20 Facts About Ira Allen

Ira Allen was one of the founders of the US state of Vermont and a leader of the Green Mountain Boys during the American colonial period.

Ira Allen was born in Cornwall in the Connecticut Colony, the youngest of eight children born to Joseph and Mary Baker Allen.

In 1771, Allen went to Vermont with his brother Ethan as a surveyor for the Onion River Land Company.

The four Ira Allen brothers established the company in 1772 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 such as by gifting land to men who had committed acts for New Hampshire, and by confiscating loyalist property to finance government.

An alternate explanation is that the Ira 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.

Over two days at Windsor in 1778, Ira Allen drew the seal and Reuben Dean, a local silversmith, made it.

In 1780, Ira Allen presented to the state legislature a memorial for the establishment of the University of Vermont.

Ira Allen contributed money and a fifty-acre site at Burlington.

Ira Allen was called the "Metternich of Vermont" and the "Father of the University of Vermont".

Ira Allen pledged 4,000 British pounds sterling to the University of Vermont, but never donated the money.

Ira Allen was Vermont's first Treasurer and held office from 1778 to 1786, when he was succeeded by Samuel Mattocks.

Ira Allen served as the first Surveyor General of Vermont from 1779 to 1787.

In 1789, Ira Allen married Jerusha Enos, the daughter of Roger Enos and Jerusha Hayden Enos.

Ira Allen owned undeveloped land, including a stake in Barton, Vermont.

Ira Allen went to France in 1795 and sought French army intervention for seizing Canada in order to create an independent republic called United Columbia.

Ira Allen 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.

Ira Allen was acquitted after a lawsuit which lasted eight years, and which saw a first of an Admiralty judge being summoned before King's Bench.

Ira Allen died in Philadelphia, where he had gone to escape imprisonment for debt, caused by his long absence from Vermont.

Ira Allen was originally buried in Philadelphia's Arch Street Presbyterian Cemetery, but his remains were lost when that site was destroyed.