The Hotel Melendy was a commercial inn in Jeffersonville, Vermont, at the western entrance to Smugglers’ Notch, that served for more than a decade as the essential staging point and social anchor for the Burlington Section of the Green Mountain Club’s most beloved annual tradition: the Washington’s Birthday Pilgrimage to Smugglers’ Notch. The hotel’s beefsteak supper, waiting for the snowshoers on their return from the notch each February 22, became so central to the day that Marjorie Holmes, who compiled the Burlington Section’s history, recorded that for many members it was simply "the best part of the trip." Listed in successive editions of the Long Trail Guide Book from 1920 through at least 1930 as "Hotel Melendy," the establishment had been renamed the Smuggler’s Notch Inn by 1932. Under that name it continued to appear in GMC guidebooks and accommodations listings into the twenty-first century. The building itself — originally a farmhouse built in the 1790s, converted to an inn in the 1890s — stands today at 55 Church Street, Jeffersonville, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Jeffersonville and the Western Gateway
Jeffersonville is a village in Cambridge, Lamoille County, Vermont, set on the Lamoille River where the Central Vermont Railway once stopped. In the early twentieth century it was 33 miles from Burlington — about an hour by train — and stood at the northern end of the road through Smugglers’ Notch: what the 1922 Long Trail Guide described as "the Ethan Allen Highway which half-encircles Mount Mansfield."
The road south from Jeffersonville to the summit of Smugglers’ Notch and on to Stowe was the only public thoroughfare through the great boulder-strewn canyon between Sterling Mountain and Mount Mansfield. The 1920 Long Trail Guide Book described what hikers would find along it: "an easy and beautiful walk through Smuggler’s Notch, with ample water supply. After crossing the height-of-land note the huge rocks fallen from the cliffs that tower above, notable King Rock which fell in 1910." But in winter, the road through the notch was impassable, and the approach was made on foot from the northern end, from Morse’s Mills — the "present head of navigation" — six miles south of Jeffersonville. The village thus occupied a strategic position: the railhead where Burlington hikers arrived, the place where horses or autos could be engaged to reach the trailhead, and the place where they returned, cold and hungry, at the end of the day.
The Hotel Melendy
The building that became the Hotel Melendy was originally constructed in the 1790s as a farmhouse. It was converted to an inn in the 1890s and had been welcoming travelers for a generation by the time the Green Mountain Club first documented it in the 1920 Long Trail Guide Book. That edition described Jeffersonville simply as having "an attractive stopping place, the Hotel Melendy," with directions to Morse’s Mill and thence to Barnes’ Camp in the notch.
By 1922, the hotel had purchased an advertisement in the Long Trail Guide that captured its position succinctly:
HOTEL MELENDY
Jeffersonville, Vermont
On the Ethan Allen Highway which half-encircles Mount Mansfield.
At the Western Gateway to Smugglers Notch.Official Hotel for the Annual Pilgrimage of the Burlington Section of the Green Mountain Club to Smugglers Notch on Feb. 22.
WHATEVER THE SEASON,
WHATEVER YOUR GEAR,
YOU ARE ALWAYS WELCOMED
WITH A SMILE,AT "MELENDY’S"
The hotel thus presented itself not merely as an accommodation but as an institution of the Green Mountain Club — the official starting and ending point for the Burlington Section’s most storied annual event. That self-description was accurate. For Burlington Section hikers of the 1920s, "Melendy’s" was as much a part of the February 22 tradition as the notch itself.
The Washington’s Birthday Pilgrimage and the Beefsteak Supper
The Burlington Section’s annual hike to Smugglers’ Notch on Washington’s Birthday — February 22 — was one of the founding traditions of the section. Marjorie Holmes, writing in 1974 from earlier accounts, described the 1920 edition in detail, drawing on the Burlington Free Press:
Seventy-one explorers armed with snowshoes and skis departed Burlington by train at 6:45 in the morning. On arriving at Jeffersonville, they found six large teams of horses waiting to take the party south to Morse’s Mills. The snow had drifted so badly that it took two hours to move the entire group to the mills, where the real hiking began. At the foot of Dead Horse Hill, the group divided: those who turned back, and those who pressed on. About half the party — including, Holmes noted, half a dozen ladies — reached the Big Spring in the heart of the notch, where they found a good fire waiting, kindled by Clarence Cowles, Herbert Congdon of the New York Section, and L. L. Little of Outing magazine, who had spent two nights on Mt. Mansfield. When the party had returned to Jeffersonville, Holmes recorded that "the best part of the trip for many was the appetizing beefsteak supper served at the Hotel Melendy." At 9:45 p.m. the train arrived back in Burlington, and the report made was simply that "it was a great day."
