Ethan Allen
Ethan Allen was an American farmer, writer, military officer, and politician. He is best known as one of the founders of Vermont and for the capture of Fort Ticonderoga during the American Revolutionary War, and was also the brother of Ira Allen and the father of Fanny Allen.
Allen was born in rural Connecticut and had a frontier upbringing, but he also received an education that included some philosophical teachings. In the late 1760s, he became interested in the New Hampshire Grants, buying land there and becoming embroiled in the legal disputes surrounding the territory. Legal setbacks led to the formation of the Green Mountain Boys, whom Allen led in a campaign of intimidation and property destruction to drive New York settlers from the Grants. He and the Patriot-aligned Green Mountain Boys seized the initiative early in the Revolutionary War and captured Fort Ticonderoga in May 1775. In September 1775, Allen led a failed attempt on Montreal which resulted in his capture by the British. He was imprisoned aboard ships of the Royal Navy, then paroled in New York City, and finally released in a prisoner exchange in 1778.
Upon his release, Allen returned to the New Hampshire Grants which had declared independence in 1777, and he resumed political activity in the territory, continuing resistance to New York's attempts to assert control over the territory. Allen lobbied Congress for Vermont's official state recognition, and he participated in controversial negotiations with the British over the possibility of Vermont becoming a separate British province.
Allen wrote accounts of his exploits in the war that were widely read in the 19th century, as well as philosophical treatises and documents relating to the politics of Vermont's formation. His business dealings included successful farming operations, one of Connecticut's early iron works, and land speculation in the Vermont territory. Allen and his brothers purchased tracts of land that became Burlington, Vermont. He was married twice, fathering eight children.
Early life
Allen was born in Litchfield, Connecticut Colony, the first child of Joseph and Mary Baker Allen, both descended from English Puritans. The family moved to the town of Cornwall shortly after his birth due to his father's quest for freedom of religion during the Great Awakening. As a boy, Allen already excelled at quoting the Bible and was known for disputing the meaning of passages. He had five brothers and two sisters. His brothers Ira and Heman were also prominent figures in the early history of Vermont.The town of Cornwall was frontier territory in the 1740s, but it began to resemble a town by the time that Allen was a teenager, with wood-frame houses beginning to replace the rough cabins of the early settlers. Joseph Allen was one of the wealthier landowners in the area by the time of his death in 1755. He ran a successful farm and had served as town selectman. Allen began studies under a minister in the nearby town of Salisbury with the goal of gaining admission to Yale College.
First marriage and early adulthood
Allen was forced to end his studies upon his father's death. He volunteered for militia service in 1757 in response to the French siege of Fort William Henry, but his unit received word that the fort had fallen while they were en route, and they turned back. The French and Indian War continued over the next several years, but Allen did not participate in any further military activities and is presumed to have tended his farm. In 1762, he became part owner of an iron furnace in Salisbury. He also married Mary Brownson from Roxbury in July 1762, who was five years his senior. They first settled in Cornwall, but moved the following year to Salisbury with their infant daughter Loraine. They bought a small farm and proceeded to develop the iron works. The expansion of the iron works was apparently costly to Allen; he was forced to sell off portions of the Cornwall property to raise funds, and eventually sold half of his interest in the works to his brother Heman. The Allen brothers sold their interest in the iron works in October 1765.By most accounts, Allen's first marriage was unhappy. His wife was rigidly religious, prone to criticizing him, and barely able to read and write. In contrast, his behavior was sometimes quite flamboyant, and he maintained an interest in learning. Nevertheless, they remained together until Mary's death in 1783. They had five children together, only two of whom reached adulthood.
Allen and his brother Heman went to the farm of a neighbor whose pigs had escaped onto their land, and they seized the pigs. The neighbor sued to have the animals returned to him; Allen pleaded his own case and lost. Allen and Heman were fined ten shillings, and the neighbor was awarded another five shillings in damages. He was also called to court in Salisbury for inoculating himself against smallpox, a procedure that required the sanction of the town selectmen.
When he moved to Salisbury, Allen met Thomas Young, a doctor living and practicing just across the provincial boundary in New York. Young taught him a great deal about philosophy and political theory, while Allen shared his appreciation of nature and life on the frontier with Young. They eventually decided to collaborate on a book intended as an attack on organized religion, as Young had convinced Allen to become a Deist. They worked on the manuscript until 1764, when Young moved away from the area taking the manuscript with him. Allen recovered the manuscript many years later, after Young's death. He expanded and reworked the material, and eventually published it as Reason: the Only Oracle of Man.
