[go: up one dir, main page]
Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Life of Col. Ethan Allen
    The Life of Col. Ethan Allen
    The Life of Col. Ethan Allen
    Ebook105 pages1 hour

    The Life of Col. Ethan Allen

    By Jared Sparks

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Covers the life of Ethan Allen as he fights for first the New Hampshire Grants and then for the newly declared United States of America. His capture of Fort Ticonderoga and his fight to make Vermont an Independent state are all related.

    “THE first settlement of Vermont, and the early struggles of the inhabitants not only in subduing a wilderness, but establishing an independent government, afford some of the most remarkable incidents in American history. When we now survey that flourishing State, presenting in all its parts populous towns and villages, and witness the high degree of culture to which it has attained, and which, under the most favored social organization, is usually the slow achievement of time, we can hardly realize that seventy years ago the whole region from the Connecticut River to Lake Champlain was a waste of forests, an asylum for wild beasts, and a barrier against the inroads of the savages upon the border settlements of the New England Colonies. This change has been brought to pass in the first place by a bold and hardy enterprise, and an indomitable spirit of freedom, which have rarely been equalled; and afterwards by the steady perseverance of an enlightened and industrious population, deriving its stock from the surrounding States, and increasing rapidly from its own resources. To the historian this is a fertile and attractive theme. By the biographer it can only be touched, as bearing on the deeds and character of the persons, who have been the principal actors in the train of events.

    Among those, who were most conspicuous in laying the foundation upon which the independent State of Vermont has been reared, and indeed the leader and champion of that resolute band of husbandmen who first planted themselves in the wilderness of the Green Mountains was ETHAN ALLEN.”-Print ed.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIndependent Publishers Group
    Release dateApr 20, 2023
    ISBN9781805232131
    The Life of Col. Ethan Allen

    Read more from Jared Sparks

    Related to The Life of Col. Ethan Allen

    Related ebooks

    Wars & Military For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Life of Col. Ethan Allen

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Life of Col. Ethan Allen - Jared Sparks

      cover.jpgimg1.png

      © Patavium Publishing 2023, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

      Publisher’s Note

      Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

      We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      TABLE OF CONTENTS 1

      ETHAN ALLEN. 3

      ABSTRACT 51

      MEMOIR OF COLONEL ETHAN ALLEN

      BY

      JARED SPARKS, LL. D.

      ETHAN ALLEN.

      THE first settlement of Vermont, and the early struggles of the inhabitants not only in subduing a wilderness, but establishing an independent government, afford some of the most remarkable incidents in American history. When we now survey that flourishing State, presenting in all its parts populous towns and villages, and witness the high degree of culture to which it has attained, and which, under the most favored social organization, is usually the slow achievement of time, we can hardly realize that seventy years ago the whole region from the Connecticut River to Lake Champlain was a waste of forests, an asylum for wild beasts, and a barrier against the inroads of the savages upon the border settlements of the New England Colonies. This change has been brought to pass in the first place by a bold and hardy enterprise, and an indomitable spirit of freedom, which have rarely been equalled; and afterwards by the steady perseverance of an enlightened and industrious population, deriving its stock from the surrounding States, and increasing rapidly from its own resources. To the historian this is a fertile and attractive theme. By the biographer it can only be touched, as bearing on the deeds and character of the persons, who have been the principal actors in the train of events.

      Among those, who were most conspicuous in laying the foundation upon which the independent State of Vermont has been reared, and indeed the leader and champion of that resolute band of husbandmen who first planted themselves in the wilderness of the Green Mountains was ETHAN ALLEN. He was a native of Connecticut, when his father and mother were likewise here, the former in Coventry, and the latter in Woodbury, Joseph Allen, the father after his marriage wish Mary Baker resided in Litchfield where it is believed that Ethan and one or two other children were born. The parents afterwards rom wed to Cornwall where other children were born making in all sin sons and two daughters: Ethan, Heman, Heber, Levi, Zimri, Ira, Lydia, and Lucy. All the brothers grew up to manhood and four on five of them emigrated to the territory west of the Green Mountains among the first settlers, and were prominent members of the social and political compacts into which the inhabitants gradually formed themselves. Bold, active, and enterprising, they espoused with zeal, and defended with energy, the cause of the settlers against what were deemed the encroaching schemes of their neighbors, and with a keen interest sustained their share in all the border contests. Four of them were engaged in the military operations of the Revolution, and by a hazardous and successful adventure at the breaking out of the war, in the capture of Ticonderoga, the name of Ethan Alien gained a renown, which spread widely at the time, and has been perpetuated in history.

