Ethan Allen.
This is a compelling story of a legend, Ethan Allen. Allen was an American revolutionary and a guerilla leader. He was a legend who acquired a place in history for capturing Fort Ticonderoga in 1775. He championed Vermonts effort to gain independence and become a state. Though this did not happen in his lifetime, it eventually happened in 1791, with Vermont becoming the fourteenth state. During his lifetime, Allen was involved in many battles with some like the capturing of Ticonderoga succeeding while others like the effort to capture Montreal failing leading to his capture and imprisonment for almost three years. Allen was not only a fighter, but also an author. He compiled a title, Reason the Only Oracle of Man on his deist ideas and the story about his capture in his popular Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allens Captivity.
Bibliography on Ethan Allen
The name of Ethan Allen is so popular and very common in the state of Vermont. The name of his troop, the Green Mountain Boys is used as the name for the states Air National Guard Corps (Cummins, p.67). Allen was a real legend in Vermont, yet mysterious. Allen was a perceptive and courageous defender of the Hampshire grants. He was a loyal patriot who did not understand the meaning of fear. He fought the British and captured Fort Ticonderoga in 1775. This was one of his successful adventures but his effort to attach Montreal did not succeed, leading to his own capture (Carr, p.2).
Ethan Allen was born on January 21, 1738 and died on February 12, 1789. Allen was born the first born of a substantial farmer in Litchfield, Conn. His parents were Joseph and Mary Baker Allen. He was an American soldier and a frontiersman. Allen fought in the French and Indian war and after the war, he settled in what is currently known as Vermont. After settling in Bennington, Allen was outstandingly involved in the conflicts between New York and New Hampshire. The two were fighting for the control of the region (Dean, p.84). His father died when Allen was young leaving him with the responsibility of taking care of his mother and seven siblings. This brought his education to an end at a time he was preparing to join Yale College (Shuman, p.34). He was however at an advantage because he had a genuine intellectual bent. He was able to write many pamphlets on various subjects like taking of the Ticonderoga, Vermonts controversies with New York, and also religion. Allen was married and had five children. His wife died in 1783 and he remarried in the same year. He had eight children from the two marriages (Fishman, Pederson and Rozell, p.34).
Allen was an American revolutionary and a guerilla leader. Ethan Allen was a different kind of frontier soldier. His effect on the settlers of Vermont was only comparable to that of John Sevier on the settlers of Watauga, East Tennessee, and Thomas Sumter on the settlers of South Carolina. Frontier people had clan like loyalties, and always looked up to strong men for leadership. Allen possessed all the credentials required for he was tall and broad-shouldered he had physical strength coupled with rough and ready humor. He was over six feet tall, while most of the men at the time were a foot shorter (Jellison, p. 43). He was quiet articulate and outspoken. Allen had limitless self-confidence and shrewd in thoughts and action relative to any emergency. This was the reason why he was able to control the Green Mountain Boys better than any one else and they reciprocated by being so loyal to him and would follow him anywhere and would do anything he asked (Gerlach, Dolph and Nicholls, p.12).
When Vermont was threatened by New York authorities who made claims on the area and claimed that their land titles were not valid, the Vermonters formed a military association in 1770. The militia commanded by Allen was unauthorized. The members of the militia were rough and roistering youths who called themselves the Green Mountain Boys. The group was named after the mountain because New York on being threatened to drive out the settlers from the fields, wanted to send them into the Green Mountains. Allen and his Green Mountain Boys pursued the New York surveyors, sheriffs and settlers who evaded Hampshire Grants, known as Vermont today, from 1770 to 1775 (Grabb, Curtis and Baer, p.23). Allen himself formed a company to sell tracts that were along the Onion River. The authority of Allen as Chieftain of Grants was uncontested. Allen felt sympathy for the colonists in other places in their efforts to oppose British imperial policy, even if the position of Vermonters was complicated because they were at the time petitioning the king to be repossessed to New Hampshire (Katanic, p.6).