Heman remained in Salisbury where he ran a general store until his death in 1778, but Allen's movements are poorly documented over the next few years. He lived in Northampton, Massachusetts, in the spring of 1766, where his son Joseph was born and where he invested in a lead mine. The authorities asked him to leave Northampton in July 1767, though no official reason is known. Biographer Michael Bellesiles suggests that religious differences and Allen's tendency to be disruptive may have played a role in his departure. Allen briefly returned to Salisbury before settling in Sheffield, Massachusetts, with his younger brother Zimri. It is likely that his first visits to the New Hampshire Grants occurred during these years. Sheffield was the family home for ten years, although Allen was often absent for extended periods.
New Hampshire Grants
Governor Benning Wentworth was selling land grants west of the Connecticut River as early as 1749, an area to which New Hampshire had always laid claim. Many of these grants were sold at relatively low prices to land speculators, with Wentworth also reserving for himself a share of each grant. In 1764, King George III issued an order resolving the competing claims of New York and New Hampshire in favor of New York. New York had issued land grants that overlapped some of those sold by Wentworth, and authorities there insisted that holders of the Wentworth grants pay a fee to New York to have their grants validated. This fee approached the original purchase price, and many of the holders were land-rich and cash-poor, so there was a great deal of resistance to the demand. By 1769, the situation had deteriorated to the point that surveyors and other figures of New York authority were being physically threatened and driven from the area.A few of the holders of Wentworth grants were from northwestern Connecticut, and some of them were related to Allen, including Remember Baker and Seth Warner. In 1770, a group of them asked him to defend their case before New York's Supreme Court. Allen hired Jared Ingersoll to represent the grant-holder interest in the trial, which began in July 1770 and pitted Allen against politically powerful New York grant-holders, including New York's Lieutenant Governor Colden, James Duane who was prosecuting the case, and Robert Livingston, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who was presiding over the case. The trial was brief and the outcome unsurprising, as the court refused to allow the introduction of Wentworth's grants as evidence, citing their fraudulently issued nature. Duane visited Allen and offered him payments "for going among the people to quiet them". Allen denied taking any money and claimed that Duane was outraged and left with veiled threats, indicating that attempts to enforce the judgment would be met with resistance.
Many historians believe that Allen took these actions because he already held Wentworth grants of his own, although there is no evidence that he was issued any such grants until after he had been asked to take up the defense at the trial. He acquired grants from Wentworth to about in Poultney and Castleton prior to the trial.
Green Mountain Boys
On Allen's return to Bennington, the settlers met at the Catamount Tavern to discuss their options. These discussions resulted in the formation of the Green Mountain Boys in 1770, with local militia companies in each of the surrounding towns. Allen was named their Colonel Commandant, and cousins Seth Warner and Remember Baker were captains of two of the companies. Further meetings resulted in creating committees of safety; they also laid down rules to resist New York's attempts to establish its authority. These included not allowing New York's surveyors to survey any land in the Grants, not just land owned through the Wentworth grants. Allen participated in some of the actions to drive away surveyors, and he also spent much time exploring the territory. He sold some of his Connecticut properties and began buying land farther north in the territory, which he sold at a profit as the southern settlements grew and people began to move farther north.Friction increased with the provincial government in October 1771, when Allen and a company of Green Mountain Boys drove off a group of Scottish settlers near Rupert. Allen detained two of the settlers and forced them to watch them burn their newly constructed cabins. Allen then ordered them to "go your way now, and complain to that damned scoundrel your Governor, God damn your Governor, Laws, King, Council, and Assembly". The settlers protested his language but Allen continued the tirade, threatening to send any troops from New York to Hell. In response, New York Governor William Tryon issued warrants for the arrests of those responsible, and eventually put a price of £20 on the heads of six participants, including Allen. Allen and his comrades countered by issuing offers of their own.
The situation deteriorated further over the next few years. Governor Tryon and the Green Mountain Boys exchanged threats, truce offers, and other writings, frequently written by Allen in florid and didactic language while the Green Mountain Boys continued to drive away surveyors and incoming tenants. Most of these incidents did not involve bloodshed, although individuals were at times manhandled, and the Green Mountain Boys sometimes did extensive property damage when driving tenants out. By March 1774, the harsh treatment of settlers and their property prompted Tryon to increase some of the rewards to £100.