No drink in the American catalogue has a better documented pedigree than the Stone Fence. Before the Revolutionary War had a name, the combination of whiskey (or rum, or cider brandy) poured into hard apple cider was already common in colonial taverns from Virginia to New Hampshire. The specific name "Stone Fence" appears in American print by the early 19th century, applied to this already-old drink.

The Fort Ticonderoga connection is documented in the memoir tradition surrounding Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys. The assault on the British fort on May 10, 1775 — the first American offensive action of the Revolution, taken before the Declaration of Independence existed — was preceded by a night's drinking at Remington's Tavern in Hand's Cove. Contemporary accounts record that the men drank hard cider and whiskey, which later historians identified as the Stone Fence combination. Whether Allen called it by that name, or whether the name was attached to the drink after the fact, is less important than the historical reality: this was what Americans drank in 1775.

By 1862, when Thomas published his guide, the Stone Fence had aged into a vernacular classic — everyone knew it, nobody thought to explain it. Thomas's recipe is the shortest in the book: whiskey, cider, ice. The period cider would have been New England farmhouse hard cider, a dry, tannic, often cloudy product nothing like modern commercial cider. Apple orchards dominated New England agriculture until the temperance movement and then Prohibition systematically destroyed them; by 1933, American hard cider had nearly ceased to exist as a category.

The craft cider renaissance of the 2010s restored the Stone Fence's primary ingredient to bar menus, and the drink has returned as a low-effort, high-authenticity historical cocktail. Its appeal lies in exactly what Thomas recognized: it needs nothing added.