Allen and his brothers became the leaders of the New England settlers, speculators in the land disputes, enemies of the Yorkers- settlers under patents of New York, and violent opponents to all efforts of New York to exert power in the area. The New York governor, Governor Tryon put a price on the heads of Allen and two of his allies, but he was not captured. He was declared an outlaw by the royal governor of New York (Hart, p.89).
Ethan Allen is considered the hero of American Revolution. Allen was the leader of Green Mountain Boys and the promoter of the independence and statehood of Vermont. During the American Revolution, his power of Green Mountain Boys assisted in defeating the British in the Battle of Ticonderoga in 1775 (Richardson Jr., p.32). All the same, Allen felt the urge to take British Fort Ticonderoga, in case Anglo-American antagonism erupted. The one time mighty fortress at the junction of Lake Champlain and Lake George began to be a crumbling and garrisoned structure. The New York governor had offered a suggestion that the fortress be used as a base for bringing Vermont down, Allen understood that any great attempt by the British to win any American war would definitely include a southward attack from Canada along the junction (Allen, p.67).
Allen had offered his services in the American war against Britain. He was always barked up by the Green Mountain Boys. At the time when Allen, with the financial aid of Connecticut, went on with his plan to capture Ticonderoga, he found out that Benedict Arnold was commissioned to do the same by Massachusetts. In the course of their efforts, Allen and his force allowed Benedict to join them (Millard and Hagan, p.28). Benedict wanted to be recognized as a joint commander together with Allen. There were scuffles over authority and the trip with the boat across the dark waters of Lake Champlain to the western side became more difficult to the Americans as compared to the Redcoat garrison. Moments before daybreak on May 9, 1775, Allen overwhelmed the garrison and offered an ultimatum to the British senior officer. The successful seize of Ticonderogas heavy guns, sledged eastward the following winter to Washington camp, made the British to evacuate Boston in 1776 (Kierner, p.4). Even to date, there are controversies as to who commanded the expedition to capture Ticonderoga, whether it was Allen or Benedict. Benedict wanted to command the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, but Green Mountain Boys objected and threatened to retreat rather than be under any other persons authority apart from Allen. Though there is no documentation to support this and offer the nature of the terms, it is believed that the two colonels reached an agreement (Holbrook, p.54).
Immediately after, Allen came to Philadelphia and convinced the Continental Congress to approve the establishment of a contingent of Green Mountain under officers who would be elected by the citizens of Vermont. Allen further advised the congress on the advantages of an attack on Canada. This seemed to have added some drive to the order by the congress to Gen. Philip Schuyler to proceed northward against Montreal and other parts of the province. A former junior of Allen, Seth Warner was elected instead of Allen at a public meeting in Vermont, to head the division of Green Mountain Boys. According to Allen, that decision was made because the older inhabitants made majority of the voters during the meeting, and they considered Seth to be headstrong and radical. Allen joined Seths troop as a volunteer and was assigned to work behind the British lines with a group of Canadian recruits. Allen and John Brown, who was the leader of a similar force, made a decision to surprise and seize Montreal on their own. Unfortunately news leaked to the town that Ethan Allen was preparing the attack. Browns troop failed to show up, leading to the defeat of Allen and eventual capturing. After getting captured, Allen was held prisoner until 1778. After his release, he returned to Vermont where he began working for statehood (Millard and Hagan, p.28).
Allen was under captivity for almost three years. He spent that time mainly in England and New York City (Sparks and Ellery, p.47). Allen was later exchanged, but never again participated actively in the revolution. Allen was exchanged for Colonel Archibald Campbell. The exchange was led by Colonel Elias Boudinot, who was the American commissary general of prisoners chosen by General George Washington. After the exchange, Allen reported to Valley Forge (Holbrook, p.27).
