Ethan Allen (1738-1789), the folk hero of Vermont, was an unusually flamboyant farmer-turned statesman from Connecticut. In the 1760's, the royal governor of New Hampshire, with no clear authority to do so, began to grant lands in the region now known as Vermont. After the King decided that New York's governor wielded the rightful authority over the territory, the original settlers and their townships were subjected to burdensome New York fees; in some cases settlers found their lands confiscated. 
Not surprisingly, the settlers formed a citizens' militia, the Green Mountain Boys, to protect their rights and chances of survival, electing Ethan Allen as their colonel. Shortly thereafter, Ethan and other family members formed the Onion River Land Company to invest in the New Hampshire land grants (which were by then much undervalued). Ethan's leadership and personality helped give Vermont the self-identity and independent spirit which, many think, remains to this day.
But the Allen family, its friends and supporters did still more. Ethan was the guiding spirit in the taking of Fort Ticonderoga, the first Crown property to fall to America and the source of the cannon that allowed George Washington to drive the British from Boston. While Ethan joined the American campaign in Canada, the Green Mountain Boys were integrated into the American army under other commanders. After Ethan's unsuccessful attack on Montreal, and during his imprisonment, his brother Ira organized the conventions which declared Vermont sovereign and drafted her Constitution (which is still in force).
Freed in a prisoner exchange, Ethan became commander of the armed forces of the Commonwealth of Vermont. While Vermont defended America's northern border from a renewed British assault from Canada, Ethan and other Vermont representatives petitioned Congress to recognize Vermont and to admit her into the American Confederacy. When New York succeeded in blocking Vermont's attempts, the Allens began secret negotiations with Great Britain for the preservation of Vermont sovereignty, negotiations which became less attractive to the Allens after the defeat of Cornwallis (1781) and the Treaty of Paris (1783).
The family's land holdings, meanwhile, had surpassed a hundred thousand acres which they now began to sell in earnest. Members of the family were the first English speaking explorers and surveyors of northern Vermont. To speed settlement, they harnessed the rivers and built sawmills and grist mills. While, in the end, the land company ruined the Allens financially, they had succeeded in opening up the north country.
With the coming of peace, Ethan had begun to put together an impressive farm on the Winooski (Onion) River at Burlington where he might become American's bucolic philosopher. During this period, the self-taught Ethan published Reason, the Only Oracle of Man. In addition to Ethan's own reflections, clothed in his characteristic wit, Reason draws on ideas familiar from European deism of the period, ideas probably adopted by Ethan during discussions with the minor American philosopher Thomas Young. The book, further, allowed Ethan to lambaste New England's clergy for what he saw as their failure to recognize the dignity of ordinary people. Reason was condemned from every pulpit, but revealed a hitherto unsuspected element of religious devotion in Ethan's spirit. As it happened, Ethan died in 1789, only six years after the peace with England.
Meanwhile, New York's efforts to prevent recognition of Vermont had gradually eased and were abandoned altogether when New York perceived that Vermont's votes in Congress could counterbalance the impending admission of Kentucky, thus preserving the power of the northeastern states. Vermont joined the United States in 1791 as the fourteenth state.
The historic Allen site and eighteenth-century farmhouse in Burlington are open daily for public tours and are managed by the Ethan Allen Homestead Trust on lands owned by the Winooski Valley Park District. Some 3,500 school children visit annually for enrichment in the three cultures (Native American, French, English) which were represented at the site.