I visited the Ethan Allen homestead just North of Burlington, Vermont. He actually lived there only the last two years of his life, 1787 to 1789, which was after he had won fame and a touch of infamy.
Ethan Allen’s fame was as the leader of the Vermont Green Mountain Boys, which as a force took from the British in 1775 both Fort Ticonderoga and the destroyed redoubt at Crown Point. Neither involved much of a fight, but somebody had to do it. Actually, Col. Benedict Arnold had shown up before the actions without any troops and demanded that he was in charge, based on a mandate from the Continental Congress. The Green Mountain Boys took a vote and decided they would only fight under Allen or else they would go home. And so Allen led them. While the positions on Lake Champlain were considered strategically important, the major impact of their seizure was the cannon that were captured. In 1777 these cannon were transported to the hills overlooking Boston and were used to raise the British siege on that city.
Allen’s infamy derived from his attempts in 1781-82 to negotiate with the British for Vermont to become a British province. These efforts ended after the British were defeated at Yorktown and the Treaty of Paris was signed. But that story is a little complicated. It started with a dispute over whether Vermont in colonial times was a part of New Hampshire or of New York. Apparently both colonies had issued titles to land in Vermont. New Hampshire had starting issuing its titles in 1750. The Allen brothers and others with them held New Hampshire titles. In 1764, King George III recognized Vermont as being a part of New York. The Green Mountain Boys were actually formed in 1770 to defend the New Hampshire titles, with little success prior to the Revolution. Part of Allen’s scheme in 1782 was to have the British crown recognize the New Hampshire titles as a condition of British provincial status.
Despite Allen’s efforts on behalf of the American’s cause in 1775, the Continental Congress had not been very receptive to the efforts by Vermonters to be included as a separate entity. In fact, Vermont declared itself an independent republic in 1777. In 1778, it petitioned Congress to become a state, but no action was taken by Congress. Only in 1791 did Vermont become the 14th state.
It may be argued that Allen’s behavior was neither patriotic nor treasonous. He and the Green Mountain Boys were motivated throughout the colonial and revolutionary periods by the desire to establish and maintain their property claims. They wanted independence from New York. Eventually, after Ethan Allen had died, they got it.
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| Reconstruction of Ethan Allen Homestead Burlington, Vermont |
I also took a sidetrip on an island in upper Lake Champlain to view a piece of the oldest diverse fossil reef in the world. On Isle La Motte, Vermont, are quarries of dark rocks that have been mined since the early 19th century. These rocks are an exposed part of the Chazy Reef, a thousand-mile formation believed to extend from Montreal to Tennessee. The reef formed nearly 500 million years ago in a shallow tropical sea at the equator. Due to plate tectonics, the reef has drifted to its present position. Though some coral skeletons are found among the fossils, it is not a coral reef. Rather, it is made of an extensive collection of fossils including bryozoa, stromatolites, stromatoporoids, sponges and algae. The resulting limestone has been compressed to a marble-like consistency. Because traditionally all rock, except granite, that produced a polished finish suitable for building applications has been called "marble," the quarries' product was marketed as "Black Marble." This rock has been incorporated into the Vermont State House, Radio City Music Hall, and the National Gallery of Art.
The Isle La Motte preserves have the designation of National Natural Landmarks, but because of their remove location and limited financial support, they are not much visited. I wandered around the Fisk Quarry Preserve, which is a 20-acre site at which mining activity stopped in the 1920s. Here are a couple of pictures.
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| Chazy Reef Dark Limestone In Fisk Quarry Preserve |
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| View of Fisk Quarry Preserve Isle La Motte, Vermont |