When Allen was captured, Vermont declared freedom and independence and petitioned congress to recognize it as a state without success. Allen also failed to achieve this due to the opposition of New York and New Hampshire. These two disputed the claims of land ownership by some Vermonters on the eastern region of the Connecticut River. Allen and two of his brothers, Ira and Levi devoted themselves to ensure that they achieved the new political unit by whatever means (Wachter and Schultz, p.45). They tried to negotiate with agents from Britain in an attempt to make the Congress to recognize Vermont as a state. This was between 1780 and 1788. If the congress would not, the brothers considered the possibility of carrying out a peace or, after the war, coming together with Canada. Vermont remained in danger of being attacked by Britain, and in the late 1779, Britain began negotiations with Allen in an effort to unite Vermont with Canada. No conclusions to the negotiations were reached, and the success at Yorktown that put an end to the American Revolution also put an end to the negotiations. All these threats bore no fruits, although Vermont became the fourteenth state of America in 1791. This was two years after the death of a man who had worked tirelessly to see this come to pass. Allen had withdrawn from politics in 1784. Up until the time that Allen died, Vermont was still free and still dickering with the continental congress and handling internal wrangles between the Allen party and their opponents (Sparks and Ellery, p.47).
It is argued that after capturing Fort Ticonderoga in 1775, a British officer wanted to know the authority under which Allen was acting and Allen answered that he was acting in the authority of the great Jehovah together with the Continental Congress. The story is however apocryphal.
Apart from his adventures in war, Allen was also a writer and he wrote accounts of exploits during the war. He had acquired some education and was proud of his deist ideas, which he complied in Reason the Only Oracle of Man (1784). Allen is remembered as the author of the only extended statement of deistic religion principles ever written in the United States. His work in this book was heavily condemned by orthodox Christian clergymen (Allen, p.7). His work probably produced very little effect since all but very few copies were burnt. Allen tells his story about his capture in his popular Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allens Captivity which came out in 1779, just a year after he was exchanged. After his release, he set to devote his time to philosophic endeavors (Allen, p.7). One of his tasks was to complete and publish his monumental job. He had begun to write these book years before as a student of Dr. Thomas Young in Connecticut. Allen was not able to find a publisher who was ready to publish his book due to the content. He ended up going into self-publishing through a printer in Bennington in 1784 (Duffy, p.45).
Allan is remembered as a man who was always ready to take up difficult and seemingly impossible quests and many times pulled them off. He did whatever he set his mind to do, wholeheartedly and could easily motivate people to follow him. He never allowed fear or anything to get on his way in whatever he wanted to do. He had spent a considerable part of his life in the efforts to set free Hampshire grants from New Yorkers (Nelson, p.34).
Bibliography on Ethan Allen
The name of Ethan Allen is so popular and very common in the state of Vermont. The name of his troop, the Green Mountain Boys is used as the name for the states Air National Guard Corps (Cummins, p.67). Allen was a real legend in Vermont, yet mysterious. Allen was a perceptive and courageous defender of the Hampshire grants. He was a loyal patriot who did not understand the meaning of fear. He fought the British and captured Fort Ticonderoga in 1775. This was one of his successful adventures but his effort to attach Montreal did not succeed, leading to his own capture (Carr, p.2).
Ethan Allen was born on January 21, 1738 and died on February 12, 1789. Allen was born the first born of a substantial farmer in Litchfield, Conn. His parents were Joseph and Mary Baker Allen. He was an American soldier and a frontiersman. Allen fought in the French and Indian war and after the war, he settled in what is currently known as Vermont. After settling in Bennington, Allen was outstandingly involved in the conflicts between New York and New Hampshire. The two were fighting for the control of the region (Dean, p.84). His father died when Allen was young leaving him with the responsibility of taking care of his mother and seven siblings. This brought his education to an end at a time he was preparing to join Yale College (Shuman, p.34). He was however at an advantage because he had a genuine intellectual bent. He was able to write many pamphlets on various subjects like taking of the Ticonderoga, Vermonts controversies with New York, and also religion. Allen was married and had five children. His wife died in 1783 and he remarried in the same year. He had eight children from the two marriages (Fishman, Pederson and Rozell, p.34).
