About

Archaeological artifacts have indicated there was human presence on the Homestead grounds as early as 6,000 years ago, but nearby sites have evidence that goes back to at least 10,000 years ago.

By the time of European colonization in the early 1600s, about 10,000 Abenaki lived in Vermont. Abenaki villages were usually set near waterways (such as the Winooski River at this site), and relied on diverse economies of farming, hunting, and fishing. French explorers in the early 1600s noted there were cleared and cultivated corn fields along the Winooski River when they arrived in the area in the 1600s.

When Europeans started trading with Native American populations in North American in the 1500s, Indigenous peoples were exposed to European diseases such as measles and smallpox. These diseases decimated Indigenous populations. Historians estimate between 50-90% of all Indigenous peoples on the Atlantic coast of North American died from European diseases between 1500-1700. Additionally, wars in the 1600s & 1700s over control of the land between Indigenous populations and the French and English colonists further diminished the Indigenous populations. By the time the first permanent European colonial settlements started in northern Vermont the 1770s, Abenaki populations were greatly diminished and their control over this area greatly weakened.

However, Abenaki peoples remained in Vermont through all of this. There are currently four state-recognized Abenaki tribes in the Vermont.

The French became active in the region in the early 1700s. Surviving documents indicate that French crews cut timber in the hardwood forests along the Winooski River, and there was a settlement at Colchester Point (near the modern-day Causeway Park).

The English drove the French from the Champlain Valley in 1759, during the French & Indian War.

When the English won the French & Indian War in 1763, northern Vermont became safe for English colonists to move here for the first time.

In 1763, New Hampshire Royal Governor Benning Wentworth granted the city of Burlington to 64 men and divided into lots.

The Onion River Land Company (a land-speculation organization formed by Ethan Allen and several of his family members) bought the rights to many lots along the Winooski, and sold several just before the Revolution. This site was sold to Felix and Martha Powell in 1774, but the Powells actually moved here the year before, in 1773.

The first English colonial house in Burlington was built for Felix and Martha Powell, only three miles north-west of the current Ethan Allen Homestead. The Powells also owned this site and made “improvements” here (they likely cleared trees and started farming here) 1773-1775.

The Powells, and almost everyone who lived nearby, fled this area in 1775-1776 at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. The connections between the Winooski River and Lake Champlain to the British Army in Canada, made this a very dangerous place to be. While living in southern Vermont, the Powells sold this land to William Marsh in 1777.

William Marsh was initially a supporter of the Green Mountain Boys, but when the Continental Congress refused to recognize Vermont’s independence from New York, Marsh joined the British Army in the American Revolutionary War. In 1778, the Republic of Vermont confiscated this land from Marsh because he was an “enemy of the state”. Vermont auctioned this property (and other loyalists confiscated lands) and used the money to pay for the rebellion.

Ethan Allen purchased the property from the Republic of Vermont in 1778, but it was unoccupied until the Revolutionary War ended in 1783.

Josiah Averill was hired by Ethan Allen to build him a house in 1785. Averill used lumber from Ethan’s brother Ira’s sawmill in Winooski, just five miles upriver for this site. Though the house may look rustic to modern eyes, in 1787 there were only a handful of similar framed houses in the Burlington area.

Records indicate Averill likely lived in the house until 1787, when Ethan Allen, his wife Fanny, and the rest of their household moved in.

After Ethan died in 1789, the farm legally became the property of Ethan’s two sons: two-year-old Hannibal & newborn Ethan Alphonso. Ethan’s widow, Fanny, was barred from inheriting the property since there were male relatives. Further, Fanny was not allowed to control the property on behalf of her sons because she was a woman. Instead, Ethan’s brother Ira Allen was the executor of the estate on behalf of Fanny’s & Ethan’s young sons.

Ira rented the farm to William Ward from 1790-1794.

Much like earlier in her life, when Fanny married Ethan so he could represent her land interests in court, Fanny’s remarried and her new husband fought for control of this property on behalf of Fanny’s & Ethan’s sons. Fanny married Jabez Penniman, and they moved back onto the farm from 1794-1799.

In 1797, a local man named Gideon Ormsby challenged their title to the property. Ormsby knew that the land title between Felix Powell and William Marsh was destroyed, so he used this loophole to argue that the land still belonged to Felix Powell — that the State of Vermont should, therefore, never have confiscated it, and that Ethan Allen, therefore, could not have legally purchased it from Vermont in 1778.

Fanny and Penniman agreed to sell Ormsby a quit claim deed for 700 pounds. In 1799 the Pennimans moved out and Ormsby moved in. However, over the next 15 years the Pennimans sought litigation for their claim to the land on behalf of Fanny’s & Ethan’s surviving sons. They finally won ownership in 1814, and subsequently sold the property.

From 1814 onwards, ownership of the property changed hands many times, but the farm was generally occupied and worked by tenant farmers who rented from the landowners. 

The mid-19th century was the economic heyday of the Ethan Allen Farm. In 1849 a railroad linked Burlington to southern New England and the rest of the nation, opening new markets. Butter and cheese became major Vermont products. The Allen Farm followed this trend, focusing on butter production (potatoes were also a major cash crop). 

During this period, the Allen House was renovated to a Greek Revival style. The orientation of the home was changed, with the southern front door was replaced by a window, the two southern windows were boarded up, a new front door was moved to the western (kitchen) side of the house, and a porch built on to the western side of the house.

The house was heavily renovated again in the 1940s, when an addition virtually doubled its size and made it a duplex.

In the late 1970’s, Vermont historian Ralph Nading Hill investigated a local tradition that the house had been Ethan Allen’s original Burlington home. By this time the Burlington town clerk’s office had burned down twice, destroying any land records documenting its early ownership.

Hill found strong evidence indicating the house had indeed been Allen’s, including that:

• The original land deeds were clear that this land was Ethan Allen’s farm.
• The house’s dimensions matched those outlined by Ethan in a letter to Ira asking that he saw the wood for his future home.
• The surrounding landscape resembled Ethan Allen’s description of his farm.
• Elements of the structure were consistent with houses of the late 18th century.

Hill launched an intensive publicity campaign quickly transformed the house from a humble dwelling into a treasured historical artifact and a symbol of early Vermont. Having drawn attention to the site, Hill was able to obtain funds to help the Winooski Valley Park District buy the property. 

In the late 1970s and early 1980s much of the old Allen Farm was purchased by the Winooski Valley Park District, in partnership with the newly formed Ethan Allen Homestead Trust. In 1986 the Ethan Allen Homestead was added to the National Register for Historic Sites.

Hill worked with Bob Francis, locally known as the Shelburne Museum building restorer, to recreate his conception of the original house. Francis and Hill led a crew to gut the house and remove the 19th- and 20th-century changes, then rebuild around the remaining original elements to arrive at their version of the original structure. This is what we see today.