Forgotten Brewery Caves - The Addison House

Most of the information on this site comes from an odd source....a geocaching page! The individual who posted it had the advantage of chatting with the property owner. When I stopped by they were not at home.

I think the information is a bit of a jumble so I won't comment at length.  But the property now known as The Addison House clearly was an early tavern/inn with its own brewery.  The cave looks consistent with others in the area that date from the mid 1850's to circa 1880.  The mention of three linked chambers was quite intriguing, enough so that I chanced a stroll up to the entrance and a peek inside...

This is the first chamber and sadly you can see that the ones that lay beyond have caved in.  Or have they been filled in?

It is axiomatic that you never find artifacts in brewery caves.  They were for clean storage, not for trash.  But the fill cascading down from this doorway contained a fair number of circa 1920 bottles.  I figure the back two rooms caved in - you'll note how close to the surface this cave is - and made a sink hole.  This was then filled in with material from somewhere that had a moderate amount of trash mixed in.

It is always sad when you find a cave that is in the process of vanishing. And the caves for small breweries in areas that did not have good rock structure to excavate just were not built to last forever.

Here's a picture of the Addison House up above the cave site.

It appears to still be in service as a Bed and Breakfast.

Here's a 19th century map showing the Brewery and Saloon.  Notice that this was once a crossroads and a place of at least local consequence.  Now it is just a bend in the road with the intersection of Highways 175 and 33 eliminating the Western and Southern legs of the crossroads.