The beefsteak supper was the Hotel Melendy’s signature contribution to this ritual — the warm, substantial meal at the end of a long winter’s day in the mountains. Year after year, through the 1920s, the pattern held: train from Burlington in the morning, horses or autos to Morse’s Mills, the long snowshoe push through the notch, the fire in the wilderness, and then back to Jeffersonville and the beefsteak at Melendy’s before the evening train home.
Becoming the Smuggler’s Notch Inn
By 1932, the hotel had been renamed. The Burlington Section’s report in the Long Trail News for April 1932 described that year’s Washington’s Birthday hike: "The annual Washington’s birthday hike was enjoyed by sixty people. They went up into Smugglers’ Notch, hiking from Morse’s Mills, going by bus to that point. On the return journey they had supper at Smugglers’ Notch Inn at Jeffersonville." The mode of transport had changed — horses replaced by a bus — and the hotel’s name had changed, but the tradition itself was unbroken.
The 1935 Long Trail Guide Book (Edition 10) lists the hotel by its new name in the trail description for the northern approach to Smugglers’ Notch: "Continuing north it passes Morse’s Mills and joins Route No. 15 at Jeffersonville (Smuggler’s Notch Inn)." The 1940 edition (Edition 12) carries the same entry. The name "Hotel Melendy" had given way entirely.
The Inn in Later Decades
The Smuggler’s Notch Inn continued to serve as a waypoint and accommodation for Long Trail hikers and Burlington Section members through mid-century and beyond. It appeared in the GMC’s Long Trail News accommodations listings as recently as 2005, when it was listed among lodging options for the GMC Annual Meeting held at Smugglers’ Notch Resort, with a phone number of (802) 644-6607.
The building itself — the 1790s farmhouse converted to an inn in the 1890s — has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. It operates today at 55 Church Street, Jeffersonville, as the Smuggler’s Notch Inn, an eleven-room inn with a dining room and tavern, continuing more than a century of hospitality at the western foot of the mountains.
Sources
- Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, Edition 2. Green Mountain Club, 1920. pp. 10, 12. ["Jeffersonville is a pretty little village on the C. V. R. R. and has an attractive stopping place, the Hotel Melendy. Autos can be engaged to take the traveller to Morse’s Mill…"]
- Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, Edition 3. Green Mountain Club, 1921. pp. 11, 14. ["From Jeffersonville and its good Hotel Melendy one can go by Auto to Morse’s Mill the present ‘head of navigation’…"]
- Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, Edition 4. Green Mountain Club, 1922. pp. 10, 12. [Hotel Melendy advertisement: "Official Hotel for the Annual Pilgrimage of the Burlington Section of the Green Mountain Club to Smugglers Notch on Feb. 22"; "At the Western Gateway to Smugglers Notch."]
- Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, Edition 5. Green Mountain Club, 1924. p. 13. [Hotel Melendy listed at Jeffersonville entry.]
- Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, Edition 7. Green Mountain Club, 1928. p. 22. [Hotel Melendy listed as western approach to Mt. Mansfield region.]
- Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, Edition 8. Green Mountain Club, 1930. p. 16. [Hotel Melendy listed as approach from north.]
- Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, Edition 10. Green Mountain Club, 1935. p. 47. ["Jeffersonville (Smuggler’s Notch Inn)" — confirms name change by 1935.]
- Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, Edition 12. Green Mountain Club, 1940. p. 54. ["Jeffersonville (Smuggler’s Notch Inn)"]
- Holmes, Marjorie. History of the Green Mountain Club, Burlington Section. Recorded May 24, 1974. Green Mountain Club. pp. 16–17. [1920 Washington’s Birthday hike account: 71 explorers, train at 6:45 a.m., six teams of horses at Jeffersonville, beefsteak supper: "the best part of the trip for many was the appetizing beefsteak supper served at the Hotel Melendy."]
- Long Trail News (April 1932). Green Mountain Club. Vol. 4, No. 14. p. 4. [Burlington Section report: "The annual Washington’s birthday hike was enjoyed by sixty people. They went up into Smugglers’ Notch, hiking from Morse’s Mills, going by bus to that point. On the return journey they had supper at Smugglers’ Notch Inn at Jeffersonville."]
- Long Trail News (Spring 2005). Green Mountain Club. p. 7. [Smuggler’s Notch Inn listed as lodging option for GMC Annual Meeting, (802) 644-6607.]
- Woodward, Paul and Joanne. Long Trail System Shelter History, 2nd edition. Green Mountain Club, September 10, 1999. p. 153. [Hotel Melendy listed among hotels historically associated with the Long Trail system.]
- Smuggler’s Notch Inn. "About Us." smuggsinn.com. [Building originally constructed 1790s as farmhouse; converted to inn 1890s; listed on National Register of Historic Places; 55 Church Street, Jeffersonville, Vermont.]
