to Middlebury to find a neighbor to help him. True = 8, False = 9
FGH: T/F: During the Revolution, Ann and her children remained on their property in Salisbury, passing along intelligence of the enemy to the Green Mountain Boys. True = 287. False = 782
FTF has choice of swag or an activated trackable to continue its journey. Congrats to Snowbirds VT for FTF and a very creative first log!