Ira Allen

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Wikipedia

Ira Allen
Engraving of Ira Allen, c. 1810
Born(1751-04-21)April 21, 1751
Cornwall, Connecticut Colony
DiedJanuary 7, 1814(1814-01-07) (aged 62)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
OccupationsSurveyor, politician, military officer
RelativesEthan Allen (brother)

Ira Allen (21 April [O.S. 10 April] 1751 – January 7, 1814) was an American revolutionary leader, founder of Vermont, and one of the Green Mountain Boys during the American colonial period. He was the younger brother of Ethan Allen.

Biography

The Great Seal of the State of Vermont

Ira Allen was born in Cornwall in the Connecticut Colony (in present-day Litchfield County, Connecticut), the youngest of eight children born to Joseph and Mary Baker Allen.[1][2] In 1771, Allen went to Vermont (then part of the British colonial Province of New York) with his brother Ethan as a surveyor for the Onion River Land Company.[3] The four Allen brothers established the company in 1772 (dissolved 1785)[4] to purchase lands under the New Hampshire Grants. Ira Allen had an almost central role in the dispute with the Province of New York over conflicting land claims in the region[5] such as by gifting land to men who had committed acts for New Hampshire,[6] and by confiscating loyalist property to finance government.[7]

During the American Revolutionary War, Allen was a member of the Vermont Legislature in 1776–1777 and a leading figure in the declaration of the Vermont Republic in 1777, which was originally intended to be independent of both the British colonies and the newly-founded United States.[8] Late in the war, he and his brother Ethan, along with Thomas Chittenden and others, were involved in the Haldimand Affair by their discussions with Frederick Haldimand, the British Governor of the Province of Quebec, about the possibility of reinstating Vermont as a British province.[9][10][11]

An alternate explanation is that the Allen brothers were not actually interested in returning Vermont to the British but merely used the Haldimand negotiations to stave off a British invasion of Vermont from Canada and to prod the Continental Congress into recognizing Vermont as separate from New York and New Hampshire and admitting it to the United States.[12][13] Vermont was granted statehood in 1791.[14][15]

Allen designed the Great Seal of Vermont.[16] In 1778, Allen drew the seal and Reuben Dean, a local silversmith, made it.[17][18] The two men were each paid ten shillings for their work.[19]

Monument of Ira Allen on the University of Vermont campus in Burlington

In 1780, Allen presented to the state legislature a memorial for the establishment of the University of Vermont.[20][21] He contributed money and a fifty-acre (20 ha) site at Burlington.[22] He was called the "Father of the University of Vermont” and after his death he has been referred to as the "Metternich of Vermont" (though his actions predate those of Metternich himself).[23] Ira Allen pledged 4,000 British pounds sterling to the University of Vermont, but never donated the money.[24] In response, the Trustees of the University of Vermont secured a writ of attachment on his title to the town of Plainfield to try to extract payment of his original 4,000-pound pledge.[25]

Allen was Vermont's first Treasurer and held office from 1778 to 1786, when he was succeeded by Samuel Mattocks.[26] He married Jerusha Enos (daughter of Roger Enos and Jerusha Hayden) in 1789.[27] Members of the Allen and Enos families were the original proprietors of Irasburg, Vermont, which was named after Ira Allen.[28] Allen subsequently acquired all the proprietary rights to Irasburg and deeded the town to Jerusha Enos as a wedding gift.[29]

Ira Allen Chapel at the University of Vermont

On October 25, 1790, Ira Allen was commissioned Major General of the Third Division of the Vermont State Militia by Governor Thomas Chittenden.[30] He went to France in 1795 and sought French army intervention for seizing Canada in order to create an independent republic called United Columbia.[31] He bought 20,000 muskets and 24 cannons but was captured at sea, taken to England, placed on trial, and charged with furnishing arms for Irish rebels.[32] He was acquitted after a lawsuit which lasted eight years,[33] and which saw a first of an Admiralty judge being summoned before King's Bench.[34]

Allen died in 1814 in Philadelphia, where he had gone to escape imprisonment for debt, caused by his long absence from Vermont.[35] He was originally buried in Philadelphia's Arch Street Presbyterian Cemetery, but his remains were lost when that cemetery was destroyed.[36] There is a cenotaph in his memory at Greenmount Cemetery in Burlington, Vermont, and a memorial cenotaph at Wetherill’s (Free Quaker) Cemetery in Audubon, Pennsylvania.[37][38] The Ira Allen Chapel on the University of Vermont's main campus was also named after him.[39][40]

Ira Allen miniature

Vermont Sesquicentennial half dollar

The obverse of the 1927 Vermont Sesquicentennial half dollar, designed by Charles Keck, depicts Allen above the words "Founder of Vermont".