      But, before we proceed in our narrative, it is necessary to state a few particulars explanatory of what will follow. Among the causes of the controversies, which existed between the colonies in early times, and continued down to the Revolution, was the uncertainty of boundary lines as described in the old charters. Considering the ignorance of all parties, at the time the charters were granted, as to the extent and interior situation of the country, it was not surprising that limits should be vaguely defined, and that the boundaries of one colony should encroach upon those of another. A difficulty of this kind arose between the colony of New York and those of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. By the grant of King Charles the Second to his brother, the Duke of York, the tract of country called New York was bounded on the east by Connecticut River, thus conflicting with the express letter of the Massachusetts and Connecticut charters, which extended those colonies westward to the South Sea, or Pacific Ocean. After a long controversy, kept up at times with a good deal of heat on both sides, the line of division between these colonies was fixed by mutual agreement at twenty miles east of Hudson’s River, running nearly in a north and south direction. This line was adopted as a compromise between Connecticut and New York, upon the consideration that the Connecticut settlers had established themselves so far to the westward under patents from that colony, as to be within about twenty miles of the Hudson. The Massachusetts boundary was decided much later to be a continuation of the Connecticut line to the north, making the western limit of Massachusetts also twenty miles from the same river. This claim was supported mainly on the ground of the precedent in the case of Connecticut, and was long resisted by New York, as interfering with previous grants from that colony extending thirty miles eastward from the Hudson.{1}

      Meantime New Hampshire had never been brought into the controversy, because the lands to the westward of that province beyond Connecticut River had been neither settled nor surveyed. There was indeed a small settlement at Fort Hummer on the western margin of the River, which was under the protection of Massachusetts, and supposed to be within that colony, till the dividing line between New Hampshire and Massachusetts was accurately run, when Fort Dummer was ascertained to be north of that line, and was afterwards considered as being within the jurisdiction of the sister colony. Such was the state of things when Benning Wentworth became governor of New Hampshire, with authority from the King to issue patents for unimproved lands within the limits of his province. Application was made for grants to the west of Connecticut River, and even beyond the Green Mountains, and in 1749 he gave a patent for a township six miles square, near the northwest angle of Massachusetts, to be so laid out, that its western limit should be twenty miles from the Hudson, and coincide with the boundary line of Connecticut and Massachusetts continued northward. This township was called Bennington.

      Although the governor and council of New York remonstrated against this grant, and claimed for that colony the whole territory north of Massachusetts as far eastward as Connecticut River, yet Governor Wentworth was not deterred by this remonstrance from issuing other patents, urging in his justification, that New Hampshire had a right to the same extension westward as Massachusetts and Connecticut. Fourteen townships had been granted in 1754, when the French war broke out, and, by the peril it threatened on the frontiers, discouraged settlers from seeking a residence there, or vesting their property in lands, the title to which might be put in jeopardy, or their value destroyed, by the issue of the contest. Nor was it till the glorious victory of Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham had wrested Canada for ever from the French power, secured these border territories against all further invasion from an ancient foe, and opened the prospects of a speedy and lasting peace, that the spirit of enterprise, perhaps of adventure, combining with the hope of gain, revived a desire of possessing and settling these wild lands. Applications for new patents thronged daily upon Governor Wentworth, and within four years’ time the whole number of townships granted by him, to the westward of Connecticut River, was one hundred and thirty-eight. The territory including these townships was known by the name of the New Hampshire Grants, which it retained till the opening of the Revolution, when its present name of Vermont began to be adopted.

      At what time Ethan Allen and his brethren emigrated to the Grants is uncertain. It was not, however, till after the reduction of Canada, and probably not till the peace between England and France had been concluded. Meantime among the inhabitants of the New England colonics, a market had been found for the lands, and settlers were flocking over the mountains from various

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1