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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Holly Frown and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And what

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Speaker 1: could have part two of our Ethan Allen topic because

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Speaker 1: he did many crazy things that people don't seem to

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Speaker 1: know about. Uh So the first part of the story

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Speaker 1: we talked about his origins, how he came to lead

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Speaker 1: a militia group called the Green Mountain Boys, who first

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Speaker 1: were formed to go after uh Yorkers short for New

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Speaker 1: Yorkers in territory disputes in the New Hampshire Grants, the

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Speaker 1: New Hampshire Grants being what is modern day Vermont. And

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Speaker 1: how then this group, the Green Mountain Boys went on

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Speaker 1: to serve the colonists in the American Revolution in an

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Speaker 1: effort to bring favor to their desire to make Vermont

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Speaker 1: an independent state. And after taking forts Um Lake Champlain

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Speaker 1: from the British with his Green Mountain Boys and additional

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Speaker 1: troops headed by Benedict Arnold, Ethan who had been voted

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Speaker 1: out as leader of the Green Mountain Militia, was still

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Speaker 1: ready to fight on behalf of the colonies, and so

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Speaker 1: he had volunteered to take part in an initiative to

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Speaker 1: push the fighting up into Canada. After the successes at

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Speaker 1: Taikonderoga and Crown Point, Allen really saw a clear path

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Speaker 1: to move north, and he made his way towards the

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Speaker 1: north end of Lake Champlain. Having gotten tired of waiting

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Speaker 1: on some kind of decisive movement and having never gotten

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Speaker 1: an official commission to make any battle plans, he decided

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Speaker 1: that the next target should be Montreal. Yeah. He I

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Speaker 1: think we should be clear that Ethan Allen decided that

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Speaker 1: if there had been some discussion about it prior to that,

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Speaker 1: but he really kind of took matters into his own

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Speaker 1: hands because he was certainly a determined and confident gentleman.

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Speaker 1: And in June seventy, so this is just a few

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Speaker 1: weeks after he had led the troops that took Ticonderoga

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Speaker 1: and Crown Point, forts, Alan began recruiting Native Americans and

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Speaker 1: even embittered Canadians. You join him in this this little plan.

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Speaker 1: And so between June and September he amassed his troops

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Speaker 1: and he laid out sort of a battle plan. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And this endeavor we probably don't have to, but I

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Speaker 1: feel we should point out was entirely foolhardy for a

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Speaker 1: number of reasons, aside for the fact that he was

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Speaker 1: just kind of doing this of his own initiative. Montreal

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Speaker 1: knew what Alan was planning. He had not been secretive

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Speaker 1: enough in his efforts to recruit people, and so word

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Speaker 1: had gotten to Montreal that he was planning something. And moreover,

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Speaker 1: even though he had recruited a lot of these men,

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Speaker 1: not all of them were really on board with his

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Speaker 1: invasion plans, so it was really just beset by problems. Consequently,

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Speaker 1: when he forged ahead into Montreal on September, things did

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Speaker 1: not go well. So, as we said, they knew he

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Speaker 1: was coming, and this plan was more impulsive than strategic.

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Speaker 1: He thought that backup was going to come to assist him,

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Speaker 1: but it never came. A lot of his recruits deserted,

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Speaker 1: and the whole thing just went so poorly that Ethan

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Speaker 1: was very easily captured. Yeah, it's a certain level of turnabout.

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Speaker 1: He so easily took those the forts of Ticonderoga and

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Speaker 1: Crown Point that then when he tried this more ambitious plan,

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Speaker 1: it really fell apart, and he was the one that

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Speaker 1: was easily taken because he was charged as a traitor

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Speaker 1: to the British Crown. Initially he was shipped back to

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Speaker 1: England for trial, and Ethan Allen actually wrote of his

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Speaker 1: time as a captive after the fact, and these writings

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Speaker 1: were used as war propaganda. In a passage from his

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Speaker 1: work A Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen's Captivity, he describes

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Speaker 1: attempting to negotiate a sort of kindness and fair treatment

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Speaker 1: with his captors, and the manner in which he was

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Speaker 1: forced to respond to the poor treatment that he received.

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Speaker 1: So this is what he wrote. The reader is now

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Speaker 1: invited back to the time I was put into Irons.

