Bennington was the early nucleus of Vermont colonization. Samuel Robinson, of that town, had land to sell both in Bennington and the adjoining town of Shaftsbury. It is said he entertained over night the new immigrants; if Baptists, he sold them land in Shaftsbury; if Congregationalists, he sold them land in Bennington.
What visible tokens have we of Vermont's pride in this hero, to whom she is so much indebted for her existence as a state?
The earliest statue of Ethan Allen was by Benjamin Harris Kinney, a native of Sunderland. It was modelled in Burlington and exhibited there in 1852. The Rev. Zadoc Thompson said of it: "All who have long and carefully examined his statue will admit that the artist, Mr. Kinney, our respected townsman, has embodied and presented to the eye the ideal in a most masterly manner." The Hon. David Read says: "The statue was examined by several aged people who had personally known Allen, and all pronounce it an excellent likeness of him." Henry de Puy has an engraving of this statue in his book about Allen in 1853. This statue has never been purchased from Mr. Kinney, and it is still in his possession.
The two statues of Allen made for the state are the work of Larkin G. Mead, a native of Chesterfield, N. H., reared and educated in Brattleboro. One of them, at the entrance of the state-house in Montpelier, is of Rutland marble. The other one, in the Capitol at Washington, is of Italian marble.
The fourth statue was unveiled at Burlington, the 4th of July, 1873. It was made at Carrara, Italy, after a design by Peter Stephenson, of Boston. It is 8 ft. 4 in. high, stands on a granite shaft 42 ft. in height, in Green Mountain Cemetery, on the banks of the Winooski.
"Siste viator! Heroa calcas!"
[FOOTNOTE:]
[1] This letter, like others, is given verbatim, despite some evident errors of phraseology.