Ethan Allen was hero of the American Revolution, living from 1738 to 1789. He was an early American revolutionary and guerrilla leader during the era of the Vermont Republic and the New Hampshire Grants.

He did battle against the settlement of Vermont by the Province of New York. Allen was born in Litchfield and was the oldest of the eight children. Joseph Allen was the leader of a rebellious group of land owners and speculators who held New Hampshire title to land grants in the infamous New Hampshire Grants. New York, which held substantial claim to the grants, refused to honor the New Hampshire titles and sold competing titles to different people, however, not living in Vermont. This led to rebellion across much of Vermont. In April of 1755, Joseph Allen died, leaving Ethan to take care of the family farm, and his legacy for rebellion.

Allen was tall, towering over most other men at being 6 feet. As a young man, he served in the colonial militia in the French and Indian war. During this time he did not experience much combat. Back at Salisbury, Ethan Allen learned of one of the hottest political ideologies of the colonies: republicanism. Republicanism was the belief that man was entitled to life, liberty, and property. Today, these three rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These beliefs would soon get Ethan Allen into trouble. In the early 1770s he emerged as the military leader of Anti-New York dissidents in the New Hampshire Grants known only as the infamous Green Mountain Boys. Effective as he was in his position, a warrant was issued for his arrest by the government of New York, the reward consisting of 100 pounds.

Later in the spring of 1775, Ethan Allen would participate in the seizer of Fort Ticonderoga. Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold led the raid. After getting his men across Lake Champlain, Ticonderoga was taken from 22 British troops that held it and who were not aware that a war was in progress. Legend says that when the British officer asked him under what authority he acted, Ethan Allen roared, “In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!” Allen and Arnold’s rebels also quickly captured forts at Crown Point, Fort Ann on Isle La Motte near the present Canadian border, and (temporarily) the town of St John (now Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec). The huge stores of cannon and powder seized at Ticonderoga allowed the American rebels to formulate and execute an effective siege of Boston which caused the British to evacuate in October of 1775. During September, Allen then urged an expedition against Canada, and the Green Mountain Boys were attached to Gen. P. J. Schuyler’s invasion force, but the men chose not Allen, but his cousin Seth Warner as leader. Allen went on the expedition and, in a rash effort to capture Montreal before the main Continental army arrived, was captured by the British.

When Ethan Alan returned from England my means of a prisoner exchange, he moved back to Vermont. It was here that he remained active in Vermont politics and was appointed general in the Army of the independent state of Vermont. He participated in an attempt to bring Vermont back into the British Empire and thereby separate Vermont from New York permanently. This failed, and Ethan Allen withdrew prom politics in 1784. Allen died in 1789 of a stroke at the age of 51.