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Speaker 1: I requested the privilege to write to General Prescott, which

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Speaker 1: was granted. I reminded him of the kind and generous

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Speaker 1: manner of my treatment to the prisoners I take at

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Speaker 1: teknda Roga, and of the injustice and ungentlemanlike usage which

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Speaker 1: I had met with from him, and demanded gentleman like usage,

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Speaker 1: but received no answer from him. I soon after wrote

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Speaker 1: to General Carlton, which met the same success. In the meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: many of those who were permitted to see me were

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Speaker 1: very insulting. I was confined in the manner I have

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Speaker 1: related on board the schooner gas boo about six weeks

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Speaker 1: during which I was obliged to throw out plenty of

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Speaker 1: extravagant language, which answered certain purposes at that time better

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Speaker 1: than to grace a history. So basically he UH did

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Speaker 1: a lot of swearing, profanity and yelling, which I personally

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Speaker 1: am going to call extravagant language going forward in my

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Speaker 1: life because it sounds so nice. Rather than to admit

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Speaker 1: that I threw a tantrum, UH, and he just felt like,

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Speaker 1: you know what, in the time, that's what was needed.

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Speaker 1: And I told them off because I tried to be

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Speaker 1: nice and they wouldn't acknowledge that. And I really loved

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Speaker 1: this passage because it's sort of very quickly encapsulates this

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Speaker 1: fiery part of her personality, which we've talked about a lot,

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Speaker 1: but we haven't really had great examples of. UH. And

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Speaker 1: his narrative describes also a significant positive shift in his

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Speaker 1: treatment once he was labeled as a prisoner of war

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Speaker 1: rather than a trader, and that happened because King George

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Speaker 1: the Third had decreed that American prisoners should be labeled

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Speaker 1: as such, and that way taken back to America to

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Speaker 1: be held rather than being kept in England, which is

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Speaker 1: where they would have to hold them as traders. He

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Speaker 1: remained a prisoner, kept first on a ship off the

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Speaker 1: coast of New York and then moved to Long Island

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Speaker 1: on parole until May six seventy eight, and that's when

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Speaker 1: he was released by British troops in exchange for one

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Speaker 1: of their officers. So, after Alan was released, he was

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Speaker 1: appointed to the brevet rank of colonel by Congress and

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Speaker 1: he was awarded back pay for his time and captivity,

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Speaker 1: but he did not actively serve in the military going

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Speaker 1: forward from that, So a brevet rank is kind of

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Speaker 1: an honorary situation in case you did not know that.

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Speaker 1: Before we move on to him returning to Vermont, let's

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Speaker 1: take a moment for a word from a sponsor that

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Speaker 1: sounds grand. And now back to Ethan Allen. So, despite

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Speaker 1: the service of Allen and his fellow settlers, the New

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Speaker 1: Hampshire Grants were still lumped in with New York, much

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Speaker 1: to their dismay. Yeah, the Green Mountain Boys had ably

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Speaker 1: fought for the freedom of the colonists from British rule,

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Speaker 1: both with Ethan Allen as their leader and later under

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Speaker 1: Seth Warner, but there were officials who sort of thought

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Speaker 1: it was just going to be best and easiest to

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Speaker 1: simply maintain the same boundary lines for states that had

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Speaker 1: existed prior to the war. And so this meant that

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Speaker 1: the proposed state of Vermont, which was really what they

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Speaker 1: were all fighting for, was still part of New York.

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Speaker 1: So that was the absolute opposite outcome of what they

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Speaker 1: had intended when they even joined this whole effort in

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Speaker 1: the first place. Meanwhile, Vermont had declared its independence in

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Speaker 1: seventeen seventy seven while Ethan was captive, and just a

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Speaker 1: few months after his release in May of seventeen seventy eight, Alan,

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Speaker 1: who had turned his attentions from military service to political negotiation,

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Speaker 1: formerly presented Vermont's claim for statehood to Congress in Philadelphia.

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Speaker 1: That happened in September. But there was some tension. New

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Speaker 1: York was a very powerful state and Congress was not

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Speaker 1: especially keen on going against New York's wishes. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: they were still, you know, dealing with the war effort.

