Ethan Allen, the Robin Hood of Vermont

by Henry Hall

One of the great spectacles of the Anglo-Saxon civilization had been appointed for this time and place. A criminal, David Redding, convicted of treason, was to be executed. Upon a petition for rehearing on the ground that he had been convicted by a jury of only six men, the governor had reprieved Redding until Thursday, the 11th. The news of the reprieve, noised through the town, called together a disappointed and angry crowd, in the midst of which Allen appeared, mounted a stump, and cried: "Attention, the whole!" He then expressed his sympathy with the people, explained the illegality of the trial, and told them to go home and return in a week, and they "shall see a man hung; if not Redding, I will be," and the appeased crowd peaceably dispersed. In the next trial Allen was appointed state's attorney to prosecute Redding, who was condemned.

Soon Allen's attention is called to the controversy between New York and Vermont. In the preceding February, after the constitution was adopted, before the government was inaugurated, Governor Clinton, of New York, issued a proclamation ostentatious with apparent clemency and generosity. Ethan Allen was selected as the proper man to expose the pompous fraud. Clinton began by saying that the disaffection existing in Vermont was partially justified by the atrocious acts of the British government while New York was a colony, the act of outlawry which sentenced Allen and others to death without trial, the fees and unjust preference in grants to servants of the crown over honest settlers, and he offered to discharge all claims under the outlawry act, to reduce the New York quit-rents to the New Hampshire rate, to make the fees of patents reasonable, and to confirm all grants made by New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Allen replied, in a pamphlet, that the British act of outlawry had been dead by its own provision two and a half years, no thanks to Clinton; that most of the grants of New Hampshire and Massachusetts had been covered by New York patents, and that, as a matter of law, it was impossible for New York to cancel her former patents and confirm the New Hampshire grants, and he cited the opinion of the lords of trade to that effect.

But Vermont was in a dangerous position in reference to New Hampshire. A portion of that state had seceded and united with Vermont. The two states had fought side by side, but now New Hampshire had become unfriendly and remained so for years. The governor and council, perplexed with the difficulty, appointed Allen an agent to visit Congress and ask for advice. This is his first embassy from Vermont to Congress. He reported that "unless the union with New Hampshire towns is dissolved the nation will annihilate Vermont."

His second embassy was with Jonas Fay, in 1779, to inform Congress of the progress of affairs in Vermont.

His third embassy was in 1780, when he was chosen by the legislature as the chairman of a very able and eminent committee, Stephen R. Bradley, Moses Robinson, Paul Spooner, and Jonas Fay, to act as counsel for Vermont before Congress against the ablest men of New York and New Hampshire.

In 1779 he was sent to the Massachusetts court with a letter from the governor asking for a statement of Massachusetts' claim to Vermont. The reply was that Massachusetts claimed west from the Merrimac, and three miles further north, to the Pacific. This included part of Vermont.

It is noteworthy that Allen was elected a member of the legislature from Arlington while his family lived in Sunderland, and he called Bennington his "usual home." It is notable, also, that the constitution required every member of the legislature to take an oath that he believed in the divine inspiration of the Bible and professed the Protestant religion, an oath which Allen refused to take, and yet was allowed to act as a member.

It was in 1778 that Allen complained to the court of confiscation that his brother Levi had become a tory; had passed counterfeit Continental money; that under pretence of helping him while a prisoner on Long Island, he had been detected in supplying the British with provisions. He stated that Levi owned real estate in Vermont and prayed that that estate might be confiscated to the public treasury. For this act Levi afterward challenged Ethan to a duel, but Ethan took no notice of the challenge.

In the spring of 1779 the Yorkers in Windham County wrote to Governor Clinton that unless New York aided them, "our persons and property must be at the disposal of Ethan Allen; which is more to be dreaded than death with all its terrors."