Allen was an American revolutionary and a guerilla leader. Ethan Allen was a different kind of frontier soldier. His effect on the settlers of Vermont was only comparable to that of John Sevier on the settlers of Watauga, East Tennessee, and Thomas Sumter on the settlers of South Carolina. Frontier people had clan like loyalties, and always looked up to strong men for leadership. Allen possessed all the credentials required for he was tall and broad-shouldered he had physical strength coupled with rough and ready humor. He was over six feet tall, while most of the men at the time were a foot shorter (Jellison, p. 43). He was quiet articulate and outspoken. Allen had limitless self-confidence and shrewd in thoughts and action relative to any emergency. This was the reason why he was able to control the Green Mountain Boys better than any one else and they reciprocated by being so loyal to him and would follow him anywhere and would do anything he asked (Gerlach, Dolph and Nicholls, p.12).
When Vermont was threatened by New York authorities who made claims on the area and claimed that their land titles were not valid, the Vermonters formed a military association in 1770. The militia commanded by Allen was unauthorized. The members of the militia were rough and roistering youths who called themselves the Green Mountain Boys. The group was named after the mountain because New York on being threatened to drive out the settlers from the fields, wanted to send them into the Green Mountains. Allen and his Green Mountain Boys pursued the New York surveyors, sheriffs and settlers who evaded Hampshire Grants, known as Vermont today, from 1770 to 1775 (Grabb, Curtis and Baer, p.23). Allen himself formed a company to sell tracts that were along the Onion River. The authority of Allen as Chieftain of Grants was uncontested. Allen felt sympathy for the colonists in other places in their efforts to oppose British imperial policy, even if the position of Vermonters was complicated because they were at the time petitioning the king to be repossessed to New Hampshire (Katanic, p.6).
Allen and his brothers became the leaders of the New England settlers, speculators in the land disputes, enemies of the Yorkers- settlers under patents of New York, and violent opponents to all efforts of New York to exert power in the area. The New York governor, Governor Tryon put a price on the heads of Allen and two of his allies, but he was not captured. He was declared an outlaw by the royal governor of New York (Hart, p.89).
Ethan Allen is considered the hero of American Revolution. Allen was the leader of Green Mountain Boys and the promoter of the independence and statehood of Vermont. During the American Revolution, his power of Green Mountain Boys assisted in defeating the British in the Battle of Ticonderoga in 1775 (Richardson Jr., p.32). All the same, Allen felt the urge to take British Fort Ticonderoga, in case Anglo-American antagonism erupted. The one time mighty fortress at the junction of Lake Champlain and Lake George began to be a crumbling and garrisoned structure. The New York governor had offered a suggestion that the fortress be used as a base for bringing Vermont down, Allen understood that any great attempt by the British to win any American war would definitely include a southward attack from Canada along the junction (Allen, p.67).
Allen had offered his services in the American war against Britain. He was always barked up by the Green Mountain Boys. At the time when Allen, with the financial aid of Connecticut, went on with his plan to capture Ticonderoga, he found out that Benedict Arnold was commissioned to do the same by Massachusetts. In the course of their efforts, Allen and his force allowed Benedict to join them (Millard and Hagan, p.28). Benedict wanted to be recognized as a joint commander together with Allen. There were scuffles over authority and the trip with the boat across the dark waters of Lake Champlain to the western side became more difficult to the Americans as compared to the Redcoat garrison. Moments before daybreak on May 9, 1775, Allen overwhelmed the garrison and offered an ultimatum to the British senior officer. The successful seize of Ticonderogas heavy guns, sledged eastward the following winter to Washington camp, made the British to evacuate Boston in 1776 (Kierner, p.4). Even to date, there are controversies as to who commanded the expedition to capture Ticonderoga, whether it was Allen or Benedict. Benedict wanted to command the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, but Green Mountain Boys objected and threatened to retreat rather than be under any other persons authority apart from Allen. Though there is no documentation to support this and offer the nature of the terms, it is believed that the two colonels reached an agreement (Holbrook, p.54).
