Ethan Allen

An engraving depicting Ethan Allen demanding the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga

Ethan Allen (January 21, 1738 – February 12, 1789) was an early American revolutionary and guerrilla leader during the era of the Vermont Republic and the New Hampshire Grants. He fought against the settlement of Vermont by the Province of New York, and then for its independance in the American Revolutionary War.

Biography

Allen was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, the first child of Joseph and Mary Baker Allen. Ethan was the oldest of the eight children. He was the only one to be born in Litchfield, since the family moved to Cornwall shortly after his birth. His brother, Ira, figured prominently in the early history of Vermont. Joseph Allen was the leader of a rebellious group of land owners and speculators who held New Hampshire title to land grants in the New Hampshire Grants. New York, which held substantial claim to the area, refused to honor the New Hampshire titles and sold competing titles to different people, who generally did not live in Vermont. This led to open rebellion among the population in much of Vermont. In April of 1755, Joseph Allen died, leaving Ethan to take care of the family farm and title claims.

Allen was well over six feet tall, in a time when most men were almost a foot shorter. He was outspoken and apparently quite articulate. As a young man, he served in the colonial militia in the French and Indian War. He was married and had five children. In the early 1770s, he emerged as the military leader of Anti-New York dissidents, known as the Green Mountain Boys, who were fighting New York over the New Hampshire grants. He and The Green Mountain Boys successfully carved out the Republic (1777-1791) and later the State of Vermont. A warrant was issued for his arrest by the government of New York, for the substantial reward of 100 pounds.

In the spring of 1775, following the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, Allen and Benedict Arnold led a raid to capture Fort Ticonderoga. The relative roles of Allen and Arnold are not entirely clear. Nor is it clear to what extent the campaign was formulated by the strongly anti-British faction in Connecticut, to what extent it was the idea of the Green Mountain Boys headquartered at the Catamount Tavern in Bennington. What is clear is that the rebels moved north, managed to get a few dozen men across Lake Champlain (they had considerable trouble finding a boat and the one they found was quite small). In a dawn attack, Ticonderoga was taken from the small British garrison that held it and who were apparently not aware that the war had started. Allen/Arnold's rebels also quickly captured forts at Crown Point, Fort Ann on Isle La Motte near the present Canadian border, and (temporarily) the town of St John (now Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec). The huge stores of cannon and powder seized at Ticonderoga allowed the American rebels to break the stalemate at the siege of Boston, which caused the British to evacuate in March 1776.

The Green Mountain Boys elected Allen's cousin, Seth Warner, as leader; however, Allen commanded a small military force in the American rebels' campaign in Quebec in 1775. As a result of miscommunication or misjudgment, he attacked Montreal with a handful of men and was captured by the British. He was shipped to England where he was imprisoned in Pendennis Castle, Cornwall, and suffered considerable mistreatment. On the third day of May, 1778, Ethan Allen was conducted to a sloop in the harbor at New York, in which he was guarded to Staten Island, to General Campbell's quarters, where he was admitted to eat and drink with the general and several other of the British field-officers, and treated for two days in a polite manner. The following day Colonel Archibald Campbell was exchanged for Ethan Allen. The colonel was conducted by Colonel Elias Boudinot , the American commissary general of prisoners who was appointed his position by General George Washington.

Allen then moved back to Vermont, which had become a hotbed of malcontent, harboring little affection for either England or for the nascent United States. Vermont was also harboring a significant number of deserters from the armies of both. Allen settled a homestead in the delta of the Winooski River in what is the modern city of Burlington. Allen remained active in Vermont politics and was appointed general in the Army of Vermont. In 1778, Allen appeared before the Continental Congress on behalf of a claim by Vermont for recognition as an independent state. Allen then negotiated with the governor of Canada between 1780 and 1783, in order to establish Vermont as a British province. Because of this, the US charged him with treason; however, because the negotiations were demonstrably intended to force action on the Vermont case by the Continental Congress, the charge was never substantiated.

Ethan had five children with his first wife, Mary Brownson: Loraine (1763-1783), Joseph (1765-1777), Lucy Caroline (1768-1842), Mary Ann (1772-1790), and Pamela (1779-1809). Ethan's marriage to Mary, who was several years older than he, does not seem to have been particularly happy. Mary died of consumption in 1783, a few months before her eldest daughter. Ethan met his second wife, Frances Montresor Brush Buchanan, in 1784, fell in love and married her within a few months. They had three children: Fanny (1784-1819), Hannibal (1786-1813), and Ethan (1787-1855).

Allen died in 1789, of a stroke, at the age of 51.

Two ships of the United States Navy have been named Ethan Allen in his honor, as well as Fort Ethan Allen, a cavalry outpost, in Colchester and Essex, Vermont. The Spirit of Ethan Allen is the name of a tour boat line in Lake Champlain.

A statue of Allen represents Vermont in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol. [1]

Ethan Allen: Encyclopedia BETA

Contents

Ethan Allen

Biography

Publications

Other Associates

Further reading

External links