Mon Vert Cafe and John McKenzie

The house and two original parcels belonging to John McKenzie have been linked for many years. The house being built in 1805 and next door there was a black smith shop that, according to Dana’s history of Woodstock, was in operation “for quite a length of time” by Thomas Danforth. By Dana's reckoning, the shop would have been in operation in the late 1820s but it appears that it was run until 1840.

“The house next below was built by John McKenzie in 1805; possibly sooner by a year or two. Like many other tenements put up in those days on the Green, it combined a dwelling-house and shop in one. The shop was in the basement and was used a part of the time for a cabinet-shop, and in 1825 by J.H. Roby & Co. as a tin-shop. About the year 1840 Colonel Russel bought the place, and made the house over, which he occupied till his death. In 1877 John Cone purchased the property, remodeled the house throughout, and made it into quite a fine residence.”

Again, according to Dana, before there was any building at the site of the engine house (next door to Mon Vert and across the South Branch) on Central Street, there was a “smooth, grassy bank, affording easy access” to a “deep and spacious pool.” Many baptisms were held in this pool by the Christian Church. This society, which no longer exists in Woodstock, was organized in 1826 and they built a building on Pleasant Street which is now the Masonic Temple.