Episode Details

Ethan Allen captured Fort Ticonderoga in May 1775 without bloodshed, demanding its surrender in the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress, though he held a commission from neither. This deep dive traces his life from a strict Puritan upbringing in Connecticut and lost dreams of Yale to iron smelting, deism, smallpox inoculation controversy, and banishment from Northampton.

The episode follows Allen into the New Hampshire Grants land dispute with New York, the founding of the Green Mountain Boys at the Catamount Tavern, and the Onion River Company's land speculation. It then covers his failed raid on Fort St. John, his capture outside Montreal, years as a prisoner of war, the Haldimand negotiations over Vermont's future, his failed book Reason, the Only Oracle of Man, and his death in 1789 before Vermont became the 14th state.

• How a rigged New York court and the Livingston conflict of interest pushed Allen from legal defense to paramilitary action
• The Green Mountain Boys' intimidation tactics, the birch seal, and dueling bounties with New York
• The tense partnership with Benedict Arnold during the Ticonderoga raid
• Why the men elected Seth Warner over Allen and how his capture led to imprisonment in England
• The Haldimand affair as a high-stakes bluff to win Vermont recognition from Congress