BOOK REVIEW: Ira Allen: A Biography by J. Kevin Graffagnino (Barre, VT: Vermont Historical Society, 2024. $24.95 cloth) While Ethan Allen’s exploits as the ringleader of the Green Mountain Boys and his 1775 conquest of Fort Ticonderoga are legendary, his youngest brother’s contributions and quixotic schemes are relatively unknown. Kevin J. Graffagnino asserts, in his […]
Despite the imperative nature of his unusual name, Remember Baker has garnered significantly less historical attention than fellow Green Mountain Boys Ethan Allen and Seth Warner. Baker seemed destined for an important role in the Revolutionary War, but his life was cut short in an August 22, 1775 incident across the Quebec border. As a result of […]
Ethan Allen’s prevailing reputation among the general population remains that of a daring hero, but has suffered in the eyes of recent historians. Casual readers, aided by the embellishments of nineteenth-century biographers, remember Vermont’s Allen as the leader of the rebellious but honorable Green Mountain Boys and the conqueror of British-held Fort Ticonderoga. As a […]
This story begins five weeks after Gen. John Burgoyne’s army forced the Americans to abandon positions on Lake Champlain in July 1777. On August 12, Gen. Benjamin Lincoln wrote to Washington telling him, “I am to return with the militia . . . to the northward, with a design to fall into the rear of […]
On October 18, 1777, New York provincial assemblyman, and tory, Crean Brush, penned his final will and testament from prison in Boston. After nineteen months of incarceration which included being held in irons, and “in a state of body and mind so debilitated by misfortune,” Brush made provisions for his wife Margaret, stepdaughter Frances, and […]
Following the failed assault on Quebec City, the Continental Congress resolved on January 8, 1776 to provide additional regiments for the defense of Canada. One of them was a new (unnumbered) battalion to be commanded by New York’s Col. Goose Van Schaick and his fellow field officers who had continued in the service from the […]
Vermont’s Ebenezer Allen: Patriot, Commando and Emancipator by Glenn Fay Jr. (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2021) Ethan Allen, the militia leader who shares credit for taking Fort Ticonderoga early in the Revolution, is the most recognizable historical figure from early Vermont history. His brother Ira is also famous for his association with the Green Mountain […]
If the gunfire at Lexington and Concord was the “shot heard round the world,” the phrases in the Declaration of Independence were the words read around the world. In the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson declared America an independent nation, rooting his ideas in political theory and justifying them with a list of grievances.[1] After the Declaration was […]
In early May 1775, with the Revolutionary War not even one month old, western Massachusetts Patriot leaders and their Stockbridge Indian neighbors developed a plan to use diplomacy to neutralize a looming danger in the north. Stockbridge ambassadors would take a peace message from their community to the New England colonists’ traditional Native enemies in Canada. […]
Most modern historical treatments of the American invasion of Canada disparage Brig. Gen. David Wooster for his leadership in Canada. A detailed examination of his command from January to May 1776, however, lends credence to an early biographer’s conclusion that “Gen. Wooster was censured by those who did not know the obstacles he had to […]
When Ethan Allen described his defeat and capture outside Montreal at Longue Pointe on September 25, 1775, he observed that “it was a motley parcel of soldiery which composed both parties.” The enemy included Canadian Loyalists, British regulars, Indian Department officers, and a few Native warriors. In the autobiographical A Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen’s […]
On September 25, 1775, three weeks into the American invasion of Canada, the legendary Ethan Allen fought a fierce battle outside Montreal with about one hundred Canadians and Continental soldiers at his side. The result was bitter defeat at the hands of a larger British-Canadian force that had sortied from the city to confront them […]
Just weeks after war broke out at Lexington and Concord, Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold, working in grudging consort,captured Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain, as well as the settlement of Skenesborough (now Whitehall) at the southern end of the lake. Under orders from Arnold, Eleazer Oswald also captured a small vessel there. Oswald reported: “We […]
The legendary stories of Ethan Allen and Vermont’s Green Mountain Boys have long been part of American folklore. Their heroically described exploits are fabled in many fictional accounts and children’s books.[1] Allen’s name is synonymously linked with the Green Mountain Boys as if he was their sole leader. However, while Allen receives the fame, there […]
Dear Mr. History: What is the true impact and legacy of the “Green Mountain Boys” and their commander, Colonel Ethan Allen? Some say they were an important colonial militia; others have called them a pack of wild, hard-drinking mountain men. While still others say that Allen was really a half-crazy, obnoxious, blowhard who should share […]
