* The reader is indebted for this sketch to the pen of Mr. H. R.
Schoolcraft.
|Of the men of strong energy of thought or action, who arrested public
attention during the momentous period of the Revolution, there is
scarcely one who assimilates at all to the zealous and erratic, yet
firm and indomitable Ethan Allen. He had been schooled in the fierce
conflicts in which New Hampshire on the one side, and New York on the
other, contended for legal jurisdiction and sovereignty over the present
area of Vermont; and his bold character had fitted him, when the people
refused to submit to either, to be the functionary of popular will, in
administering justice without law, and maintaining independence without
a government. He possessed traits in common with William Tell, Wat
Tyler, and Brennus, the conqueror of Rome; but was in himself unique and
original, acting and thinking on the spur of occasion, as few other
men have ever done. His views of theology were as curious as those of
politics; yet he had fixed points for both; and when the contest of 1775
drew on, he boldly grasped his sword, and by a sudden movement summoned
Ticonderoga to surrender, "in the name of God and the Continental
Congress." Here, then, were the two points of his faith, which led him
forward in a series of bold and masterly movements and adventures; in
which he was indeed but the exponent of the feelings and views of a
bold, hardy, Tyrolese-like yeomanry, who had settled on the sides of the
Green Mountains, and glowed with an unquenchable love of civil liberty.
The result was, that they cast off effectually both the authority of New
Hampshire and New York, and coming patriotically to the rescue of
the United Colonies, at a time of "bitter need," secured their own
independence, and gave the name of Vermont to the pages of future
history. In all this Ethan Allen was the leader; and it is upon him,
more than any other individual, that we are to look as the founder of
that patriotic State.
Whom such a man married--who became the counsellor and companion of his
secret and private hours, it may be interesting to inquire! The results
of such an inquiry are indeed as unique and original as the rest of the
traits of his life, and show a curious correspondence, acting by reverse
affinities, in the mysterious chain of the marriage tie.
The wild and adventurous character of Allen's early life prevented him
from forming a youthful attachment; and he had enacted his most daring
scenes before he appears to have thought of it. It was owing to the
curiosity and interest arising from the domestic recital of one of these
daring adventures of the Green Mountain hero, that an acquaintance was
brought about, which resulted in an attachment between two individuals
from the antipodes of American society--the one a bold, rough,
free-spoken democrat, and stickler for the utmost degree of power in
the people; the other a well-educated and refined young lady of high
aristocratic feelings, the daughter of a British field-officer who had
served with distinction in the ante-revolutionary French wars, and the
grand-daughter of a proud veteran British artillerist, who had also
served with reputation under the Duke of Marlborough, and came to
America after the treaty of Utrecht, with the most extravagantly exalted
notions, not only of the part he had borne in the field, but of the
glorious reign of Queen Anne, under whose banners he had served. Miss
Fanny Brush, who was destined to be the wife of the bold Vermonter, was
the daughter of Colonel Brush of the British army, whose military acts
at Boston just before the Revolution, gave notoriety to his name. This
officer had served under General Bradstreet, commanding at Albany, at
whose mansion he became acquainted with, and married Miss Elizabeth
Calcraft, the daughter of James Calcraft, * a retired veteran of the
army of Queen Anne, who enjoyed in a high degree the friendship and
confidence of the British general.
* This name is changed to Schoolcraft in that county, in a rather too
graphic allusion to the last employment of the declining days of a
soldier of fortune--a pilgrim of the sword from England, and withal a
man of letters.
After the death of Colonel Brush, Mrs. Brush, by whom he had but a
single child, married Mr. Edward Wall, and removed with him to the
township of Westminster, in Vermont. The position chosen by him for his
residence, was one of the most beautiful and picturesque in that section
of the fertile valley of the Connecticut. The settlement in that town,
is one of the oldest and best cultivated in the State; and the society
of that portion of the new district, which had originally been settled
as part of the "New Hampshire grants," excelled, as it preceded others,
in comforts and refinement. Such was at least the wealth and position
of Mr. Wall, that he spared no expense in the education of his daughter,
Miss Brush, who was sent to the capital of New England to complete
her accomplishments. She was in her eighteenth year when Ethan Allen,
liberated from the Tower of London, returned to his native State, with
the fame of his daring deeds not a little exalted by reports of his
sayings and doings beyond the water. Among other reports which probably
had very little foundation, it was said that he had bit off a tenpenny
nail while in the Tower of London. "I should like," said Miss Brush, one
evening, in a mixed company in her father's parlor, "above all things to
see this Mr. Allen, of whom we hear such incredible things."
