Chittenden

BONE, John

Vermont Historical Magazine, No XI, October 1867, pp 484-485

[Extracted from a section on the history of Bolton.] John BONE, a native of 
France, was one of the first settlers in Bolton [Chittenden County, Vermont]. 
He boarded at Mr. LEVAQUE's tavern while clearing his land. It was one day 
in June, not far from the year 1798, that he complained of headache, and kept 
his bed most of the day. He walked out in the afternoon, and was last seen 
going towards the mountain. He did not return, and the neighbors gathered 
the next day to search the woods for him. It was very difficult to find any 
trace of the lost man, but they finally discovered a trail in the dried 
leaves, and followed it to the brink of a precipice four hundred feet high. 
The track was very near the edge, as if one went there in the dark without 
knowing the danger, then it went back from the cliff, but soon came around in 
a circle, and appeared to end at the edge of the rock. They found his 
lifeless body at the bottom of the precipice. It had stripped the limbs from 
one side of a spruce tree as he fell, and this retarded the force of so great 
a fall, in such a manner that he was not so badly bruised as he otherwise 
would have been. In memory of the man who met such a horrible fate, this 
precipice has ever since been called Bone mountain.

Submitted by Cathy Kubly