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Speaker 1: There were a lot of other things going on. But

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Speaker 1: in the meantime, while the the um fate of Vermont

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Speaker 1: was kind of being hemmed in hot about both New

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Speaker 1: Hampshire and Massachusetts were eyeing this land that was there,

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Speaker 1: and they were kind of making their own claims on

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Speaker 1: the disputed territory, and all of this unsettled land drama

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Speaker 1: kind of led Ethan Allen to do something that ended

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Speaker 1: up being kind of controversial and may not have been

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Speaker 1: the smartest move. During these territorial disputes, the governor of

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Speaker 1: Canada was Frederick Haldemant, and in seventeen eighty Ethan, along

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Speaker 1: with his brother Ira and several other leaders, started a

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Speaker 1: series of clandestine meetings and communicates with him. They were

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Speaker 1: negotiating terms to make Vermont part of the British Empire. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: things weren't going well with statehood and they wanted their independence.

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Speaker 1: So the Vermont Assembly meanwhile, was not privy to these discussions.

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Speaker 1: This really was just a small group of men who

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Speaker 1: had been leaders in various ways that were kind of

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Speaker 1: opening this discussion. And so while the Assembly was still

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Speaker 1: working to become the fourteenth state of the Union, that

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Speaker 1: was their goal, Ethan Allen and his allies, it seemed,

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Speaker 1: were actually undermining that work by kind of back dealing

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Speaker 1: with the British. Once these correspondences were revealed, the people

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Speaker 1: involved claimed that they've been acting out of a desire

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Speaker 1: to prevent a British invasion and then put pressure on

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Speaker 1: Congress to make Vermont a state in its own right.

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Speaker 1: So they claimed that these negotiations were all subterfuge. But uh,

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Speaker 1: the modern view is that, you know, even after the

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Speaker 1: war ended in seven teen eight three, officially, some of

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Speaker 1: these people were actually still having discussions about the possibility

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Speaker 1: of Vermont becoming part of Britain with these people in Canada.

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Speaker 1: So the whole hey, we're totally just stringing them along

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Speaker 1: to prevent an attack. You guys were totally totally cool.

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Speaker 1: That line of reasoning kind of flies out the window.

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Speaker 1: It's not a very valid excuse at that point because

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Speaker 1: there was no attacking going on. Part of Ethan Allen's

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Speaker 1: history that gets tangled up here and causes some problems

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Speaker 1: lies in the fact that he was approached during his

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Speaker 1: time as a prisoner of war to serve as a

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Speaker 1: spy for the crown. So it's generally believed that he

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Speaker 1: never served in this capa pacity, but the fact that

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Speaker 1: he was offered the chance to do so really colored

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Speaker 1: the perception of his behavior in the negotiations. With haldemand yeah,

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Speaker 1: he basically was seen as suspicious. They're like, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: so you say you never betrayed us, but you had

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Speaker 1: every opportunity to where I wouldn't you, and you were

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Speaker 1: doing this thing that was kind of dicey. Uh So.

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Speaker 1: The one thing that's interesting to note, though, is that

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Speaker 1: while the business with Canadian officials and and in the

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Speaker 1: broader sense Britain was often labeled as treason by members

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Speaker 1: of Congress and the public, there were no formal charges

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Speaker 1: of treason ever officially made to of Ethan Ellen or

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Speaker 1: any of the other men involved. Back in part one

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Speaker 1: of this episode, we mentioned that Ethan's wife, Mary died

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Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty three, and not long after, so did

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Speaker 1: their couple's oldest daughter. They both died of tuberculosis, and

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Speaker 1: uh Ethan did mourn both of them, even Mary, even

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Speaker 1: though it's we mentioned in the first part that they

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Speaker 1: really weren't said to have a particularly happy marriage. Uh.

