No doubt similar to many people, I have read the name of Ethan Allen many times in histories of American’s Revolutionary Era and knew he was a prominent person in New England at the time. I believe I am not alone, though, in knowing very little about what he actually accomplished and why his legacy looms so large in Vermont, the place he would call home as an adult, today. Seeking to learn more about this famous figure, I recently listened to the audiobook version of Willard Sterne Randall’s biography of him, entitled Ethan Allen: His Life and Times.
Sterne, who teaches at Champlain College, is a veteran writer who has produced biographies of several founding fathers, including Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton, This book is the first serious biography of Allen in decades, and likely the most complete portrait of him to ever be published.
The book is in truth equal parts biography and a tale of the coming of age of the state with which Allen is associated. Sterne follows Allen from his humble beginnings in Connecticut to his latter years, explaining the influences on him as he grew up in a rough and tumble environment while at the same time becoming a deep thinker on matters of religion and government. A dissenter who challenged traditional beliefs in the Christian church, Allen early on developed fully-formed and deeply-held ideas which would animate his actions for the remainder of an adventurous life which included careers as a farmer, speculator, miner, soldier, and writer.
Much of the book is devoted to telling the story of how Allen pursued—sometimes belligerently—the independence of what became the state of Vermont, originally comprised of granted lands claimed by neighboring New York and New Hampshire. The story is a long and winding one which resulted in Vermont’s statehood from what had been known as the “Hampshire grants,” and Allen would be front and center throughout a complicated series of events that included a little duplicity, some political persuasion, and occasional violence. Allen parlayed his hard-won experience on the New England frontier into a position as a recognized regional leader whose daring and intelligence made him a living legend among some of the backwoodsmen whose cause he represented. He was able to translate that fame into leadership of perhaps the largest paramilitary organization in North America on the eve of the Revolution, known as the “Green Mountain Boys.” Although many, like I had done mistakenly, associate the group’s formation with the American Revolution, it was organized for and saw its greatest experience in the fight with colonial forces from New York who attempted to prevent Vermont’s formation as a state.
Allen’s Revolutionary War experience as a soldier was short but significant. He helped capture Fort Ticonderoga in one of the epic capers of America’s war for independence in an operation with Benedict Arnold. But his days on the field of battle were cut short as he was captured by the British shortly after and would spend nearly three years as a captive, enduring horrific conditions that would have killed most men. The book he wrote about his survival of the ordeal (A Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen’s Captivity) became a best seller in the years immediately after the war, and probably as much as anything he had done prior, ensured his would become a household name in early America.
Randall’s approach to all of this history is comprehensive but not equally paced. He devotes what seems to be an inordinate amount of time on Allen’s background and the circumstances which shaped him growing up, and gives considerable space to the cultural and religious background which shaped his convictions. His capture of Ticonderoga is told is brief but compelling fashion. This is all the author’s prerogative, of course, and is likely a response to the existing literature on his subject which I admittedly know little about. Still, I came away from the biography wondering what more well-trod ground about Allen’s story might have been given relatively cursory attention. Allen died at the age of 51, nearly two years before Vermont was welcomed into the Union as the 14th state. As this book explains beyond anything else, it is Allen’s impact on that story for which he is and should be remembered.
JMB
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