ALLEN, ETHAN American soldier, was born at Litchfield, Conn., on Jan. 1o, 1739. He removed, probably in 1769, to the "New Hampshire grants," where he took up lands, and eventually became a leader of those who refused to recognize the jurisdiction of New York, and contended for the organization of the "grants" into a separate province. About 1771 he was placed at the head of the "Green Mountain boys," an irregular force organized for resistance to the "Yorkers." On May 1o, 1775, soon after the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, in command of a force, which he had assisted some members of the Connecti cut assembly to raise for the purpose, he captured Ticonderoga from its British garrison, calling upon its commanding officer according to the unverified account of Allen himself-to surrender "in the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." Seth Warner being elected colonel of the "Green Mountain boys" in July 1775, Allen, piqued, joined General Philip Schuyler, and later with a small command, but without rank, accompanied Gen eral Richard Montgomery's expedition against Canada. On Sept. 25, 1775 near Montreal he was captured by the British, and re mained a prisoner until exchanged on May 6, 17 78. Upon his re lease he was brevetted colonel by the Continental Congress. He then, as brigadier general of the militia of Vermont, resumed his opposition to New York, and from 1779 to 1783, acting with his brother, Ira Allen, and several others, carried on negotiations, indirectly, with Governor Frederick Haldimand of Canada, who hoped to win the Vermonters over to the British cause. He seems to have assured Haldimand's agent that "I shall do everything in my power to make this state a British province." In March 1781, he wrote to Congress, with characteristic bluster, "I am as reso lutely determined to defend the independence of Vermont as Con gress that of the United States, and rather than fail will retire with the hardy Green Mountain boys into the desolate caverns of the mountains and wage war with human nature at large." He re moved to Burlington, Vt., in 1787, and died there February 11, 1789. He was, says Tyler, "a blustering frontier hero-an able minded ignoramus of rough and ready humour, of boundless self confidence, and of a shrewdness in thought and action, equal to almost any emergency." Allen wrote a Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen's Captivity the most celebrated book, in the "prison literature" of the American revolution ; A Vindication of the Inhabitants of Vermont to the Government of New York and their Right to form an Independent State 0779); and Reason, the Only Oracle of Man (1784) .
Ethan's youngest brother, IRA ALLEN (1751-1814), born on April 21, 1751 at Cornwall, Conn., also removed to the New Hampshire grants, where he became one of the most influential political leaders. In 1775 he took part in the capture of Ticon deroga and the invasion of Canada. He was a member of the convention which met at Winchester, Vt., and in January 1777 declared the independence of the New Hampshire grants ; served (1776-1786) as a member of the Vermont council of safety; con ducted negotiations, on behalf of Vermont, for a truce with the British and for an exchange of prisoners, in 1781; served for eight terms in the general assembly, and was State treasurer from 1778 to 1786 and surveyor general from 1778 to 1787. In 1789, by a gift of 14,000, he made possible the establishment of the Uni versity of Vermont, of which institution, chartered in 1791 and built at Burlington in deference to his wishes, he was thus virtually the founder. In 1795, on behalf of the State, he purchased from the French government arms for the Vermont militia, of which he was then the ranking major general, but he was captured by a British cruiser west of Ireland on his return journey, was charged with attempting to furnish insurrectionary Irish with arms, and after prolonged litigation in the British courts, the case not being finally decided until 1804, returned to Vermont in 180I. During his absence he had been dispossessed of his large holdings of land through the operation of tax laws, and to escape imprisonment for debt, he removed to Philadelphia, where on Jan. 4, 1814 he died. He published a dull and biassed, but useful Natural and Political History of Vermont (1798), reissued (1870) in vol. i. of the Col lections of the Vermont Historical Society.
J. B. Wilbur, Ira Allen, Founder of Vermont (2 vol., 1928) ; Henry Hall's Ethan Allen (New York, 1892) may be consulted. The best literary estimate may be found in M. C. Tyler's Literary History of the American Revolution (1897). See also John Spargo, Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga (1926) ; John Pell, Ethan Allen (1929).