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Speaker 1: But he did not stay single for very long. In

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Speaker 1: four to the following year, he met Frances montresor brush Buchanan,

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Speaker 1: and Fanny as she was called, was already a widow herself,

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Speaker 1: even though she was only twenty four years old when

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Speaker 1: she met Allan, and at this point he was forty

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Speaker 1: six and of course a widower because Mary had died,

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Speaker 1: and he had several young children. The two of them

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Speaker 1: got married just a few months after they met, and

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Speaker 1: in contrast to Ethan's first marriage, this match really seems

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Speaker 1: to have been a lot happier. Fanny was very well educated,

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Speaker 1: She was interested in music and science, and she could

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Speaker 1: and would converse with Ethan about his interests and was

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Speaker 1: by all accounts an extremely calming figure in his life,

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Speaker 1: which seems like a handy thing to have had around. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He was given to impulsive behavior. He would curse people

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Speaker 1: out when he was angry at them, and Fanny really

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Speaker 1: just sort of old that part of him out a

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Speaker 1: little bit. Uh. And the pair had three children together,

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Speaker 1: So Fanny Margaret was born in seventeen eighty four, the

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Speaker 1: same year they married, Hannibal was born in seventeen eighty six,

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Speaker 1: and their son Ethan was born in seventeen eighty seven.

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Speaker 1: Although Allen continued to work on Vermont's behalf, his political

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Speaker 1: reputation had really taken a huge hit in the wake

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Speaker 1: of that whole negotiation scandal, and he became less and

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Speaker 1: less influential. So while he had been the perfect man

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Speaker 1: to lead a ragtag group of militiamen to seed Vermont's independence,

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Speaker 1: he just didn't have the finesse needed to actually govern

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Speaker 1: and lead in times that required more diplomacy instead of

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Speaker 1: brute force. Uh yeah. So even though Fanny had had

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Speaker 1: had this calming effect on him, he still, you know,

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Speaker 1: was the same man at heart. He was not one

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Speaker 1: that liked to um make deals that involved compromise. So

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Speaker 1: his work, instead of being so much in the political realm,

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Speaker 1: began to foe because instead on writing and he went

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Speaker 1: back to working on a project that he had begun

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Speaker 1: years earlier with Thomas Young, who in our first episode

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Speaker 1: we mentioned he was a doctor that Ethan Allen was

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Speaker 1: friends with and they had a rather uh scandalous public

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Speaker 1: varilation demonstration that resulted in them both being charged because

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Speaker 1: it was illegal at the time. So he ended up

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Speaker 1: going back to the work that they had been doing together,

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Speaker 1: and he ended up publishing a book entitled Reason the

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Speaker 1: Only Oracle of Man or a Compendious System of Natural Religion,

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Speaker 1: and that came out in se And this book is

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Speaker 1: largely a discussion of deism, which centers around morality and

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Speaker 1: spirituality coming from a place of reason rather than being

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Speaker 1: part of a structured and dogmatic religious order. Uh, you

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Speaker 1: can predict how well that did. That was not well.

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Speaker 1: Had His criticism of both the Old and New Testaments

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Speaker 1: really struck a sour note with a lot of bowl. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he really did kind of tear apart the Bible, and

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Speaker 1: and you know, instead of sort of persuading through uh,

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Speaker 1: some of the ways that he had used when he

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Speaker 1: was younger, where he was really able to make people

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Speaker 1: see his point of view, he really kind of just

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Speaker 1: took an attack approach and it it definitely hurt him. Um.

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Speaker 1: But regardless of his book sales, he kind of went

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Speaker 1: about his life. He and Fanny moved to Burlington in

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Speaker 1: seventy seven to live on the Winooski River, and he

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Speaker 1: wrote while he was there, he did some farming, and

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Speaker 1: he generally enjoyed peace and quiet with his family. Remember,

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Speaker 1: he had a lot of new children at this point.

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Speaker 1: The cause of his death is not entirely clear. He

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Speaker 1: had gone out and he was coming home in his

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Speaker 1: sleigh across a frozen lake and he either had a

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Speaker 1: stroke or fell off the vehicle because he was intoxicated.

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Speaker 1: He died without ever regaining consciousness the next day, which

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Speaker 1: was February twelfth, seventeen eighty nine. He's buried in Burlington, Vermont,

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Speaker 1: and two years after his passing, Vermont became a state. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he had worked for his whole life, but he never

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Speaker 1: got to see it in his lifetime, although they were close.

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Speaker 1: Um and just in case, we mentioned in the top

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Speaker 1: of the first part of this too parter that when

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Speaker 1: you talk to most people, they hear the name Ethan

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Speaker 1: Allen and they go, oh, the furniture guy, and they

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Speaker 1: think that he was a carpenter or a furniture maker

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Speaker 1: or somehow this was his company. It was not so.