This saying reached the ears of Allen, who soon after paid a visit
to the house of Mr. Wall, and was introduced to Miss Brush. There was
mutually an agreeable surprise. Both were manifestly pleased with the
tone of thought and conversation, which ran on with a natural flow, and
developed traits of kindred sympathies of intellect and feeling. It was
late in the evening before Mr. Allen rose. He had not failed to observe
the interest his conversation had excited in Miss Brush. "And now," said
he, as he stood erect before her, and was about to depart--"and now,
Miss Brush, allow me to ask, how do you like 'this Mr. Allen?"
This was the initiative to an offer which resulted in the marriage
of the parties. Mrs. Allen was a woman of more than the ordinary
intellectual endowment; bold, striking, and original in her conceptions,
and of singular facility and clearness in her expression. She was
educated from early life to disbelieve in the capacity or general
intelligence of the masses for efficient self-government. All her
prejudices were nurtured in favor of the British Constitution as
developed by Magna Charta, and administered by a king and ministers
responsible to the nation; which form of government she believed to be
above all comparison the best in the world. Yet, in spite of all these
deeply-rooted prejudices, with a grasp of thought that could look at and
examine questions of inherent right, on their original basis--with the
abiding principles of the Christian faith to serve as a guide in judging
of human duty in governments, and with the daily recurring practical
examples of the conflicts of opinion between the Colonies and the
mother country, which the American Revolution presented, she saw and
acknowledged the wrongs inflicted on the Colonies--the justice of that
cause in which they had, at length, banded for a higher measure of
liberty, and the growing capacity of the people to maintain those
rights, both by the sword and the pen. She was thus made an intellectual
convert to the doctrines of the Revolution, and became a most useful and
capable counsellor to Allen, in the subsequent critical periods of
his life. Her mind was, indeed, a counterpart, in its boldness and
originality, to that of her husband, whose intuitive mode of reaching
conclusions enabled him to put into the shape of acts, what it might
have sorely puzzled him sometimes to reason out; and what, indeed, if he
could have reasoned ever so well, his bold and fiery zeal, and crushing
rapidity of action, put him out of all temper to submit to the slow
process of ratiocination. He also felt the happy influences of manners,
opinions, and sentiments at once dignified and frank, yet mild and
persuasive.
We have no means of access to Mrs. Allen's correspondence, which it is
hoped some member of the family will give to the public. It is known
that Allen did not confine his notions of human freedom and right, to
questions of government only, in which he devoted himself so effectually
during the struggle for independence; but that, mistaking the great
theory of a substitute for the lost type of righteousness in man, he as
boldly attacked the doctrines of revelation, as he had done the divine
right of kings, in the person of George III., and the Guelph family. We
have no copy of his writings on this head to refer to, and only allude
to them for the purpose of denoting the meliorating effects of Mrs.
Allen's opinions, superior reading, and influence on his mind. For he is
believed to have relinquished these dangerous anti-Christian views prior
to his death. One of his daughters, who inherited a disquisitive and
metaphysical mind, and intellectual vigor, from her parents, joined a
convent of nuns at the city of Montreal, in which she became an eminent
example of charity in her order, and devoted her life to the most
inflexible obedience to her vows.
Ethan Allen was many years his wife's senior. After his death, she
married Dr. Penniman, of Colchester, Vermont, where she resided during
the latter years of her life. By this marriage she had several children,
and her descendants of the names Allen and Penniman are numerous in
that State. It was during her residence here, in the year 1814, that the
writer of this sketch became personally acquainted with her. She
visited his residence at Lake Dunmore, during that winter. She was then,
perhaps, a lady past fifty years of age, of an erect figure, middle
size, with an energetic step, and a marked intellectual physiognomy.
Her animated eyes assumed their full expression, in speaking of her
grand-father Calcraft, whose true name she said had been changed
among the Palatine Germans of Queen Anne; whom she pronounced "a loyal
Briton;" and whose military services under the Duke of Marlborough, she
appeared to hold in lively remembrance.
In writing this sketch, the author has neither time to refer to Mrs.
Allen's relatives in Vermont, for details to fill out the picture which
is here attempted, nor even to refer to his own notes, made many years
ago, when his memory of events, and of conversations with her was fresh.
This tribute may, at least, excite some other hand to do full justice to
her character and memory.=
````"Man is not born alone to act, or be
````The sole asserter of man's liberty;
````But so God shares the gifts of head and heart,
````And crowns blest woman with a hero's part."=