Ethan Allen

Ethan Allen was born January 31, 1738, in London, in Lichfield, Connecticut. He was the eldest of eight, born to Joseph and Mary Allen. The Allens were devoutly religious and were involved in the debates that split the Puritan churches during the first great awakening. The Allens dis Religious and p He studied for admission to Yale Divinity School, but As the eldest son, Ethan was obliged to support Besides working the family farm, he had several other business ventures in Connecticut. Allen was the part owner of a successful iron foundry in Leadmine and managed Ethan married Mary Bronson, a Miller's daughter, and began a family. He also formed a new friends Thomas Young, who exposed T Ethan had to relocate several times as After being forced out of Northampton, Massachusetts, Ethan became a commercial hunter, w It was one of these hunting trips that he first came to Vermont. The area now known as Vermont was called the New Hamps From 1740 to 1770, New Hamps The crown ruled in favor of New York, putting the status of the New Hamps T When New York's government took steps to begin evictions of settlers who either refused or could not afford the fees, resistance began. Ethan Allen had earned enough money to purchase a home land in Vermont in 1770. He and These purchases were all based on New Hamps After attempts to settle the matter in court failed, a n In Albany, t Ethan Allen was elected their first carnal commandant. For the next five years, the Green Mountain Boys were thorns in the sides of New York authorities. Any attempts by New York to establish control over the New Hamps Surveyors were driven off, settlers forced to leave, and sheriffs who attempted to evict New Hamps Ethan Allen, as well as several other leaders, were declared outlaws by New York and had warrants issued for their arrests. T In 1775, Great Britain had 20 colonies in North America and a rebellion broke out in 13 of them. As British troops moved through Massachusetts, confiscating supplies of weapons and powder and skirmis Patriot leaders looked at the heavily armed forts along Lake Champlain as a source of arms and munitions. The Massachusetts and Connecticut Committees of Safety made plans to capture Fort Tye, Kondoroga, and asked Ethan and 60 Connecticut and Massachusetts men gathered at Hans Cove in Shorham with nearly 230 Green Mountain Boys and planned a dawn raid on May 10, 1775. The night before, Benedict Arnold arrived, carrying a commission from Massachusetts, and declared Many of the assembled men mocked Arnold and refused At 4 a. m. on May 10, Allen and Arnold made the decision to attack with only a fraction of their army, as insufficient boats were at hand and weather conditions made the crossing slow and treacherous. At dawn, the fort was easily taken, as the sleeping garrison of a mere 50 men was totally surprised and in fact had not received official word that a rebellion had commenced. The following day, Crown Point, another British fort a few miles to the north, was also taken, with little resistance by the detachment of Green Mountain Boys led by Seth Warner. The capture of these two forts secured protection from the British to the north and provided much needed cannon for the fledgling Continental Army. On June 23, 1775, Ethan Allen and Seth Warner appeared before the Continental Congress, telling them about the capture of Fort Ticonderoca, the cannon, and the military situation on the ground. Congress then recognized the Green Mountain Boys as an official regiment of the Continental Army, with Ethan Allen as its first commander. Despite leaving P While a great n Warner was elected the commander of the New Continental Regiment and Ethan's brothers all given commissions, but Ethan was not. The rejection had been engineered in part by the Northern Departmental Commander, P Ethan Allen volunteered to remain on, and Schuyler eventually consented to Schuyler ceded command to Richard Montgomery due to illness in September 1775. During t Frustrated by delays during the s A second attack force failed to arrive and Ethan, deserted and trapped, was easily captured and sent for trial as a traitor in England. His capture presented a conundr Was Ethan a criminal subject to hanging or an enemy combatant subject to the Articles of War? Out of fear that the execution of American officers would lead to the execution of captured British officers, the British government decided to treat The main source of information on Ethan's experiences as a prisoner or At times he suffered greatly, particularly on board prison s Losing a significant amount of weight, he looked haggard by the time he was finally repatriated after 954 days in captivity in the spring of 1778 in exchange for the release of a British colonel who was a member of parliament. Ethan Allen reported to George Was He published Ethan returned home to Vermont w Although he continued to involve At the request of Vermont Governor Thomas C Although ostensibly negotiating a prisoner exchange, the men had another agenda. Vermont had been facing raids from British Allied natives and the dispute with New York was showing no signs of abating. The matter of the New Hamps The bait offered the British was Vermont becoming a separate state and rejoining the British Empire. The Allen's wrote to the British offering to deliver Vermont as a British province in exchange for recognition and a cessation of raids. Simultaneously, C When news of these attempts have been made public, accusations of treason flew. Recent scholars With Montreal recaptured, the British were conducting raids. In order to protect Vermont from any more raids and to protect northern New York from any raids at all, the Allen'strung the British along for nearly five years. One of the best they believed that Ethan Allen and the other Vermonters would deliver Vermont into their hands. They didn't figure out that they had been fooled until after George Was Ethan Allen, most of all, was carrying on secret negotiations with the British with the full approval of Vermont's governor. They did not inform the American government because there were so many loyal spies. The involvement of France in the conflict and the eventual defeat of the British rendered these discussions null. In addition, the fractious nature of Vermont's early politics played a role in complicating Vermont's path to statehood. In June 1783, Ethan's wife, Mary, died of tuberculosis. Six months later, he met a young widow who was boarding with Frances Montresor Brush Buchanan was the illegitimate daughter of a British Army engineer, Major John Montresor. She had been raised by her uncle Loyalist Crean Brush and was well educated in botany, music, languages, and literature. At 16, she had been married to a British naval officer who perished in a battle with an American privateer. Despite her loyalist family, Ethan was quite taken with Frances, who was nicknamed Fanny. After a brief courts Ethan also contented Thomas Young of Salisbury. In 1785, The book was a financial disaster and not well received, probably because its ideas were as controversial as its author. It most clearly reflected Major portions of the book were commentaries and criticisms of the Bible, organized religion in general, and the clerical establishment. He postulated natural law and the idea of a good God in harmony with nature, hardly ideas that would endear If mankind would dare to exercise their reason as freely on those divine topics as they do in the common concerns of life, they would, in a great measure, rid themselves of their blindness and superstition, gain more exalted ideas of God and their obligations to W The last five years of Ethan's life were He and Ethan concentrated on farming and writing and died in February 1789. He was bringing a load of hay home from The issue of the New Hamps Oh, all to the borders, Vermont has come down with your bridges of deerskin and jackets of brown with your red woolen caps and your moccasins come to the gathering s