With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga

by W. Bert Foster

At the moment, however, the satisfaction of Ethan Allen and his brave companions was unbounded. While the British soldiers were being paraded without their weapons before their conquerors, a second body of Green Mountain Boys under Major Warner entered the fort. The tall Connecticut man came to Allen with considerable chagrin expressed in his countenance. “Colonel, you have selfishly seized all the honors this time!” he cried, yet congratulating his friend with a warm handclasp. “You are a regular Achilles; there is nothing heroic for the rest of us to do.”

“Nonsense–nonsense, Seth!” cried Ethan Allen, yet unable to hide his delight at the outcome of the attack. “There is glory enough for every officer and every man Jack in the ranks. There is yet Crown Point to capture and you, Major, shall command that expedition. Take Bolderwood and some of his scouts with you and approach the other fortress by water–and good fortune and my blessing go with you!”

A moment later the great guns of Old Ti began to speak. And they spoke a new tongue that morning. The Voice of Liberty as expressed by the resonant thunders of the old cannon echoed and reëchoed from height to height. The promontory which had been the scene of the bloody struggle between Champlain and the Iroquois, and the site of two fearful battles of the British and French, was at length sanctified by the presence of this band of liberty loving men destined, through the next few years, to offer their lives and possessions on the altar of their country.

Then Warner and his men again embarked in the boats and sailed down the lake. Enoch Harding went with the expedition and saw the bloodless capitulation of the other British stronghold. Later, Benedict Arnold with a small command captured a British corvette farther down the lake and with that act the supremacy of the Americans on Champlain was assured. A garrison was placed in each fortress and then the Green Mountain Boys dispersed to their homes having accomplished the object for which they had been gathered by their leader. Enoch and the old ranger returned to the ox-bow farm where their welcome can be better imagined than narrated.

Yet the Widow Harding during the struggle which followed the capture of Ticonderoga made many sacrifices more noble even than that of allowing her eldest son to join in this expedition, but pioneer mothers were called upon so to do. Lot Breckenridge’s mother had allowed her son to march away to Boston where, under Israel Putman, he saw most active service during the campaign which finally drove the red-coats out of the Massachusetts capital. Robbie Baker was with his father when, while reconnoitering outside St. Johns, the Green Mountain sharpshooter was killed by an Indian ally of the British.

Enoch Harding, too, joined that ill-fated expedition into Canada where the rash attempt of Ethan Allen and his followers before Montreal resulted in the capture and imprisonment of the intrepid leader. Enoch, returning with the broken columns of the American army, but with a lieutenant’s commission, was sent south and took no further part in the struggles about Lake Champlain. But Bryce, two years after the capture of Ticonderoga, well sustained the family name and honor while fighting with Stark at Bennington.

The girls and young Henry became their mother’s sole support in her work of tilling the farm which Jonas Harding had cleared, and throughout the uncertain years of the Revolution the family continued to sow and reap, like so many other patriotic folk, that the army might be clothed and fed while fighting the King’s hirelings. Perhaps the part played by the “non-combatants” in the Revolution was not the least loyal nor the least helpful to the cause of liberty.

The war between the confederated states and Great Britain did not end the controversy regarding the rights of the settlers in the Hampshire Grants; it simply postponed the vexing matter. But in the end the freedom of Vermont as a state was brought about. After the war, and while the Thirteen States were endeavoring to bring order out of the chaotic conditions which had been the legacy of the great struggle, it was really New York herself that urged the admittance of Vermont into the Union. Even at that early date the supremacy of the South was feared, and when Kentucky applied for entrance to the Union, Vermont was made a state also to counteract the addition of another of southern sentiment.

During the war, however, the condition of Vermont was very precarious. It was due to Ethan Allen, as much as to any one man, that the Green Mountains and the Champlain Valley were not overrun with foes both white and red. While imprisoned in the hulks in New York Bay Allen was approached by agents of the crown who strove to buy his good-will by presents and promises. They did not understand the rugged honesty of the Green Mountain Boy; but he, knowing the exposed situation of his friends and neighbors, craftily led his captors to believe that they might obtain Vermont and her sturdy people on their own side.

When Ethan Allen was exchanged and came back to the Green Mountains, he still, with other leaders, carefully watched the British agents and thus saved the rich farming lands of the Otter and Wonooski from bloodshed, that the patriot farmers might continue to plant and reap the grain which was truly “the sinews of war.” It is true therefore that few leaders of the Revolution deserve greater commendation, for none displayed more consecrated courage, nor was more beloved by his followers, than the hero of Ticonderoga.