Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/82

ALLEN.ALLEN. ALLEN, Elizabeth (Akers), author, was born at Strong, Me., Oct. 9, 1832. Her maiden name was Elizabeth Chase. She began to write verses at an early age under the pen name of "Florence Percy." Some of these were, in 1855, published in a volume entitled, "Forest Buds." Some years later she was married to Benjamin Paul Akers, the sculptor, who died in 1861, and she became in 1865 the wife of E. M. Allen of New York. For several years following, her residence was in Richmond, Va. She published a second volume of poems in 1866, which included the poem "Rock Me to Sleep, Mother," afterwards set to music by several composers, and which became very popular, so that its authorship was claimed by several writers of verses. Her claim was, however, firmly established by indisputable evidence. She also published "The Silver Bridge," in 1885; a volume of prose and verse anonymously in 1886; and a fourth volume of verse in 1891; she contributed to the monthly magazines. Having published her second book while she was Elizabeth Akers, she retained that as a pen name. She was literary editor of the Advertiser, Portland, Me., and published "The Proud Lady of Stavoren" (1899). ALLEN, Ethan, soldier, was born in Litchfield, Conn., Jan. 10, 1737, son of Joseph and Mary (Baker) Allen. His first American ancestor, Samuel Allen, came to Chelmsford in 1632. Ethan's father was a farmer in poor circumstances, and the son had few advantages for obtaining an education, although it appears to have been his ambition to study law. He engaged in iron smelting at Salisbury, Ct., and in developing a tract of land in Mine Hill, Roxbury, about 1762-'64. At the age of twenty-six years he, with four brothers, Heman, Hebar, Ira, and Levi, went to the Vermont colony to locate lands in the New Hampshire grants, they finally settling at Bennington. He appears to have also lived at Arlington, Sutherland, and Tinmouth. He at once became interested in the dispute between New York and New Hampshire, over the possession of the territory settled under the New Hampshire land grant, and which became the state of Vermont. He espoused the claims of New Hampshire so vigorously that in 1770 he was sent as agent to Albany to represent the question as it appeared to the actual settlers. In one of his pamphlets he wrote: "The transferring and alienation of property is a sacred prerogative of the owner — kings and governors cannot intermeddle therewith; common sense teaches common law." The decision of the court being adverse to New Hampshire, he was advised to go home and make the best terms he could for the settlers. His reply was: "The gods of the valleys are not the gods of the hills." He was offered land grants for himself, and office under the New York authority, which he spurned. New Hampshire practically abandoned the settlers, and Allen advocated armed resistance, and was chosen colonel of the regiment that became the historic "Green Mountain Boys," and of which Seth Warner, Remember Baker, Robert Cochrane and Gideon Olin were captains. In this capacity he made it his twofold duty to defend the settlers from the sheriff of Albany county, who came repeatedly with from three hundred to seven hundred men to dispossess the farmers, and to eject New York settlers from the territory which was now without government, except that administered by the militia, and which Allen humorously described as, "Chastisement with the twigs of the wilderness, the growth of the land they coveted." Allen was declared an outlaw, for whose capture the governor of New York, in 1771-72 had offered a reward of £150. He evaded arrest, although he actually rode to Albany, went to the principal hotel, where he was known, called for and drank a punch, and, in the presence of the sheriff and a gathering throng, mounted his horse and safely road away with a parting huzza for the Green Mountains. In 1774 he was one of the principal advocates in a scheme to form a new colony, to stretch from the Green Mountains west, north of the Mohawk river to the shores of Ontario, with Skenesborough (now Whitehall) as the capital, and Philip Skene as the governor. Skene had gone to England to urge the project, when the war of the revolution brought the matter to a close. Allen was one of the first to espouse the cause of the colonists, and in March, 1775, and before the massacre of Westminster, had determined to capture Fort Ticonderoga, which he accomplished twenty-one days after the battles of Lexington and Concord, and without a commission from the Continental Congress, which, in fact,