Works

Allen published several books, including:

  • The Natural and Political History of Vermont. London: J.W. Myers. 1969 [1798]. ISBN 0-8048-0419-2.
  • Statements Appended to the Olive Branch (1807)

References

  1. ↑ Graffagnino, J. Kevin (1979). Founding Father: The Story of Ira Allen. Vermont Historical Society. pp. 1–3. Ira Allen was born in Cornwall, in the Connecticut Colony (now Litchfield County), the youngest of eight children of Joseph Allen and Mary Baker Allen.
  2. ↑ Brown, John Howard (1900). Lamb's Biographical Dictionary of the United States. James H. Lamb Co. pp. 66–67. Born at Cornwall, Connecticut, the youngest child of Joseph Allen and Mary (Baker) Allen.
  3. ↑ Graffagnino, J. Kevin (1979). Founding Father: The Story of Ira Allen. Vermont Historical Society. pp. 4–6. In 1771 Ira Allen accompanied his brother Ethan to the New Hampshire Grants, then under New York jurisdiction, where he worked as a surveyor for the Onion River Land Company.
  4. ↑ Duffy, John J. (1998). Ethan Allen and his Kin: Correspondence 1772-1819, Volume I. University Press of New England. pp. xxxii intro. ISBN 0-87451-858-X.
  5. ↑ "Ira Allen (1751–1814)". Virtual Vermont. 2010. Retrieved 2010-03-09.
  6. ↑ Duffy, John J. (1998). Ethan Allen and his Kin: Correspondence 1772-1819, Volume II. University Press of New England. p. 444. ISBN 0-87451-858-X.
  7. ↑ Duffy, John J. (1998). Ethan Allen and his Kin: Correspondence 1772 - 1819. University Press of New England. pp. xxxii intro. ISBN 0-87451-858-X.
  8. ↑ Records of the Council of Safety and Governor and Council of the State of Vermont. Vol. 1. Montpelier: J. M. Poland, State Printer. 1873. pp. 24–26, 63. Ira Allen appears as a member of the Vermont Legislature in the sessions of 1776 and 1777.
  9. ↑ Graffagnino, J. Kevin (1979). Founding Father: The Story of Ira Allen. Vermont Historical Society. pp. 60–72.
  10. ↑ Hall, Hiland (1868). History of Vermont: From Its Discovery to Its Admission into the Union. Albany: Joel Munsell. pp. 431–450.
  11. ↑ Hand, Samuel B. (1989). Vermont: A History. Vermont Historical Society. pp. 54–57.
  12. ↑ Resch, Tyler. "Ira Allen's life: purpose and passion" (PDF). The Fourteenth State. Bennington Museum. Retrieved 18 November 2025.
  13. ↑ Procknow, Gene (November 2013). "Ethan Allen: Patriot, Land Promoter or Turncoat?". Journal of the American Revolution. Retrieved 18 November 2025.
  14. ↑ "Freedom & Unity: The Fourteenth State". Vermont Historical Society. Retrieved 18 November 2025.
  15. ↑ "An Act for the admission of the State of Vermont into this Union". The Avalon Project. Yale Law School. 18 February 1791. Retrieved 18 November 2025.
  16. ↑ "Vermont State Seal". Vermont Historical Society. Retrieved 18 November 2025. Ira Allen designed the Great Seal of Vermont. Reuben Dean carved the image. Vermont adopted the seal in 1779.
  17. ↑ "Seal of Vermont – Many Hands Went into Formulating the State's Symbols". OurHerald. Retrieved 18 November 2025. "What came of his efforts was … a creation Allen brought to Reuben Dean, a silversmith in Windsor…"
  18. ↑ Wardner, Henry Steele (1924). "Windsor's Importance in Vermont History". Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society. XX: 144. "… Reuben Dean … who in 1778 executed Ira Allen's design for the first seal of the State of Vermont."
  19. ↑ "Dean, Reuben" in The Vermont Encyclopedia (eds. John J. Duffy, Samuel B. Hand & Ralph H. Orth: University of Vermont Press, 2003), p. 103.
  20. ↑ A.J.H Dyer (1896). "General Ira Allan". The American Monthly Magazine, Daughters of the American Revolution. R.R. Bowker Co.: 61.
  21. ↑ Dyer, A. J. H. (1896). "General Ira Allen". The American Monthly Magazine (Daughters of the American Revolution). 8: 61–62.
  22. ↑ "History of the University of Vermont". University of Vermont. Retrieved 18 November 2025. Ira Allen, one of the founders of Vermont, proposed the establishment of the University in 1780 and donated a fifty-acre parcel in Burlington as its campus.
