a tavern had existed on the site since 1660, when the town board authorized thomas brush to build an "ordinary" on the site, in the wooded west hills that were then sparsely settled. twenty years later, his building burned and the chichester family bought the land and built the beginnings of the current structure, a small -story cottage with two rooms and a bed in the attic crawl space. throughout the 18th and early 19th century, they kept adding onto it as needed, accounting for its ramshackle shape.