The Boully Farmhouse — also recorded as the Boulley Farmhouse and identified in parentheses as "Fuller’s" in the early Long Trail Guide Books — was a private farm on the hill road southwest of Johnson, Vermont, that served as a navigation landmark on the northern approach to Sterling Mountain. The farmhouse was never a formal shelter or accommodation for Long Trail hikers; it was the last occupied structure on the road from Johnson Station before the Long Trail sign, and hikers were directed to bear left just before reaching it. It appears in the first Long Trail Guide Book (1917) and in Walter Collins O’Kane’s 1926 trail guide. By 1926 the Long Trail was being rerouted through Bear Hollow on a new alignment that bypassed the Boulley Farm and Johnson village entirely, and the farmhouse drops from the trail record thereafter. The structure no longer stands.
Johnson Station and the Northern Approach
In the earliest years of the Long Trail, the approach to Sterling Mountain and Whiteface Mountain from the north followed a public road southwest from Johnson Station on the St. Johnsbury and Lake Champlain Railroad (the "St. J. & L. C. R. R."). Johnson Station was located about half a mile southwest of the village of Johnson, roughly 42 miles from Burlington. From the station, hikers crossed the tracks and followed the highway 2½ miles southwest, climbing a hill road signed "French Hill," passing mail boxes at 1½ miles, crossing a bridge at 2 miles over a brook where Johnson’s water supply was drawn, and then bearing left on a lesser-used road — rather than continuing up to the Boully farmhouse, which was the last farm on the road. About ten rods beyond that turning point, the Long Trail sign and turnstile marked the beginning of the trail proper.
The 1917 Guide Book describes it precisely:
"Continue up steep hill, at 2½ m bear left on less used road (instead of turning up to Boully farmhouse [Fuller’s] the last on road) about ten rods to turnstile and Long Trail sign. Follow grassy logging road through old orchard."
The farmhouse was thus a critical negative landmark — a known point to pass without turning — rather than a destination or supply stop. The 1917 trail map for the Johnson–Lincoln Mountain region labels the property as "Boully’s," showing it as a named point on the road between Johnson and the Long Trail at the White Rocks area of Sterling Mountain’s eastern approaches.
The Fuller Family
The bracketed notation "[Fuller’s]" in the guidebook text indicates that the property’s owners were the Fuller family, with "Boully" (or "Boulley") serving as either a phonetic rendering of the family’s French-Canadian surname or a local nickname by which the place was known. The variant spellings across sources — "Boully" in the 1917 guidebook trail description, "Boulley" in O’Kane’s 1926 book — reflect the same uncertainty that often attended French-Canadian surnames in Vermont’s hill-farm communities. The parenthetical "[Fuller’s]" is the guidebook writer’s clarification for hikers who might encounter the place by either name.
Access to Patch Camp and Whiteface Mountain
The Boully Farm road was the primary eastern access point to Patch Camp, an early shelter on the north side of Whiteface Mountain (also known on the metric USGS maps as Sterling). From the farmhouse road to Patch Camp was approximately 1½ miles. Patch Camp appears to have been a rough structure, and by 1926 Walter Collins O’Kane was describing plans to "restore and make the camp habitable," indicating it had fallen into poor condition. By the time of the 7th edition of the Long Trail Guide Book (1929), Patch Camp was recorded as "in ruins," and a new camp was built approximately 2 miles south of the railroad crossing near Johnson — this successor shelter became known as French Camp and was noted in the Long Trail News of August 1931.
O’Kane’s 1926 Account and the Trail Relocation
By 1926 the Long Trail route through the Boulley Farm was already recognized as the "old Long Trail, still in use" — meaning it was being superseded. Walter Collins O’Kane described the situation clearly in his Trails and Summits of the Green Mountains (1926):
"Beyond Patch Camp the old Long Trail, still in use, leads in a mile and a half to a public road at the Boulley Farm. It then follows this road two and a half miles to the village of Johnson, on the Saint Johnsbury and Lake Champlain Railroad. At Patch Camp another trail, which is planned as the new and permanent location of the Long Trail, branches to the left. This new trail descends steadily into a valley known as ‘Bear Hollow,’ crosses a beaver meadow, and eventually emerges upon a public road at what is known as the ‘West Settlement,’ where there are unoccupied buildings. From this point it follows the road across the railway, joins the main highway, turns to the right, and crosses the Lamoille River, two miles west of Johnson village."
The new alignment through Bear Hollow removed the need to reference the Boulley Farm as a trail landmark at all. By relocating the through-trail to emerge at the West Settlement rather than Johnson village, the GMC eliminated the 2½-mile road walk from the farmhouse to Johnson Station that the old route required. The Boulley Farm and its road accordingly disappear from Long Trail guidebook editions after 1926.
The "White Rocks" Geographic Area
Sources
- Long Trail Guide Book 1917 (1917). Green Mountain Club. 3.
- Walter Collins O’Kane. Trails and Summits of the Green Mountains. The Riverside Press , 1926. Pp. 420.
- Walter Collins O’Kane. Trails and Summits of the Green Mountains. The Riverside Press , 1926. Pp. 427.
- Woodward, Paul & Joanne. Long Trail System Shelter History. 2nd ed. Green Mountain Club, 1999. Pp. 143.
- Woodward, Paul & Joanne. Long Trail System Shelter History. 2nd ed. Green Mountain Club, 1999. Pp. 81.