  23. ↑ Brown, John Howard (1900). Lamb's Biographical Dictionary of the United States. James H. Lamb Co. pp. 66–67. Ira Allen has been called the "Father of the University of Vermont" and after his death referred to as the "Metternich of Vermont."
  24. ↑ "Early History of the University of Vermont". University of Vermont Archives. Retrieved 18 November 2025. Allen pledged four thousand pounds toward the new university, a sum which was never realized.
  25. ↑ Graffagnino, J. Kevin (1991). "A Hard Founding Father to Love". In Daniels, Robert V. (ed.). The University of Vermont: The First Two Hundred Years. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England for the University of Vermont. pp. 41–42. ISBN 0-87451-549-1.
  26. ↑ Vermont Historical Society Collections. Vol. 1. Montpelier: Vermont Historical Society. 1871. p. 427.
  27. ↑ A History of Irasburgh. Vermont Historical Society. 1930. pp. 99–103. "Eight years after the grant, or in 1789, he deeded Irasburgh to Jerusha Enos, a daughter of General Enos, as a marriage settlement … and she became his wife."
  28. ↑ A History of Irasburgh (PDF). Vermont Historical Society. 1930. pp. 1–2. The township of Irasburgh was granted to Ira Allen and his associates by the General Assembly of Vermont on February 23, 1781. From its principal proprietor, Ira Allen, it was called Irasburgh in the grant.
  29. ↑ Allen, Ethan (1998). Ethan Allen and His Kin: Correspondence, 1772–1819. Vol. 1. University Press of New England. p. 334.
  30. ↑ LiveAuctioneers (October 25, 1790). "Ira Allen's Military Commission As Major General (Lot 4 of the Early American History Auction)" (jpg). LiveAuctioneers. Retrieved 2016-02-20.
  31. ↑ Robert E. May (2002). Manifest Destiny's Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America. U. of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-2703-7. Archived from the original on 9 February 2009. Retrieved 23 July 2008. Chapter 1
  32. ↑ Benson John Lossing (1851). The pictorial field-book of the revolution. Harper & Bros. p. 161. ISBN 0-87152-056-7. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  33. ↑ Ethan Allen Hitchcock, William Augustus Croffut (1909). Fifty years in camp and field: diary of Major-General Ethan Allen Hitchcock, U.S.A. G.P. Putnam's Sons. p. 31. ISBN 978-1-4047-8185-6. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  34. ↑ Duffy, John J (1998). Ethan Allen and his Kin: Correspondence 1772 - 1819. University Press of New England. p. 551. ISBN 0-87451-858-X.
  35. ↑ Graffagnino, J. Kevin (1979). Founding Father: The Story of Ira Allen. Vermont Historical Society. pp. 95–96. Allen spent his last years in Philadelphia, where he had gone to avoid arrest for debt resulting from his long absence from Vermont. He died there in 1814.
  36. ↑ Brown, John Howard (1900). Lamb's Biographical Dictionary of the United States. James H. Lamb Co. pp. 66–67. He was buried in the Arch Street Presbyterian churchyard, where his remains were lost when the cemetery was destroyed.
  37. ↑ Stewart, Megan (25 September 2024). ""Ira Allen has a cenotaph located in Burlington's Greenmount Cemetery right next to the Ethan Allen Monument."". The Burlington Free Press.
  38. ↑ "Ira Allen Cenotaph Wetherills Cemetery (Free Quaker Cemetery), Audubon PA". Retrieved 19 November 2025. "Ira Allen Cenotaph Wetherills Cemetery (Free Quaker Cemetery)… 2800 Audubon Rd. Audubon, PA 19403."
  39. ↑ "The Development of UVM's Vermontiana Collection" (PDF). Liber: A Newsletter for the Friends of Special Collections at UVM, Vol. III, No. 12. Spring 1987. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-02. Retrieved 2016-02-20.
  40. ↑ Prevolos, Christine (2011). "University Green Area Heritage Study – Ira Allen Chapel (Historic Burlington Research Project – HP 206)". Burlington, Vermont: UVM Historic Preservation Program. Retrieved February 20, 2016.