Captain Ebenezer Boyd, who along with his wife, saw considerable service
with General Washington's forces during the revolution, constructed the
house to serve as a tavern and his home in 1780. The house stayed in the
hands of the Boyd family until Ebenezer's Grandson sold it to John A.
Bennett in the mid-nineteenth century.
John Bennett named the house The Country Inn. It has had some form of this name ever since.
One half of the house was constructed in 1780. The second half was added in the early nineteenth century. As far as we can tell, the house was continuously used as an inn for more than 150 years. Until 1996, it had eleven bedrooms compared to five currently.
The house was ineptly modified in the mid-twentieth century. It fell into
disrepair in the 1980's and 1990's. It had to be completely renovated in
1997 and 1998 or it would have been lost. We attempted to restore the
rooms to their original size. The post and beam framework, the roof and
most of the flooring are original.
If Boyd's Reservoir is drained you can enter the reservoir area and explore old roadways, bridge sites, a military camp and several building locations. The old Post Road, now known as Peekskill Hollow Road, can be followed down into the valley and along the stream bed. Broken pieces of pottery are still in evidence around the abandoned building sites at the bottom of the reservoir, leading us to believe other treasures may be found.
The local Town of Kent historical society publication describing area history has a picture of a political rally on the front lawn of the house dated to the Civil War period.
Older area maps show the small community of Kent Cliffs at the
intersection of Route 301 and Peekskill Hollow Road. The Ebenezer Boyd house
was the center of this community. There are only two houses from the
early days of Kent Cliffs that have been preserved, the Ebenezer Boyd house and
the house across the street. An old church and other old buildings in the
area of the house have deteriorated beyond repair or have been
demolished. All other existing buildings within this small community are
fairly modern in comparison.
There is a small historical marker across Peekskill Hollow Road from the
house stating that Sibyl Ludington traveled this route to warn
the residents of the approaching British Army during the revolutionary
period. This claim is indeed more accurate than the tale of Paul Revere
doing the same to the North. A statue of this local heroine is located
in the town of Carmel, five miles to the East.
We have no hard evidence that George Washington ever slept here, but some local historians claim that he did because he was good friends with Ebenezer Boyd and frequently traveled through the area.
The Ebenezer Boyd house is located approximately at the geographical center of
Putnam County. This area was sparsely populated during the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. Because of its central location, the
Ebenezer Boyd house was the site of many community functions for more than a
century.
