A revolutionary soldier of legendary prowess and verve and the author of a number of controversial works, Ethan Allen was born to Joseph and Mary Baker Allen in Litchfield, Connecticut, the eldest of eight children. Little is known of his early life except that his preparation for college was cut short when his father died in 1755. After serving at Fort William Henry in 1757 during the French and Indian War he went to live in the New Hampshire Grants, and in 1762 he married Mary Brownson, who bore him five children (three of whom died before adulthood) before her death in 1783. The following year he married Mrs. Frances Montresor Buchanan, with whom he had three children.

Allen's talent for leadership became evident during the dispute in 1769 between New York and New Hampshire over the control of the New Hampshire Grants, which became Vermont. Remembered primarily as the "colonel commandant" of...