Quotations
That there are degrees in the knowledge of rational beings, and also in their capacities to acquire it, cannot be disputed, as it is so very obvious among mankind.
Ch. IV Section I - Speculation on the Doctrine of the Depravity of Human Reason
More Quotes >>
Encyclopedia
Ethan Allen 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 independence 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 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 . 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 the town of St John . 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 the city 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 , Joseph , Lucy Caroline , Mary Ann , and Pamela . 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 , Hannibal , and Ethan .
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.
Publications
Allen wrote a
Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen's Captivity ; a
Vindication of the Opposition of Vermont to the Government of New York ; and Reason the Only Oracle of Man, or A Compendious System of Natural Religion .
Other Associates
- Thomas Rowley was known as his spokesman, the "Bard of the Green Mountains" who "Set the Hills on Fire" for Ethan Allen.
Further reading
- Allen, Ira, "The Natural and Political History of the State of Vermont." 1798, Charles E. Tuttle Co.: Publishers
- Bellesiles, Michael A. Revolutionary Outlaws: Ethan Allen and the Struggle for Independence on the Early American Frontier. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993.
- Hall, Henry. Ethan Allen. New York, 1892.
- Holbrook, Stewart H. "Ethan Allen", New York: The MacMillan Company, 1940
- Hoyt, Edwin P. "The Damndest Yankee: Ethan Allen & his Clan". Brattleboro, Vermont: The Stephen Greene Press, 1976.
- Jellison, Charles A. Ethan Allen: Frontier Rebel. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1969.
- Pell, John. Ethan Allen. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1929.
External links
