The first stop on our tour is the Titus-Hutchinson House, located at the corner of Central Street and Elm Street.
The original structure of the Titus-Hutchinson House was raised by Jacob Wilder in 1794. The house was completed four years later by Titus Hutchinson, who became Vermont’s Attorney General in 1813 and later the Chief Justice of Vermont’s Supreme Court.
In the early 1900s, Bob and Betty Royce purchased the building, which became the White Cupboard Inn. While under the Royce’s ownership, during the early 1930s, three guests at this inn told the Royces about a ski tow they had heard about in Canada. They suggested that the Royces build a similar one in Woodstock so that skiers would not waste as much time climbing up the hills before skiing down. The inn’s owners, Bob and Betty Royce, contacted a local farmer named Clinton Gilbert, who lived a few miles outside the village. In January of 1934 what is believed to be the first ski tow in the United States was established at Gilbert’s Hill. A historic marker on Route 12 North demarcates this historic site.
For more information, contact the Woodstock History Center.
Find the Titus-Hutchinson House on this map of Woodstock.