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Speaker 1: In case you were wondering about how he got tied

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Speaker 1: in in terms of the image with a large furniture company,

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Speaker 1: that company was actually named after Ethan Allen when it

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Speaker 1: was founded in the nineteen thirties in Beecher, Vermont. They

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Speaker 1: kind of because he is sort of a hero in

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Speaker 1: Vermont and known for his tenacity and his clarity of vision,

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Speaker 1: they thought that would be a good, uh, sort of

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Speaker 1: mascot of sorts for their their new company that they

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Speaker 1: were going to put together. And if you're also been

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Speaker 1: wondering as I have been about Green Mountain Coffee, which

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Speaker 1: I feel like I see everywhere now that also is

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Speaker 1: headquartered in Vermont. Despite being characterized as a cantankerous and

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Speaker 1: impulsive person, Ethan Allen has really achieved folk hero status

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Speaker 1: for Vermont. There's a statue of him that was given

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Speaker 1: to the National Statuary Hall Collection in eighteen seventies six. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and there is a m uh museum, the Ethan Allen

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Speaker 1: Homestead Museum. Will link to that in the show notes

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Speaker 1: because they had a lot of sorts material. Uh So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's sort of become famous, and I think a lot

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Speaker 1: of people, like I have a friend that uh went

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Speaker 1: to school in Vermont, and she knew a lot about him,

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Speaker 1: but she was like the only person that really seemed

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Speaker 1: to have a handle on the Ethan Allen story. So

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Speaker 1: he's worth talking about. And like I said, I think,

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Speaker 1: you know, he kind of as many other figures I

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Speaker 1: seem to pick. I don't do this on purpose. They

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Speaker 1: have these potentially really prominent places in history and then

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Speaker 1: they kind of ruined them by being jerks in some

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Speaker 1: way or angering the wrong person, sometimes through being a

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Speaker 1: jerk uh and I kind of feel like his his

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Speaker 1: proclivity for yelling at people and kind of doing his

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Speaker 1: own thing and making some foolish decisions kind of took

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Speaker 1: away what possibly could have been an even bigger sort

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Speaker 1: of image that people would remember outside of furniture. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: my first association was definitely the furniture company. I think

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Speaker 1: everybody's is, which is, you know, kudos to them, They've

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Speaker 1: done great marketing through the years, but it has kind

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Speaker 1: of obscured the actual image we have of the historical

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Speaker 1: figure that it is named after. So I also have

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Speaker 1: some listener mail. The first part of this episode, I

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Speaker 1: read listener mail from someone who had sent us an

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Speaker 1: actual parcel, and I'm doing the same thing again because

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Speaker 1: we've gotten a couple of really lovely parcels lately, and

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Speaker 1: I want to acknowledge us because we appreciate them greatly.

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Speaker 1: This one is from our listener Karen, and she says,

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Speaker 1: Dear Holly and Tricy, I'm a huge fan of the

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Speaker 1: pod cast. I've listened to all of them, with the

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Speaker 1: exception of part two of one of your Serial Killers topics.

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Speaker 1: I just don't sleep well after a topic like that,

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Speaker 1: so I know you'll understand and forgive. Of course we will.

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Speaker 1: Everybody has stuff that they're not comfortable listening to. Uh.

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Speaker 1: I was hiking in the French Alps when I heard

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Speaker 1: your podcast on La Scala Opera House. We had a

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Speaker 1: planned stop in Milan, so I added the Opera House

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Speaker 1: to our mussy list. Uh. You did the research, so

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Speaker 1: you already know how amazing it is. We loved our tour.

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Speaker 1: You would have loved the museum because it was filled

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Speaker 1: with costumes and set design books enclosed a few books

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Speaker 1: I think you will love, and too funny green packages.

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Speaker 1: Have you seen these before? These are these little parcels.

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Speaker 1: I'm describing them of kind of these plastic e green envelopes,

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Speaker 1: and she says they are provided free at the opera.