Immediately after, Allen came to Philadelphia and convinced the Continental Congress to approve the establishment of a contingent of Green Mountain under officers who would be elected by the citizens of Vermont. Allen further advised the congress on the advantages of an attack on Canada. This seemed to have added some drive to the order by the congress to Gen. Philip Schuyler to proceed northward against Montreal and other parts of the province. A former junior of Allen, Seth Warner was elected instead of Allen at a public meeting in Vermont, to head the division of Green Mountain Boys. According to Allen, that decision was made because the older inhabitants made majority of the voters during the meeting, and they considered Seth to be headstrong and radical. Allen joined Seths troop as a volunteer and was assigned to work behind the British lines with a group of Canadian recruits. Allen and John Brown, who was the leader of a similar force, made a decision to surprise and seize Montreal on their own. Unfortunately news leaked to the town that Ethan Allen was preparing the attack. Browns troop failed to show up, leading to the defeat of Allen and eventual capturing. After getting captured, Allen was held prisoner until 1778. After his release, he returned to Vermont where he began working for statehood (Millard and Hagan, p.28).
Allen was under captivity for almost three years. He spent that time mainly in England and New York City (Sparks and Ellery, p.47). Allen was later exchanged, but never again participated actively in the revolution. Allen was exchanged for Colonel Archibald Campbell. The exchange was led by Colonel Elias Boudinot, who was the American commissary general of prisoners chosen by General George Washington. After the exchange, Allen reported to Valley Forge (Holbrook, p.27).
When Allen was captured, Vermont declared freedom and independence and petitioned congress to recognize it as a state without success. Allen also failed to achieve this due to the opposition of New York and New Hampshire. These two disputed the claims of land ownership by some Vermonters on the eastern region of the Connecticut River. Allen and two of his brothers, Ira and Levi devoted themselves to ensure that they achieved the new political unit by whatever means (Wachter and Schultz, p.45). They tried to negotiate with agents from Britain in an attempt to make the Congress to recognize Vermont as a state. This was between 1780 and 1788. If the congress would not, the brothers considered the possibility of carrying out a peace or, after the war, coming together with Canada. Vermont remained in danger of being attacked by Britain, and in the late 1779, Britain began negotiations with Allen in an effort to unite Vermont with Canada. No conclusions to the negotiations were reached, and the success at Yorktown that put an end to the American Revolution also put an end to the negotiations. All these threats bore no fruits, although Vermont became the fourteenth state of America in 1791. This was two years after the death of a man who had worked tirelessly to see this come to pass. Allen had withdrawn from politics in 1784. Up until the time that Allen died, Vermont was still free and still dickering with the continental congress and handling internal wrangles between the Allen party and their opponents (Sparks and Ellery, p.47).
It is argued that after capturing Fort Ticonderoga in 1775, a British officer wanted to know the authority under which Allen was acting and Allen answered that he was acting in the authority of the great Jehovah together with the Continental Congress. The story is however apocryphal.
Apart from his adventures in war, Allen was also a writer and he wrote accounts of exploits during the war. He had acquired some education and was proud of his deist ideas, which he complied in Reason the Only Oracle of Man (1784). Allen is remembered as the author of the only extended statement of deistic religion principles ever written in the United States. His work in this book was heavily condemned by orthodox Christian clergymen (Allen, p.7). His work probably produced very little effect since all but very few copies were burnt. Allen tells his story about his capture in his popular Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allens Captivity which came out in 1779, just a year after he was exchanged. After his release, he set to devote his time to philosophic endeavors (Allen, p.7). One of his tasks was to complete and publish his monumental job. He had begun to write these book years before as a student of Dr. Thomas Young in Connecticut. Allen was not able to find a publisher who was ready to publish his book due to the content. He ended up going into self-publishing through a printer in Bennington in 1784 (Duffy, p.45).
Allan is remembered as a man who was always ready to take up difficult and seemingly impossible quests and many times pulled them off. He did whatever he set his mind to do, wholeheartedly and could easily motivate people to follow him. He never allowed fear or anything to get on his way in whatever he wanted to do. He had spent a considerable part of his life in the efforts to set free Hampshire grants from New Yorkers (Nelson, p.34).
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my names ethan!
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