Ann Story

Born Hannah Reynolds, Ann Story and her husband grew up in Connecticut, like most Vermont settlers did back then. They bought land in Salisbury, Vermont and in 1774, the Story family moved up to Rutland, Vermont while Amos and their thirteen-year-old son Solomon, went up to the property in Salisbury. Amos and Solomon cleared land for a farm and started working on a log hose that would eventually be the family's home. Unfortunately for the Story family, Amos died in the spring of 1775 while cutting down a tree, so Ann moved up to Salisbury with her five children. Fortunately, the cabin Amos and Solomon had been working on was finished when Amos died, so they moved into the house, planted crops, and fished and shot game for food.

The Revolutionary War began in early 1775 and many settlers left their farms in Vermont, but Ann and her family stayed. But by 1776, their cabin was burned down by Native Americans who were allied with the British army. Ann and her children rebuilt the house and this time, added a trap door so that is the raiders came back, the could escape through it. The tunnel led to a cave nearby, which became the family's hiding spot. Because her house was near Otter Creek, an important route between Lake Champlain and the Green Mountains, Ann became a spy for the Green Mountain Boys. She kept them informed about traffic on the creek and events in the woods.

Nobody knows what Ann looked like, but this is an artist's depiction
of what she might have looked like, defending her home. 

A Tory spy who supported the British, Ezekiel Jenny found the Story's hiding spot, so he tried to get information about the Green Mountain Boys from her, but even when he threatened to shoot her, she gave him nothing. He then left, without harming anybody. Ann immediately had her son Solomon send the Boys a letter telling them of Ezekiel's whereabouts. With the help of Solomon, the Boys tracked him and many other spies, captured them, and sent them to prison at Fort Ticonderoga. Ann's actions that day saved her family and Vermont, because if she had given information or not told the Green Mountain Boys about the spy, the Boys wouldn't have had the advantage.

After the battle of Saratoga in October 1777, the Story's home was no longer behind enemy lines, as it had been for the past year. She and her sons continued to help the Green Mountain Boys and expand their farm, and eventually, in 1791, Vermont became a state. The next year, in 1792, Ann married her long-time neighbor Benjamin Smalley who died in 1808, leaving Ann in great debt. In 1812, Ann then married Stephen Goodrich. They lived on his farm in Middlebury until she died on April 5, 1817 at the age of eighty-two.

Ann planned to move to Vermont to create a better life for her family, not become a hero. Her story has lasted all these years because her bravery, courage and resourcefulness made a difference. Both to her family and to the development of our lovely state, Vermont.