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Speaker 1: You are expected to place your cigarette butt in the

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Speaker 1: pouch instead of on the sidewalk, so that's kind of

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Speaker 1: a little cigarette disposal packet. I've never seen them before,

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Speaker 1: but I haven't smoked in a very long time, so

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Speaker 1: I would not have been exposed to them. But the

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Speaker 1: books she sent us are awesome. She sent us a

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Speaker 1: coloring book of h It's called Discover and Color the

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Speaker 1: Teatro Alla Scala and it's just a lovely book with

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Speaker 1: these beautiful drawings in it that I will maybe photocopy

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Speaker 1: and color, but I won't ever touch the original because

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Speaker 1: I don't do that. Even as a child, I photocopied

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Speaker 1: my coloring books like a big nerd. And then another

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Speaker 1: children's book about a ballerina's costume for Las Scala, and

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Speaker 1: it's absolutely darling. That illustrations are so pretty. They're these

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Speaker 1: really lovely watercolors. I love it. I love it, I

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Speaker 1: love it. And she sent us this cool little free

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Speaker 1: d kind of pop up paper model of the theater

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Speaker 1: so you get a sense of how it's laid out

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Speaker 1: and where the seating is so awesome. Thank you so

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Speaker 1: so much, Karen. I can't even tell you how much

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Speaker 1: we appreciate treats like this. Now, I want to thank

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Speaker 1: the person who sent us those horrible histories miniature figurines,

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Speaker 1: and I, yeah, I've I've forgotten who sent us those. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we I wish we could, and maybe we should figure

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Speaker 1: out a way to thank everybody sends us stuff, because

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Speaker 1: we do get some really wonderful and delightful little treats

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Speaker 1: in the mail from time to time. And I know

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Speaker 1: I haven't always been able to like loop back around

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Speaker 1: and make sure they get mentioned on the podcast. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: we open things and we get all excited and then

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Speaker 1: we don't write that down and then we forget the

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Speaker 1: name of the person who said that, and it becomes

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Speaker 1: then we feel ungrateful. I feel ungrateful. Yeah. I try

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Speaker 1: to keep all this stuff together, but what often happens

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Speaker 1: to me is like just other work stuff will come up.

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Speaker 1: There will be you know, deadlines on articles that happen,

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Speaker 1: and I just that my gratitude is still there, but

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Speaker 1: the remembering to express it sometimes gets pushed to the

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Speaker 1: periphery because we're focused on other stuff and our workloads

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Speaker 1: are shifting. So please know that we super appreciate anything

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Speaker 1: that you guys send us. So if you've sent something

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Speaker 1: and you're like those jerks never thanked me, we really

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Speaker 1: do appreciate it and we thank you. We just sometimes

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Speaker 1: are jerks and we get busy and forget things. So

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Speaker 1: that is all. If you would like to send us

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Speaker 1: an email, you can do that History podcast at house

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00:21:01,200 --> 00:21:03,679
Speaker 1: dot works dot com. You can also connect with us

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Speaker 1: at Facebook dot com, slash missed in History on Twitter

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Speaker 1: at misst in history, Missed in History dot tumbler dot

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00:21:09,800 --> 00:21:12,439
Speaker 1: com and on pinterest dot com slash missed in History.

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Speaker 1: You can visit our store at misst in history dot

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Speaker 1: spreadshirt dot com if you would like to purchase shirts

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00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:22,359
Speaker 1: or bags, or mugs or anything else that you feel

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Speaker 1: will perfectly uh show your love of history. And if

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Speaker 1: you would like to do a little bit of research

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Speaker 1: on a topic we discussed today, you can go to

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Speaker 1: our parents site how stuff Works. Type in the words

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Speaker 1: prisoner of war in the search bar, and you will

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Speaker 1: get how the rules of war work, so you will

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Speaker 1: get maybe some insight into how that whole shift happened

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Speaker 1: from trader to prisoner of war and how that treatment

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Speaker 1: would have been difference. UH. You can also visit our

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Speaker 1: history site, which is missed in history dot com if

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Speaker 1: you want to listen to the shows, read the show notes,

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00:21:52,760 --> 00:21:56,159
Speaker 1: read an occasional blog, or just check out pretty pictures

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Speaker 1: that we've associated with all of the above, And if

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Speaker 1: you want to research almost anything you can possibly think of,

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00:22:02,040 --> 00:22:04,280
Speaker 1: you can absolutely do that at our parents site, which

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00:22:04,280 --> 00:22:10,280
Speaker 1: just has to works dot com for more on this

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Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, does it how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com. M